A/N: I am SO sorry this update took so long. I had to take an unexpected journey into the head of my favourite blond-headed psycho, and no one wants me writing Tris and Tobias while I'm channeling Tate Langdon from American Horror Story, trust me. Especially not for this chapter :)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anais Nin

I stay on the floor behind the couch until the sun goes down and the lights of the Hub blink red in the darkness, thinking about the conversation I shouldn't have overheard in the first place. Surprisingly, the part that bothers me the most is what Zeke and Tobias said about marriage. But what's even more surprising is the way I recoil from the idea.

And I don't really know why because Zeke and Tobias both have a point. Tobias is right in thinking it makes a difference. Even with two people who love each, want each other forever, it makes a difference. But Zeke has a point too. I don't want anyone besides Tobias, ever, and if that's the case why aren't we married? More importantly why does the idea of it scare me so much?

I'm so absorbed in trying to catch the wispy thoughts floating around in the back of my brain, that I flinch at the sound of Tobias' voice.

"What are you doing on the floor?" He asks with confusion, his head whipping back and forth between me and door, clearly trying to work out if I'd somehow snuck past him.

"Working on my files," I say, a hand sweeping out to motion to the manila folders around me that have laid forgotten for hours.

"How long have you been there?" The suspicion is as clear in his voice as it is on his face.

I push myself up, using the couch for leverage. Everything's stiff and sore from sitting so long. "Shauna's pregnant?" I ask, dusting myself off, and surreptitiously admitting exactly how long I've been here.

"Trying to be."

"That's... nice." I try to sound enthusiastic, or at least interested, but I'm neither. I look up to find Tobias watching me, anger replacing confusion as the dominant emotion on his face. I expected it, to be honest. I would be if the tables were turned, but I don't regret what I did.

But I don't want to fight with him either. So I collect my files and head for the bedroom, away from the fight I can feel gathering around us like storm clouds.

"Tris." Tobias doesn't raise his voice, but his tone is as sharp as the crack of a whip and I stop in my tracks. "We need to talk about this."

I close my eyes and draw in a steadying breath, though I refuse to turn around and look at him. If I do, we will fight. "No. Not tonight."

"Yes, tonight. Right now."

"No." I keep my voice flat and even, refusing to match his tone of outrage. "I'm taking a shower and then I'm going to bed. We'll talk about this when you calm down." I don't give him a chance to argue, quickly stepping through to our bedroom, then our bathroom and locking the door behind me.

I stand under the spray of the shower, sorting out the mess of thoughts in my head. All of my fears are about powerlessness, but I don't understand how marriage has anything to do with that. I remember reading in one of my textbooks how years and years ago a woman had to promise to 'obey' her husband. A rueful smile curls up my lips. Even if things were still that way Tobias knows me too well to expect me to obey anyone, wedding vows or not.

Of course that's probably the only kind of marriage he grew up seeing. From everything he's told me Marcus expected absolute submission and obedience from him and Evelyn. But that wasn't a typical Abnegation marriage, or at least I don't think it was, but it's hard to know what happened behind closed doors when no one talked about themselves.

I always assumed my parents marriage was 'typical', but looking back on it now I have no idea. They didn't mistreat each other, but it makes me wonder again - as I did when I found their marriage certificate - how well I really knew them, or how well they knew each other.

I turn the water off, and grab a towel, going through all the motions I normally do before bed automatically, only half aware I'm doing them at all. I imagine my parents laying in bed at night before Caleb and I were born, whispering things to each other about their childhoods; my mother telling my father about Dauntless and being Divergent. I imagine my father telling my mother all about Jeanine and worrying to her as the woman he knew so well rose to power in Erudite.

For all I know those conversation never happened. For all I know they laid in bed every night not speaking, never truly knowing the person who they were laying next to, married to, raising children with. That's not the kind of marriage I would want, not the kind of marriage that would make me happy.

When I step out of the bathroom my eyes land on Tobias, fully dressed, laying on our bed. He glares at the ceiling, silently seething and I know he's not going to let this go. He's like a dog worrying a bone, refusing to give it up when he can still taste the phantom flavor of the meat it once held.

"I hate it when you walk away from me."

"I'm not walking away from you, I'm walking away from a fight," I say as I pull a fresh pair of jeans out of the dresser and grab my boots.

