TOBIAS

I wake up to silence and a sore neck, as I've spent most of the last two days sitting, and occasionally sleeping, in a chair next to Tris in a hospital bed. After nearly 40 hours of restless drifting in and out of consciousness, her fever finally dropped. The doctors decided that she was finally stable enough to administer painkillers, and she now sleeps peacefully. Her mouth is open and she's drooling slightly, making me smile and take a mental picture to tease her with later.

Later. At least it now seems fairly certain that there will be a later for us. My return to the Compound was horrific, beginning with Cara's terrified face that told me something was very, very wrong. When I saw Tris' unconscious body seeming to burn with fever and heard doctors and nurses speak of her impending death as if it was a certainty, I died a little, too. The moment she proved them wrong was one of the best of my entire life.

While Tris' resilience doesn't surprise me, it's awed the doctors and nurses. Once it became clear she would live, they initially stayed skeptical that she could survive even indirect exposure to death serum without brain damage or other crippling effects. To be honest, it's long term impact still isn't totally clear. Her rare moments of consciousness, thusfar, have proven that her mind is still very much intact, though, and her body seems to be getting a little stronger all the time. She's given me reason to realistically hope for the best. It's enough to fill my many idle moments with vivid daydreams.

Tris opens her eyes suddenly, focusing on me with a fierce, sexy gaze. Suddenly, she looks down and her cheeks become slightly flushed, as if suddenly aware that she's not dreaming any more. I love the fact that she still blushes around me.

"What were you dreaming about?" I ask, raising an eyebrow while I lean over and stroke her cheek.

She's silent for a moment, still looking down, but then lifts her face to mine with a sly smile.

"You," she whispers. "Always you."

She pats the bed next to her, and beckons for me to sit there.

"I'm missed you so much...since that last night, Tobias," she whispers, her eyes fiery and unafraid again. She's so beautiful. She grabs and twists my shirt towards her.

We kiss, first gently and then with growing urgency. I touch my forehead to hers.

"So...what were we doing to each other...in your dream?"

She smiles and puts her lips to my ear.

"Showing each other new tattoos..."

Just as I'm about to allow my imagination to wander from sweetness to total teenage guy fantasy, the sound of running footsteps in the distance rudely snaps me back to reality.Damn it! Two years in Dauntless, and two months of almost constantly being on the run have honed my hearing and reflexes entirely too well. To add insult to injury, the running seems to stop completely a moment later.

It's totally quiet again. It's a little unnerving. I've become accustomed to the routine visits of Christina, Cara and Matthew, and to the less routine visits of hospital personnel, all still a bit dazed and befuddled from the memory serum.

The latter group's presence makes me feel so guilty: My girlfriend's well-being is dependent on the kindness and competency of people who have literally lost part of their minds, thanks to us. The fact that their medical skills seem intact and provide them with their only confident moments, with their personal lives forgotten, makes it worse.

I wish there could have been another way. I know Tris was right, though, that sometimes you just have to choose the best of bad options. And now Chicago is safe, and the term "genetically damaged" is literally erased from vocabularies. There's even a chance of a normal relationship with my mom. And Tris and I have a future.

I'm not entirely sure yet what I want to do with that future, except that I want to share it with her. I'm pretty sure she feels the same, but I'll be happier when she's strong enough to tell me that herself.

I shift uncomfortably in , my chair, and remember that I haven't ate in a long time. I had a burger with Christina in the cafeteria ...sometime this morning? It's now about 11 pm, and the cafeteria is closed, but I may be able to scrounge up a sandwich from a hospital staffer. That assumes I can find one, since they now seem scarce.

I don't like leaving Tris alone, but it should only be for a few minutes. I get up, stretch, walk into the hospital corridor, and go to a restroom. As I wash my hands and face minutes later, I hear racing footsteps again.

I step out of the restroom and nearly run into Matthew, who is as white as a sheet and out of breath.

"Hey...what's going on, Matthew?"

He gestures that he needs a moment to collect himself, as he leans over with hands on his knees. A growing feeling of dread overcomes me.

"It's... the Weapons Lab," he says, still panting slightly with his eyes wide and fearful as he wipes sweat from his brow. "The door's still blown out...and no one had cleared the bodies yet...because of the serums."

I wince when he says "bodies" since one of the corpses is Tris' brother, but nod for Matthew to continue.

"They went in today. The bodies were still there, but the stocks of death serum and memory serum weren't. Someone stole them."

Now it's my turn to look wide-eyed and horrified, as I mull the possibilities. Who might have known about the stocks, and had the desire and ability to steal them? The idea that it could have been my mother or father momentarily sickens me, but I can't really envision either as the culprit.

"Have you already checked the video feed? Seems like it would be tough for someone to get into the compound completely undetected, even with most of the Bureau still spaced out from memory serum," I say, grasping for easy answers.

"I'm certain it was an inside job and I'm pretty sure I know who did it," he says darkly, walking me back towards Tris' room and relative privacy as we hear others coming. "I think it was my supervisor. And if I'm right, we all need to leave here. Right away. Especially Tris."