Author's Note: 11 months later an unexpected epilogue appears. What can I say? I like surprising you guys, and I wanted to do something special to celebrate TPD surpassing 400,000 views.

Many of you have asked (and begged) for an epilogue or continuation of this story since Allegiant came out, and though I've played around with a few ideas over the months nothing really worked, and, much to my horror and frustration, I found I could not write from Tris' POV since I read it until now (and a special thank you to jandjsalmon for pre-reading this to make sure I got that back). While I did use some ideas from Allegiant for this, rest assured, all your favourite characters are still alive :)

To those of you (and again, there were many) who have been using this as an alternative to Allegiant, and recommending others do the same, I don't even know what to say other than I'm incredibly flattered. Thank you all so much for the enthusiastic embracing of this fic, from the day I started it, to the day I finished it, and in the months between then and now. I love you all ~ LolaBleu

Epilogue:

Two Years Later

The first thing I'm aware of is the hot, dry air blowing in through the open window. It smells like dust and smoke. I try to let sleep reclaim me, but the soft click of the door opening and closing and the whisper of footsteps across the floor pull me more fully into wakefulness. The old bed springs groan as Tobias sits down on the edge, leans over and quietly says, "Tris, wake up," in deference to the early hour.

His lips are feather light against my skin, and somehow, sleepily, I loop an arm around his neck and pull him closer. "Give me a reason to," I breathe out.

I feel more than hear his answering chuckle. "That sounds a lot like a reason to stay in bed."

"It is."

"Later," he promises, tracing his fingers along my spine in a way that makes me shiver.

The bed dips again and this time there's a cold, wet dog nose pressing insistently between us, and the solid thump thump thump of a tail smacking against the wall the bed is pressed up against.

"Morning, Dany," I yawn as Tobias pulls away, laughing for real this time. She rests her head on my chest, gazing up at me with her heterochromatic eyes - one blue, the other a bright topazy brown. Her tongue flicks out to lick at whatever part of me she can reach. She only stops when her affectionate assault finishes the job of waking me up.

I sit up and scratch behind her ears with one hand and try to rub the haze out of my eyes with the other. "Did your boyfriend take you for a walk already?" I ask her like she can answer.

"Yeah," Tobias answers absently, rifling through his duffle bag for something or other. "That brush fire is getting closer to town." We were ten miles outside of Austin when we saw the flames lighting up the night sky. It had been beautiful and terrifying and unstoppable, laying waste to everything in it's path, whipped by harsh winds and nothing mere human hands could quell.

The floor is gritty against my bare feet when I swing them off the bed, and I curl my toes against the dirtiness of it instinctively. It's not the worst place Tobias and I have stayed in, but the cheap boarding house doesn't look any better by sunlight than it did by lamplight when we practically fell into bed, exhausted, last night. The paint on on the walls has faded and chipped and peeled into nonexistence. The bed is lumpy and old and the sheets are scratchy, but at least it has it's own bathroom.

The clothes I fell asleep in - a thin camisole and a pair of panties - stick to me unpleasantly with sweat when I stand and stretch. Texas, apparently, doesn't get any cooler when the sun goes down.

"That's mine," Tobias says when I snake one of the well-worn black t-shirts out of his bag.

"I know," I reply with a smirk and slip into the bathroom.

I can't helping breathing a sigh of relief when I close the door and flick on the light and there isn't a single cockroach in sight. Last spring, on our way to Denver - the farthest west you can go -, we got stranded by car troubles in some no-name town in Kansas and the only room we could find was in a place I'm still convinced did double duty as a 'house of ill repute'. But that didn't bother me nearly as much as the sea of cockroaches that scattered when I turned on the bathroom light.

This time the worst I have to contend with is low pressure and water that doesn't get any warmer than tepid. It's nothing like the luxurious bathroom we used to have in our apartment in the Pire, but it temporarily cools my flushed, sweaty body, so I'll take it.

Tobias is just making sure we haven't accidentally left anything behind when I step out of the bathroom, his shirt hanging almost to the hem the jeans I cut into shorts when the gaps at the knees got too big. Before I transferred to Dauntless I would never have worn anything that left most of my thighs exposed, but I don't even think about it now.