"Really? Then where are you going?"

"To Christina's," I snap. "I need to think and I can't do that with you trying to pick a fight with me."

"And how is that not you walking away from me?"

"God, Tobias, I am not 'walking away from you'! I need time to think. You know, that thing you were doing before you decided to tell me about Evelyn trying to enlist you in her war on Erudite?"

It's a snotty thing to say, but he is being a hypocrite and as much as I don't want to fight with him, it's infuriating.

"We will talk about this, but not tonight, not when I'm not ready to, and not when you're angry."

I walk over to the bed and brush a quick kiss to his cheek. He's tense and cold and doesn't acknowledge or reciprocate it, but I want him to know that no matter what's going on between us I do still love him.

I lay on the metal chair feeling exhausted. I might not have had to go under the fear simulation serum today, but monitoring twenty people as they did left me feeling just as drained. I don't know how Tobias could do this. Maybe because his fears rarely came up in other people's simulations. Fully two-thirds of the people today had to watch their friends and family die, and though it's not exactly my fear, it's been made close enough by war.

I hear the door open behind me and expect to hear Christina's voice asking me what I'm doing, but instead I hear Tobias. "So are you still Seven, or do you need a new numerical nickname?" His voice is strained with affected lightness, and saturated with nervousness, but not angry.

I don't bother turning around to answer him, and a second later he drags the desk chair over to sit next to me. "Your number didn't change," I point out, "just your fears."

"So have your fears changed?"

"I don't know. Maybe I just understand them better now."

He looks at me searchingly for a long moment, and then drops his eyes to stare at the floor. "Last night... was that because I haven't asked you to marry me?" His voice is a mumble by the time he gets to the end of the sentence and his cheeks are brilliant red.

"No... well, yes, but not because of the reasons you think." There is no easy or kind or way to say what I have to say, but I can at least try to make it coherent, to get the worst of it out quick like ripping off a band-aid. "Because... if you asked, I would say no."

He inhales sharply, like he just took a hit. "Why?"

I sit up, swinging my legs over the side to mirror his posture. "I think you think it's enough that I know you love me. That I'm supposed to trust in that and you without really knowing what's going on with you. When you finally told me about the conversation you had with Evelyn you said 'If I had made a decision, I would have said something to you'."

"I would have."

"I know, and that's the problem. You would have made the decision for us. You didn't expect or consider my opinion, and when I didn't agree with you, you shut me out. I don't want that in a relationship, and I definitely don't want it in a marriage."

Tobias reaches out, timidly taking one of my hands in his, running his fingers over it in the same way a blind person would, as if he's trying to memorize it by feel alone. It's an odd action, and it makes me vibrate with nervousness. When my hand starts shaking he encloses it in both of his.

"I was thinking about my parents marriage last night, wondering if they ever talked... anyway, I realized something."

"Hmm?"

"The night before last, when you woke up from your dream...," I lick my lips nervously unsure of how to say what I want to say. "After you woke up from your dream I was... I wasn't afraid," I say significantly. "I wanted you and I wasn't afraid. But I didn't realize until last night why that was."

Tobias looks as if he's stopped breathing. If I couldn't feel his pulse in his hands around mine I would have thought his heart stopped too.

"I'm slight and not very strong, and most boys could overpower me if they wanted - you could -, and you're right sort of that this fear is about powerlessness, but what makes me unafraid is trusting the person I'm with. Even though what we talked about earlier that night had nothing to do with intimacy it was intimate."

"I don't-"

"I don't want to feel like I'm having sex with a stranger, someone I can't trust!" We both flinch at the sound of my voice, both surprised by my sudden vehemance. "I don't know how my parents could have had a family together, never knowing anything about each other. When you talk to me, when you tell me things that you don't have to, when it's a give-and-take between us it makes me feel closer to you, like you're not a stranger, and I can trust you because you're trusting me when you talk to me."

I huff into silence again, feeling frustrated. It makes so much more sense in my head, and I know it's right - I can feel it's right -, but I can't put it into words properly and it's not making this easier.

"You said before that your fears might have changed. Could they have changed because you understand them better?"

I stare at him in confusion for a moment before I answer. "I don't... I don't really know what you mean."

"Caleb."

I'm so thrown by his non sequitur that all I can answer with is a dumb, "huh?"

