Chapter 22
****Message from the author – thanks everyone for sticking with me! I know it's been way too long since I updated. Hit a little writers block! Please R&R. Love seeing the reviews and thoughts!"****
TOBIAS
It was so good to have her back, and whole. And to know I had been right about my instincts. But that incredible transformation she had been through had fried her brain temporarily. Was it a good thing to have the others go through that? I could tell she was in the most intense pain and the pressure in her skull had been so extreme that her nose had even bled.
We jumped from the train and ran up to the Hancock building, trudging it up to the roof. After all this time, it still amazed me that the building remained empty. After we went and sat in a corner of the roof where we wouldn't be seen or heard, we continued talking.
I thought back to how this all started with the fear landscape and seeing her in there. She had talking about that damn nonsensical line "A time-symmetric event causes a warranted change and so we be chosen." And her frequent mentioning of "The Man". But she didn't seem to remember much of her time in the landscape. I wondered how she had even been in there at all.
"So Christina is working for them?" Tris asked for the hundredth time and Zeke and I just nodded. I could understand why it was a difficult concept for her to grasp. The best friend she had left, would never have crossed to the dark side. And Eric?! Who would have thought he would be on the good side this time?
"So Stiff, tell me. How do we get the others to remember?" Zeke asked her, obviously thinking foremost about his brother. "And how is it even possible?"
"I don't know how it is possible. We will need to try and figure it out. But as for the remembering, the fear landscape made me remember. I dreamt I was in it and it triggered concepts of the memories that made me remember. But that was our thing," Tris added looking at me. "We had our connection of the fear landscape. Who is to say that the others would remember from the same thing?" she mused and that put another spanner in the works.
She was totally right. Just because the landscape had caused her memory to return didn't mean it would work for the others. It was definitely an option though otherwise we would need to work out what would trigger it for the others. And that would be a lengthy process.
Zeke swore.
"So what do we do?" I asked her and her face puckered in thought. "After what you went through, the pain I saw on your face, is it worth it?"
"Try the landscape?" she said a while later. "It is the best lead we have at the moment. We can go in in pairs with someone to pull us if we need to," she suggested and I nodded, looking at Zeke. "Yes, the pain was fierce and intense. But I am so much happier remembering who you are Four," she said and squeezed my hand tightly in her small one.
"Okay, where?" I asked. Zeke took a deep breath.
"Here," he said and produced the vials and injector.
"What the hell?" she asked and shuddered. At the thought of the landscape? At him carrying them around ready to inject himself or someone else? I wasn't sure and didn't ask.
"It was the only way to see any of you," I explained and saw Zeke's eyes tear up.
"Okay, Zeke and I will go in with Uri and Mar and try and pull them back? Or maybe just Uri to begin with?" Tris said.
"If I need to pull you out in a hurry, better just doing one at a time?" I suggested. I was a bit nervous about having to pull too many out in seconds. Plus I was scared as hell about losing her again if she went in. "And what if you don't come out?" I asked her, my voice breaking as I gripped her hands hard.
"I will, I promise," she said and for some reason, I believed her. I took a deep, calming breath. We had a plan, now we had to action it and the sooner the better.
"I will go and get the others and bring them here. All four of them?" I asked and we all looked at each other. Zeke shrugged and we both looked at Tris.
"Yeah get Bill, Tyrah, Zachuriah and Marly," Tris said. "It will be better if we have the whole gang to fight whatever is coming. We are stronger together than we are alone," she said and smiled at me. I nodded and made a move to get up.
"No, I'll go," Zeke said. "You guys enjoy your time before we go in. I will leave half the serum here and take half with me. Just in case," he said and we nodded. We were in such a precarious position until the others remembered and until we worked out who "The man" was and how to stop the Revolutionists.
As Zeke left, Tris came and sat in my lap as I leaned back against the low wall of the roof, and I wrapped myself around her, cocooning her in my arms. "I've missed you so much," she said.