I slip on my sneakers, Tobias grabs our bags, and Dany follows us out as we make our way downstairs to have breakfast.

xxxx

The fronds of the palm trees crash against each other ominously in the strong breeze, but under the large patio attached to the outdoor kitchen it's not unpleasant. The sun has barely cleared the horizon, so it hasn't gotten a chance to reach triple digit temperatures yet. The food is simple: eggs over easy, an orange, and a square of corn bread with a sliver of butter melting across the top for each of us.

Tobias eats in fits and starts; shoveling food into his mouth a few bites at a time and then seemingly forgetting it as he stares off into space for a minute, and then starting the process all over again.

"Nervous?" I question, peeling the rind off my orange and feeding Dany a wedge. Once she realizes I'm the person most likely to slip her table scraps this morning I have her undivided attention, at least.

Tobias just shrugs and bursts the yolk on his egg.

I reach out and gently twist his wedding ring around his finger, reminding him. He sighs and lets his other hand drop onto the table where he had been reaching for the pepper shaker.

"I haven't seen him for two years, and things are just… different now," he huffs. "They've got a kid now; a family, a life that I don't know how to relate to."

I choose to ignore his comment about family because we have one - it might just be me, him, and the dog, but we have one - and focus on everything else.

"He's still Zeke, Tobias. He's still probably going to tackle you, and tell bad jokes, and get you drunk, family or not. Besides, he wants us to come. He wants to see you as much as you want to see him."

His lips curl up in a half-hearted, uncertain smile and he squeezes my hand briefly before turning back to his breakfast. I let the subject drop.

We're three hours into our drive when I get my first glimpse of the Gulf of Mexico. I've seen the Atlantic before, stormy and slate colored and beating against the massive sea walls that protect the metropolitan sprawl of the east coast. This is nothing like that. There's a wide strip of fine, sugary looking sand and the water curling and crashing in elegant waves is crystalline blue. It's not until a mile or two out that it fades to the same deep blue as Tobias' eyes.

I know somewhere out there, hidden under leagues of water are cities that were swallowed up by the rising sea decades - almost a century -, ago. I don't know the names of the cities, if they were small or large, if the water crept up, each lap bringing it just a little bit closer, or if it was all one great flood like in the Bible stories I read as a child. I don't know if there are bodies buried in it's depths, or just buildings.

I lose sight of it briefly, the highway cutting away from the coast as we pass a much abused sign declaring that we're entering Louisiana. It seems to silly to me, drawing lines across the land. In the two years since we left Chicago and started bouncing across the country from city to city and state to state I haven't met anyone so vastly different from us that there needed to be arbitrary boundaries between us.

Maybe before, when the United States was founded, when there was personal and political gain to be had, they mattered. But after too many years of genetic experiments, too many years of rebellions or revolutions depending on which side you were on, they matter less.

The frightening thing though, I suppose, is that it could all happen again. Until that day when the convoy rolled up to the Pire we knew nothing of the world around us, protected by a meager fence and our own ignorance. We didn't know that the Bureau of Genetic Welfare had tinkered with our DNA, didn't know they penned us into cities to try and fix the damage they caused when they tried to perfect our species.

Disgust and anger were the only things most of us felt when we learned the Bureau had provided Jeanine with the simulation serum that left so many of our friends and loved one dead. But it quickly, if briefly, kindled into rage and hate when we were told that, as Tobias and I surmised, there was a plan to erase our memories in a desperate attempt to 'reset' their experiment and try again.

But the Bureau was fighting it's own war, both from within and without. It was the overwhelming force of their failure to provide positive results from any of their test cities - because we weren't the only ones, just the only ones who used the Faction system - to the Department of Homeland Security which funded them, and consistent attacks by rebel forces that was their final undoing.

The day that George and Amar and a coterie of higher ranking government officials than the ones who had played us as unwitting pawns opened the fence, we got our freedom.

Some of us got more that day. Tori got her brother back. Tobias got his friend. I got the truth about my mother. None of it was enough to keep Tobias and I in Chicago.

We could have stayed, had a place in shaping what our city would be now that we knew the truth, but for the first time we took a chance on ourselves, a real one. Not one motivated by blood or faction or survival. It was more than that too. It was leaving a place where we'd been deceived by friends, by family, by people we never even knew. It was a place of pain and loss and confusion, and we needed to get away from that; we needed to be selfish for a little while.