"Caleb, when I talked to him yesterday. I told him you died, and you know what he said? He was glad, because then you'd never see me turn into Marcus. I'd never hurt you the way he hurt me and Evelyn."

Even though the stories about Marcus are true it disgusts me that Caleb would think Tobias could be anything like the man he's forced to call his father.

"We were raised Abnegation, raised to understand the power and meaning of touching someone," he says, flipping my hand over in his and tracing the lines on my palm. "All these months I've been wanting to show you how much I love you. I respect that you have this fear, but-"

"I know you do," I say quickly, trying to reassure him.

"But," he presses on, ignoring me, "all I could think about after you left last night was how I already have hit you, nearly killed you in case you have forgotten. I just... it makes me wonder if somewhere in the back of your brain you think I will hurt you like that again if you make yourself physically vulnerable with me, if that's why you don't trust me."

The words sound like they're wrenched out from deep inside of him, and I understand why. It feels like they're mangling my heart into grotesque shapes like they're probably doing to him. I want to tell him that I trust him, but it would just be words because clearly my trust isn't absolute.

"You're not your father. You were under a simulation. There's a difference," I tell him sternly, but I know as soon as the words are out of my mouth they don't make him feel better. None of the times people told me I did what I had to do to survive when I killed Will made me feel any better.

But I also know they wouldn't affect them if he didn't already have this fear, if he didn't believe it himself the same way Peter's words affected me so deeply when he molested me because I was so aware of my inadequacies.

In all the time we've been talking he hasn't looked at me, and even now, as I gently pull my hand from his, he doesn't raise his eyes to mine. I smooth my hands up his arms, to his shoulders and lean forward, close enough to whisper "talk to me," in his ear.

We're so close that I can feel his breath, short and shallow against my shoulder, fearful. "Tell me what you're afraid of."

"You know what I'm afraid of."

"Tell me. No serums or simulations, just talk to me."

He swallows thickly and out of the corner of my eye I can see his adam's apple bob up and down. "Right now I'm afraid of you leaving me." He reaches out, placing his hands on my hips. Gentle, but still holding me in place like he's worried I'll leave.

"I'm not going anywhere," I say as I slide my hand across his shoulder to blindly trace the shape of the raven that's a permanent part of him now, just like me.

His arms wrap around my waist and he pulls me onto his lap in one fluid motion, pressing his lips to the raven that represents him, right next to my heart. "Now, but someday you might. During the war I thought I was just scared of you dying, but... my fear is much bigger than that."

He traces his nose across the curve of my collarbone, placing a kiss at the hollow of my throat. This isn't the time for heavy breaths and touching and kissing, but I can't stop the ache between my thighs or the need I feel for him. Not when we're close like this.

"And it's not a fear I can ignore," he says against my neck and I can't help leaning into his touch. "Sometimes I can barely control it, and all it does is make me hold on tighter. It makes me act like Marcus and I hate it. I don't want to control you like he did me, I just want to keep you and I don't know how else to do it."

"You're not your father, Tobias."

He pulls away, looking at me for the first time. I have seen his eyes burn with anger and smoulder with want. I have seen his eyes cold and calculating. I have seen his eyes silently pleading with me. But I've never seen them vulnerable and insecure and needy like they are now.

"Aren't I?"

I frame his face in my hands, forcing him to keep his eyes on me, to listen to me. "We're defined by the choices we make. You could have stayed in Abnegation, followed in Marcus' footsteps. But you didn't, you chose Dauntless. You choose to be different, everyday you choose to be different from him. Even now, this second, you're making choices that make you different from him. You're not your father, Tobias."

I can't will him to believe me, but I can try and show him. I scoot back an inch in his lap and push my hand up his shirt, resting it directly over his heart. "Even though you were under a simulation, truly believed I was an enemy who would kill you given the chance, you kept trying to disarm me." I press my hand firmly against his chest. "Marcus isn't here, where it matters most. Marcus never would have done what you did in the Control Room that night."

I see something shift behind his eyes, something I can't name or define, but it's there, looking back at me. I close the distance between us slowly, fitting my lips to his. For some reason it reminds me of our first kiss, at the bottom of the Chasm.