I couldn't even speak. Words just couldn't do justice to how it felt to have her back. While a part of me always had hope I would see her again, and then seeing her and hoping it was her and falling in love with her anyway, even if it would never be her.
"I love you," I said simply and then she kissed me and I was lost.
A while later, we sat contented being with each other and looking forward to spending time alone together where I could make her mine and get to know her body intimately.
"You really loved Candace as well, didn't you?" she asked me and I looked at her. It was true. I had fallen for Candace and not just because she looked like Tris.
"I will always love you in any form," I said and she smiled at me, content with my answer.
"I love you Tobias," she said and she snuggled back against me while we waited for the others to arrive. "I always knew that you'd come back to get me and you always knew that it wouldn't be easy. To go back to the start to see where it all began or end up at the bottom to watch how it all ends. You tried to lie and say I was everything, I remember when I said I'm nothing without you. Somehow I found a way to get lost in you, let me inside, let me get close to you. Change your mind, I'll get lost if you want me to. Somehow I found a way to get lost in you," she said.
"You always thought I left myself open but you didn't know I was already broken. I told myself that it wouldn't be so bad, you pulled it away you took everything I had. The pain of it all, the rise and the fall, I see it all in you. Now every day I find myself say I want to get lost in you. I'm nothing without you," I replied to her.
[Lyrics from Lost In You by Three Days Grace]
Just then we heard someone coming, and both stealthily moved to a better vantage point to see who it was. It wasn't Zeke. Or the other Protectors.
It was… wait… Christina? I looked at Tris and saw shock on her face as we silently watched her.
"There's no one here," Christina said into her headset as she looked around. She looked right at where we were hiding and I daren't move. I don't think either of us breathed. If we could see her, could she see us? Did she know we were actually there? "Yes, I am sure." Pause. "No. I have more information for Harry. Can you organise a meeting in the usual spot?" we heard her ask then pause. "Good. See you soon," she said, and wait… did she wink? Tris and I looked at each other then watched her leave.
"Should we follow her?" Tris asked me.
"I don't know," I replied and we both mentally weighed up the pros and cons. While we would be stronger with more intel, we would be stronger still with the whole team back.
"I think we should stay and wait," she said and I nodded having just come to the same conclusion. "So who is Harry?" she asked me. I had been wondering the same thing. It wasn't a name I knew. I racked my brain trying to think of every Harry I had met. Nothing was coming to mind. "Did she wink at us as she left?" Tris asked me and I gasped. Had she seen it too? What did it mean? Had Christina known we were there and covered for us? There were so many questions bouncing around in my head.
"I don't know," I said.
We waited in our new vantage point silently for the others to arrive, making ourselves comfortable as we seemed to be in for a long wait. It was seeming to take forever for them to come back. I kissed Tris again. I wished I could get to know her intimately now. I had missed her terribly. And we had never gone that far before she… died.
"I wish we didn't have to be wise," she whispered and kissed me hard, sighing against me as my fist bunched her shirt and began lifting it up. She didn't stop me and my lips moved their way down to her neck.
I removed her shirt and she pulled mine up over my head. I was so distracted by her that when I next opened my eyes and looked up, I frowned. I hadn't realised how much time had passed and now I was starting to get concerned. The sun was setting and dusk setting in, turning steadily to night as the sky darkened. I lost myself in kissing her again, the feeling of her in my arms and my lips on hers, much stronger than my thinking ability.
It was very quickly getting dark and I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. The moon was nearly full so there was quite a lot of light shining down that I could still see Tris quite clearly.
"Should we call it a night?" I asked Tris and we looked at each other, both contemplating our options again. And being able to not be wise, in the comfort of my room. Then she sighed and shook her head.
"No, I think we should give it a bit longer. Under the cover of darkness is clever considering someone already knows we have been here," she said and I nodded. Coming from an intel background with Dauntless, that should have occurred to me but the place had changed so much that I hadn't really needed to think tactically lately and the muscle memory had faded.
"You're right," I said softly to her then we heard something again. We both silently put our shirts back on as we watched, waiting for the next person to come into view.