So, we left. A week after we learned the truth we packed our clothes, a few cherished personal possessions, and drove out the gate with no plan or destination, just an old, tattered map, a full tank of gas, and each other. It was exciting and terrifying in equal measure, and one of the happiest moments we've ever shared. We drove east until the sun went down behind us, my body pressed up against Tobias' side on the bench seat of the truck, one of his arms around my shoulders.

Now, there's a dog between us. She perks up as Tobias slows down, the Gulf coming into view again.

"Feel like going for a swim?"

"Might as well," I say, smiling.

It takes us a while to find a road that will bring us to the ocean, and when we do it's an unpaved, winding thing that twists through hip-high sea grass, serpentine. But the reward is that we have a long crescent shaped beach all to ourselves. We don't drive out onto it, wary of being stuck in the sand and miles from help. The dog bounds out as soon as we open the door, as eager to stretch her legs as we are, ours.

As comfortable as I am wearing shorts, I'm not entirely okay with stipping down to my bare skin no matter how alone we seem to be. I'm even a little hesitant being only in my underclothes, but Tobias doesn't give me a chance to dwell on it, scooping me up and swinging me over his shoulder in a fireman's carry.

I shriek and he laughs and before I know it he's knee-deep in salt water and setting me down. I'd scold him, but he cuts off any protest with his lips on mine. His arms are still wrapped tightly around me, and he walks us backwards, further into the surf. Despite the heat of the day, the cool of the water makes goosebumps erupt across my skin.

For a long time we cling to each other, the sound of wind and waves in our ears, breathing in the scent of salt water and seaweed and warm skin, kissing. In the three years since I met him we've kissed in a hundred different ways, a thousand different times, but each kiss is always special, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of the feel of Tobias' lips on mine.

The thought that I could lose him, lose the memories that make us, us is just as horrifying now as it was the day Tobias asked me to marry him because there are still some powerful people in this dysfunctional, ineffective government that think the Bureau of Genetic Welfare was on the right track, no matter the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

By late afternoon we turn away from the coast and head inland, towards Zeke and Shauna's house. Louisiana, we soon discover, is hot and wet and green. They're twenty miles from the ocean, but for a while as we drive we catch sight of side roads that disappear into water, the tall tops of buildings standing sentinel in the middle of lakes and ponds, all a testament to the former inhabitants.

But the longer we drive the more the water seems like a wild thing tamed, as much as it can be here, in the bayou. We see more cars and trucks on the road, more homes painted and maintained by it's sides. Like nearly every other city we've been in - large or small - Opelousas, Louisiana seems to outsize it's population, but I guess decades of war will have that effect.

Unfortunately the combination of Zeke's convoluted directions and a few poorly marked streets means that Tobias and I spend nearly forty-five minutes zig-zagging through the outskirts of town before we finally light upon the right road. But what really lets us know that we've reached our destination is the massive bowl planted among flowering plants at the end of the long drive. It's made of copper greened with time, but the size and shape is identical to the bowls that held coals and stones and glass on Choosing Day, though this one holds water and more plants, and, incongruously, a rubber duck. I can't help laughing when I catch sight of it.

There's a long brick path leading up to a house that we can only see parts of through the canopy of live oaks dripping with spanish moss.

"Are you ready?" I ask Tobias, a little worried he's going to chew a hole in his lip what with the way he keeps gnawing on it.

He takes a deep breath, and says, "Yeah," resolutely.

We're barely out of the truck before a booming voice calls out, "I thought you guys got lost!"

And that's all it takes for the tension to leave Tobias' shoulders. "We did," he calls back. "Your directions suck!"

"Oh, fuck you," Zeke chortles, jogging down the path and into view. He doesn't give Tobias a chance to reply before wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug. There's a lot of masculine back-slapping, but under that I can tell they're teetering between laughter and tears, the weight of two years absence making both of them unsteady.

He grabs Tobias' face, twisting it this way and that, inspecting him for any signs of change the way an older brother would a younger. "Look at you, all tan and happy," he teases before turning to me. "You're doing a good job with this one," he says approvingly, and releases Tobias to hug me instead.

"It's in my job description," I eek out, thoroughly eclipsed by Zeke's big, broad chest and having the air squeezed out of me by his strong arms.

Thankfully Dany starts nosing at his legs and diverts his attention. "You got a dog?" he scoffs, leaning down to pet her. "That's weak man. I got a kid," he says proudly.

"What did you do? Steal one?"