But this kiss is nothing like that one. That kiss was timid and uncertain, both of us feeling our way into something new. Now we have each other mapped and known. His arms hold me tight against him, the callouses on his hands pressing into the soft flesh of my back. It's comforting, the press and pressure of his body around mine. It makes me feel safe, protected and loved.

Zeke was right, there is never going to be a 'right time'. People have sex for all kinds of different reasons and sometimes they're the wrong ones and sometimes they're the right ones, and maybe we're always going to carry around the weight of loss, the guilt of not doing more, but if we let that keep us from living we're already mostly dead.

And right now, like the other night in our bed, I'm unafraid. And I want Tobias. I want to feel the slip and slide of his chest against mine. I want to feel his heart race with mine. I want to feel his breath humid and warm seeping into my hair. I want to feel alive.

I pull away, resting my forehead against his. "We can't do this here," I pant out.

He nods weakly and lifts me off his lap to stand on shaky legs. His hand in mine is sweat slick, but firm. He peeks out the door into the hallway that leads to the dormitories, a muttered expletive slipping out under his breath. We creep out the doorway, careful not to draw Christina's attention from where she is halfway down the hall, talking with one of the trainees.

"Where are we going?" I ask once we're out of earshot. "Our apartment is the other way."

"Utility elevator; if we have to walk through the Pit we'll never get home," he says as he leads me into a large hallway I've never been down before, boxes stacked up against the walls, and I can't stop a little hysterical giggle bubbling up my throat as the eagerness in his voice and the quickness of his steps.

For once luck is on our side and we don't meet anyone on the way to our apartment. Despite that, sometime in our walk I have picked up a nervousness that's making my stomach knot. It's not fear though, not like I've know it. This is like the nervousness I felt on Choosing Day, jumping off the top of a building and into the unknown. Scary, yes, but exhilarating too because even if I don't know what I'm jumping into, I'm pretty sure I'll land someplace safe, someplace better.

The plain white walls of our apartment flame red in the sunset, and once I've got the lock firmly in place I wrap my arms around Tobias' neck and pull him down for a kiss. I let out a squeak of surprise when he lifts me up, his arms hooking around my legs to hold me up as he stumbles us towards the bedroom.

We land on the bed in a graceless heap, Tobias more or less falling on top of me. Something sharp and bony of his - elbow or knee, I'm not sure - jabs into my side, but I don't care because a second later his leg is between mine, putting pressure where it makes me forget everything else.

Our hands tear at each other's close. He loses his shirt, and mine follows not long after. I'm so distracted by the feel of his lips against my neck that his belt is an almost insurmountable obstacle, and I have to push him off with my shoulder a little to clear my brain.

He kicks out of his jeans, but when my fingers start pushing his boxers down it seems to sober him and he grabs my wrist with his hand, staying me. "Are you sure?" He hovers over me, looking earnest and nervous, and I pull my hand from his grip, tracing the curve of his cheek.

The air around us shifts from charged and electric to heavy, significant, full of meaning, just like what we're about to do because there's still a part of us that will always be Abnegation. But without the distraction of undressing each other I feel nervousness roll in my stomach again. Before it can ruin everything I pull Tobias' lips to mine. "I want you, Tobias. Make love to me," I mumble against him.

He brushes his lips against mine before starting a trail of kisses that feels reverential, worshipful, and it makes me remember what he said about how he's been wanting to show me how much he loves me for months. His hands tremble as they undo the button and zipper holding my jeans together.

When he gets them peeled off, taking my panties along with them, he sits backs on his heels and just looks at me, hands framing my hips and holding me still. His eyes feel just like his lips did, but I have to fight the urge to squirm under his gaze, to cover myself up. It's not the first time he's seen me naked, but it's the first time I've looked at him, looking at me.

"Do you still want to?" My voice sounds an inch tall and it's filled with doubts that I refuse to acknowledge.

He stretches himself over me, holding me in his gaze until he's resting over me, cradled between my legs. I realize with a shock that he's naked too, and I honestly can't remember when that happened.

A small smile curves up his lips. "You're perfect," he says as he kisses my cheek. "And beautiful," he says as he kisses the other. It's so sappy and cliche I can't help but smile. "And I want you," he says as he kisses my lips. "Are you ready?"

I wrap my arms around his shoulders and nod into his neck. His hand slips between us to the slick bare skin between my legs, and I can't stop my hips back up into his touch. He slicks himself up with my wetness, and I feel him position himself against my entrance.