"No, but it did involve some Crisco, a hair scrunchie, and me on all fours, barking like a dog. Oh and a basket of apology muffins to the neighbors because Shauna's a screamer," he adds as an afterthought.

"I am not, and you are a dog," Shauna declares, rolling into view.

Zeke grins like it's the best compliment ever.

I sigh contentedly at the feel of Tobias sweeping my hair over one shoulder. It's grown long again and when he wants to kiss my neck he has to move it out of the way. His hands sneak under the hem of my shirt, framing my hips. He's close enough that I can feel his body heat resonating against my back, but not so close that I'm trapped against the railing of the wide veranda.

"What do you think?" I murmur.

"We've been here an hour, I don't think anything, yet."

Zeke said we could stay here as long as we wanted, days or weeks or months are fine by him, though we haven't committed to anything one way or another.

"Do you like it better than Denver?" I press.

He makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, but I know him. Zeke's invitation might have been providential, but even if it hadn't come when it did we would have left Denver for someplace warmer, someplace winter isn't cold and desolate and lifeless sooner rather than later.

But this place… I don't know what I was expecting Zeke and Shauna's home to look like. Maybe something more Dauntless, all strong steel and cold glass, but my first impression was that we took a wrong turning somewhere and ended up in Amity. There's green everywhere. In the lush grass that tickled between my toes when I kicked off my shoes. In the dense, jungle-like growth of the bayou that creeps up to the edge of the property where Zeke hasn't fought it back with sharp blades. It's in the air too, and I tip forward on my toes, deeply breathe in the scent of old oak and rich earth and sultry flowers.

"I like it here," I say, decided.

Tobias doesn't say anything, but I feel his lips turn up in a smile against my skin.

It could be good here, for a while; certainly better than aimless wandering we've been doing has been at times. And, for however long we decide to stay, we have our own little cottage, connected to Zeke and Shauna's house by a breezeway, but separate enough that we won't be imposing on them; neither constantly under foot, nor tripping over a toddler.

Like the main house it's made of ancient wood. Cedar or cypress, Zeke isn't sure, just that it's an extinct species that resists rot, and has done for the nearly three hundred years these buildings have been standing. The inside walls are covered with a soft, crackling daub made of a mud and spanish moss that's turned white with time. There's a kitchenette, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It's not much, but it's more than we need, and we've lived in less. Here, at least, I feel like I can breathe.

I can't tell how close their nearest neighbors are because all I hear are the sounds of frogs and water birds, and all I see from the veranda at the back of the cottage are the groves of trees that insulate us from the outside world. It's quiet and peaceful, a wonder and a treasure, but what makes it special is how it feels. They say home is the place that when you have to go there, they have to take you in. And that's what it feels like: home. A port in the storm. Safety. Family. It's only now that I realize how much I've missed that.

"Dinner will be ready soon," Tobias says, cutting across my thoughts. "Zeke is cooking. That should be… interesting."

"He can't be any worse than you," I tease.

"I can cook just fine," he says haughtily.

"You're not bad when you actually use pots and pans, but you ruined the coffee pot trying to cook rice in it. For reasons I still can't figure out."

"Seemed like an ideal solution. You have to cook it for a long time and-," he starts explaining, but cuts off abruptly when he catches sight of my smirk. "Why did I marry you, again?"

"That's not a nice thing to say to me."

"I'm not a nice person, remember?"

"Neither am I. That's why you married me. And because I love you," I add with a kiss to his cheek to soothe away the little bruise to his ego.

A moment later we hear Zeke hollering for us and walk through the guest out and out into the backyard, Dany at our heels. Zeke is standing over a large steel drum that's been fashioned into a barbecue, spatula in one hand, baby daughter held in the other. She's only a year old, barely started walking and talking, and she watches us with wide, hazel eyes as we approach.

"This is Lynnette. The Little Lion," he beams. She starts fussing in his arms, leaning away and making grabby hands for the dog when she catches sight of it. Obligingly, her father sets her down on her feet, but she pitches forward, falling onto her hands. It doesn't seem to phase her. She starts pushing herself back up immediately, even with Dany sniffing at her, curious or cautious I'm not sure which.

I hold my breath as Lynnette uses the dog to hoist herself up, but all Dany does is stand there patiently, her tail swinging back and forth in a lazy metronome. Once she's upright Lynnette seems fascinated by Dany's short, sleek gray coat, and when it's obvious that everything is going to be okay I excuse myself to help Shauna, wherever she is. Besides, Tobias and Zeke need time together, just them.

I cross the lawn and walk up the short brick ramp into the kitchen to find her at a heavy wooden table, polished smooth by innumerable years of use. "Can I help with anything?"

"Sure," she says, though her eyes are uncertain. She pushes a bowl of boiled potatoes towards me and a small paring knife. "Cut those into cubes for the salad."

We work in silence, me cubing the potatoes, and her slicing a bunch of small tomatoes into wedges. Shauna has never been warm and inviting, at least towards me, but I never had the chance to get to know her either, and of course once she found out I was Divergent… well.

But we're guests here, so I make an effort. "Your house is really nice," I say awkwardly.

"Thank you," is her answer. It's not terse. It's not anything. It's just an answer.

"Did you and Zeke come here from Chicago, or did you travel for a while first?"

"Right from Chicago. I wanted to see the ocean, so we drove south until we hit water, basically. And we both liked it here, and I then found out I was pregnant so we just stayed." Once she finishes with the tomatoes she reaches for a cucumber, slicing it into thin slivers before adding it to the same bowl. "You and Four have traveled a lot though?" she eventually asks.

"Yeah."

"Anywhere in particular?"

I guess I'm not the only one trying to be polite. "Not really. Usually we drive until we find some place we like, find jobs doing whatever and save up some money before we move on to the next place."

"And that makes you happy?"

"It doesn't make me sad," I say, more annoyed than I mean to. "It's nice, having the freedom to go where we want, when we want," I add, my voice softer. "We're enjoying that."

"Do you think you'll ever go back?"

"Eventually," I shrug. "What about you? Do you think you'll ever go back?"

She looks out the window, contemplatively watching Zeke and Lynnette and Tobias on the other side of the glass. "If you asked Zeke, he'd say no in a heartbeat. But I don't know if that's the truth. He's happy here - we all are -, but he's lonely too. It's hard for him to be away from Uriah and his mother, from all our friends. He needs people."

"He's always seemed that way to me."

"It's not a fault or a flaw," she amends sharply, as if I was suggesting otherwise. "He's just a people person, and for him to be away from the people he loves, it's hard. And making them laugh, making them happy, is how he shows he cares. He can't do that from a thousand miles away."

"They don't visit?" I ask timidly. I know Uriah hasn't because we keep in touch, but I don't know about anyone else.

"My mom and brother do. They were here for a few weeks this summer, and Zeke's mother came for a while after the baby was born. But it's not the same, you know?"

I nod because I do. And today I'm feeling it more acutely than I have in a long time.

"What's the deal with the dog?" Shauna asks, momentarily diverting me from my thoughts.

"Oh, um, we were in Pittsburgh about a year ago, and where we were staying, we used to go up this alley to make the walk quicker," I says, my hands cutting lines in the air like I'm drawing the scene. "And we heard whimpering coming from a dumpster. Someone had thrown her in there, - thrown her away -, beaten, starved, and terrified. She was skin and bones, and covered in blood and dirt.

Tobias… I've never seen him that angry. He climbed in and scooped her up and carried her back to our apartment. We had no idea what we were doing, but we cleaned her up, fed her bites of our dinner just to get some food in her…," I trail off, swept away by the memory of Tobias crouching over her in our bathtub, washing her with gentle fingers.

The whole time he worked he kept whispering to her she was safe, that we weren't going to hurt her, that everything was going to be okay, like a mantra. She was so weak and scared he carried her out and made a nest of blankets and towels for her next to our bed and we sat on the floor with her, offering her tiny bites of our chicken and potatoes. She was too wary to take them from our fingers, but would tentatively, gratefully, lick them up if we set them down by her mouth.

Tobias slept on the side of the bed nearest her, his hand gently resting on her, not that either of us got much sleep. We'd offer her water or milk nearly every hour, offer her more chicken if she seemed interested, and always if we had to check her wounds. But a lot of times we'd just check her to make sure she was still breathing.

"Anyway," I say, coming back to myself. "We've had her ever since. Getting her body healthy again was easy, well, easier. For months if she heard loud noises she'd cower and shake. She didn't know how to play, and for a long time if we tried to get her to she'd get scared again."