"Tell me if you need me to stop."

"Okay." Instinctively my muscles lock down, anticipating the pain.

"Breathe, Tris."

I let out a shaky breath and he pushes inside of me. He moves slowly, but my body still aches in protest at the intrusion. I should be used to pain by now; after initiation, after getting shot. And it's not the worst pain I've ever felt, but my body revolts at having to willingly submit to pain when it's been hard-wired to avoid it since birth.

A few tears leak out the sides of my eyes, falling into my hair, tickling my ears at a sharp pinching pain deep inside of me. But Tobias doesn't stop moving, and I don't try to stop him; I know he's holding back for me already. I bury my face in his neck, gripping onto his shoulders and anchoring myself to him.

My body feels like it's made of something more solid than soft flesh as it stretches around him, and he feels so much bigger than does in my hands or my mouth. When he finally stills, breathing heavy and ragged against my shoulder, all I feel is a burning ache.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, feeling the wetness on my cheeks.

I want to tell him it's stupid. It was going to hurt either way, and we both knew it, so he shouldn't apologize for something that's normal and expected and out of our control. I want to tell him that he's worth the pain. But all that comes out is, "I know." I kiss the bright red crescents my nails dug into his shoulders, suddenly wanting to apologize to him too.

He keeps himself level, waiting for a signal from me that it's okay to move. The idea isn't as appealing as it was before he was inside of me, but his hips twitch against me and I know he's dying to move, and though I'll never admit it to him, I just want this to be over with, so I nudge him into action.

He pulls out and rocks back into me, settling into a slow rhythm. I focus on his breaths, counting each one, ignoring the pain until it dulls, changes from something sharp that makes me wince, to something that's mostly just an uncomfortable ache.

I silently scold myself when my eyes traitorously flick to the glow of the digital clock on our dresser. To make sure it doesn't happen again I kiss every part of Tobias I can reach; his cheek, his neck, his shoulders. I nibble on his ear, and it's enough to make his hips stutter harshly against mine.

He shifts his weight to one arm, and slides a hand between us to stroke at me. It helps a little, but there's still an edge of pain and I know, even with his fingers teasing me just the way I like, it's not going to be enough.

"Are you close?" He grits out, pressing insistently against my clit.

"I can't; it still hurts."

"Please, Tris," he begs, "I want to feel you come, and I can't-"

I cut him off with a kiss and reach between us, removing his hand. "It's okay," I urge him, "just let go."

The words are barely out of my mouth when his body shudders over mine. My name tears past his lips, guttural and vicious, and I feel him spill inside of me.

When he slumps on top of me I can feel his heart racing through the cage of his ribs, beating out a tattoo on my chest. I keep an arm around his shoulders, and push the other up into his hair, pecking a chaste kiss to his cheek.

"I love you," he pants against my skin and then rolls off, leaving me feeling raw.

"I love you too."

"You didn't-"

"It's okay. Next time."

His fingers slide down my side, but I grab his arm and stop him. "Don't. It hurts."

He scrubs at his face in irritation, but I know it's not directed at me, it's directed at himself. He said before that he didn't want to be one of those guys who cared only about his own pleasure, and the fact that he couldn't please me doesn't sit well with his Abnegation instincts.

I flip over onto my stomach and pry one of his hands away from his face. "Hey, you get to call me Six now," I say, trying to cheer him up.

His expression softens, and he puts an arm around me, settling me against his chest. "No, not yet. Do you want to know what I found out at Erudite yesterday?" He asks as his fingers trace shapes on my back.

"Yeah, I do," I say, because intimacy isn't always about sex.

A/N Part 2: So... I'm sure there are going to be some people out there who are pretty unhappy with me that I didn't write this as Tris & Tobias having the Best Sex Ever. I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. I love a lot of fics that have two virgins having sex in a way that usually takes people years to figure out, but that's not what I wanted to write with this from the outset. Will they have toe-curling, bed-shaking, scream-out-loud-it's-so-good sex? Yes. But not this time. On the upside (maybe, some of you might not think so) I'm not anywhere near done with this. There will be plenty more FourTris-y goodness in the future.

Oh... and there might be a Valentine's surprise for you depending on how many chapters I get done between then and now :)