"Makes sense," is all Shauna says, and I don't know if she's talking about the dog or Tobias.

xxxx

Dinner is a lively affair, outside, under the stars with moths as big as butterflies swooping around us. Of course it has just as much to do with Zeke cracking jokes and spiking our lemonade with something out of brown bottle that makes me feel warm and tingly.

"So, hurricanes suck," he announces after trying to top off my glass with more alcohol, only to be thwarted by a sharp smack to his wrist. "They used to give them names so you'd never forget them; called them 'she' so you'd never forget how cruel a woman can be."

"Why are you looking at me?" I demand.

"No reason," he shrugs, the picture of innocence, at least until a smile cracks across his face and he starts howling with laughter. I smack Tobias too when he joins in. "No, but they really do," he says, composing himself. "Everything floods, and your roof goes flying off and you've got to worry about, I dunno, alligators swimming into fucking your house, and it just blows. But I figure you're going to have natural disasters anywhere, so you pick your poison."

Tobias nods in agreement, tearing into a portion of spareribs. "Yeah, tornado's are pretty shitty too. I don't even remember where we were-"

"Indiana?" I offer.

"Yeah, maybe. But anyway, all of the sudden these sirens went off and people just started running. Tris and I had no idea what was going on. I almost punched the guy who was trying to push us into the storm shelter, but then you could hear it coming," he shudders. "I'll never forget that, the sound it made. It was terrifying."

The conversation ricochets around to random topics for a while after that. When we finish eating Lynnette - or 'Lynnie' as Zeke and Shauna call her -, climbs down from her mother's lap and chases Dany around the yard. Every time she falls Dany stops trotting along and goes back to check on her, nosing her worriedly until she stands again and the game starts over. When Lynnie gets tired of that she boldly climbs up into Tobias' lap, frames his cheeks with both of her little hands and purses her lips like she's trying to figure him out.

By the time Tobias and Zeke and Shauna start reminiscing about their initiation Tobias has an arm curled around her protectively and is lulling her to sleep with the gentle bounce of his leg. I draw my knees up to my chest, watching them relive memories of a history I have no part of. It makes me think about my own initiation. It makes me think about Will and Al, Lynn and Marlene.

Those are dangerous thoughts though. We should remember the dead, and honor them, keep them alive by telling their stories, even, but living in the past robs you of life. It's a lesson I had to learn the hard way. It's one Uriah hasn't learned yet. I know the reason he hasn't come to visit is because he won't leave Chicago. Not for his brother, not for anything, because it's the place he loved Marlene. It's the last link he has to her and he's holding on tight. If something had happened to Tobias I probably would have done the same. I would have made myself useful, sure, but it wouldn't really have been living, just extended mourning, staying there for a ghost no matter what else I accomplished.

And sitting here, watching Tobias among his friends makes me miss Uriah and Christina. I miss my friends because even though Tobias and I have been friendly with people we've met over the last few years, we haven't made any friends like that since we left Chicago. And now it's like I have a spot in my heart for them, a spot that I've chosen to leave empty until they can fill it again. And even though it's my choice it makes me sad.

When Shauna announces that she's putting Lynnette to bed I use it as an excuse to leave as well. It's been a long a day and I'm tired, but mostly I leave because I'm feeling melancholy; the alcohol mixing unpleasantly with my thoughts. Dany follows me back into the guest cottage, her head lifting up into my palm as we walk like it always does when she senses Tobias and I feeling down. I slip off my shorts and barely have the energy to clean up before slipping into bed, but I do.

As soon as I'm settled Dany jumps up and lays against the length of my body. It's not the first time I've missed my friends and our old life, not even the first time a few tears have wet my cheeks because of it like they do now. And it's right that I should miss them, so I let the tears fall, but I let Dany buoy me too, with her warm weight and steady breaths, and eventually I find sleep and pleasant dreams.

I don't think I sleep for more than a few hours though because the moon is still full and bright and hanging heavily in the sky; I can see Tobias moving around the bedroom almost as clearly as if the sun were shining.

"Sorry," he whispers when he notices I'm awake now too.

"It's okay," I mumble.

He sits down on the edge of the bed, one hand braced on the other side of me to hold himself up. "Are you okay? You looked a little… lost," he finally decides, "when you left."

"Just missing Christina and Uriah," I tell him honestly.

He reaches out with his free hand, tracing the same tracks my tears took early with cool fingertips. I lean into his touch.

"Do you want to go back, Tris?" He's asking me so much more than those six little words make it seem like.

"No," I say, kissing the fleshy base of his thumb. "I miss Chris and Uri, but I feel like if we go back now we won't ever leave again no matter what we tell ourselves, and I'm not ready for that yet."

He stares out the wall of windows for a moment, chewing on his lip. "What do you think of Lynnette?"

I reach up and use my fingers to tip his chin so that he has to look at me. And then I answer the question he really wants to ask because sometimes we're still not very good about talking to each other. "I still just need you, Tobias."

His lips are grateful when he leans down to kiss me, but his eyes are apprehensive. "You're sure?"

"Someday. When we go back... Someday."

And this time his kisses are fervent, needy. In a flurry of movement the dog is off the bed and he is on it. His weight presses me down into the soft mattress as he kisses me, and before long the gauzy sheet covering me is gone and so are his clothes and mine. His lips burn a trail down my body, his eyes locked on mine as his tongue takes it's first teasing lick between my legs. I try to watch him, to stay connected to him, but it's too much, seeing and feeling, and I close my eyes and arch into his mouth and he has to hold my hips down to keep me steady.

I still see him behind my eyes when I come, past and future and a hot, white light that burns through me. I can still see them like phosphene shadows in the room as he rears up onto his knees, spread wide, and drapes my thighs over his. He slides through the wetness pooled between my legs, hitting the little bundle of nerves that makes me forget my own name with each pass before slowly, so slowly, pushing inside.

"You taste like the beach," he murmurs against the underside of my jaw when he leans forward for a moment. I blush just like I did the day I ran into him at the Chasm and he told me I looked good. "No, don't be shy," he pleads and kisses me again. His lips tastes like sun and salt and me, and I clench around him; at the taste, at his words, at how much I like all of it.

I try to hold him to me when he pulls back, but he gently disentangles himself with more kisses and whispered words and soon the swirl of his hips has me begging him for more. But he doesn't give it to me. He starts a slow, steady pace, using his arms to slide me up and down the length of him, and I want to complain, but it feels so good and I'm so close that all I can do is push up on my toes and try to help him and try to find the breath to beg him not to stop.

My fingers pluck at the tips of my breasts, doing the job he can't because his hands are occupied. And it feels so good, but it's not enough, and I groan in need and pleasure because I'm torn between never wanting this torment to stop and knowing, unbelievably, that it can get better.

"Please, Tobias," I beg him. "Please, please, please." The way he says my name in answer makes me clench around him again, but, mercifully, he gives in to me. He moves quicker, starts thrusting up as he pulls me down and every time he does he hits a spot somewhere deep inside of me that makes my want to scream. My hands fly to my mouth to muffle them.

Every muscle in my body is pulled taut, ready to snap, but still it doesn't happen. I want to complain. I want to be frustrated. But somehow Tobias is drawing the pleasure out, making me feel the waves of euphoria I usually only feel when I climax without pushing me over the edge. And it makes me forget everything. Everything, but him. And all I want is more.

My eyes slit open and I catch sight of him. His eyes are filled with heat and want and love, but every now and then he grimaces and his eyes squeeze closed and I know it feels just as good for him, but he's drawing it out for me. And it makes me insensible how much I love him too, how good it feels.

I reach out for him, needing him closer, needing him here with me. I grasp his arm, sweaty and slick under my hand and pull him closer with the last bit of strength I have. And for one blissful second I feel him; feel every hard inch of him inside of me, every dip and curve of muscle against me, every breath, every heartbeat. And then that last tether holding me to the ground snaps and I'm flying, soaring and spinning like the birds that gracefully swoop across my collarbone, and barely aware of the cries and screams that Tobias is muffling with his lips on mine again.

I feel him twitch and spill inside of me, hot and thick, before he collapses. "I love you," he babbles against my breasts. "I love you. I love you. I love you," he says over and over again like I could ever forget.

Neither of us tries to move, too content wrapped in each others arms, my legs around him, our bodies still one. His hair is wet with sweat when I card my fingers through it, and he nuzzles against my neck affectionately.

"Someday," I say again, a whispered promise in his ear. Someday we'll go back to Chicago. Or maybe not. Maybe we'll stay here. Maybe we'll go someplace else. Make a home there, and I'll stop taking the little pills that keep me barren. But for now this is enough. And it never won't be enough, but it could always be more.