A/N: Thank you for all the support from the first two chapters! I really appreciate the reviews, favorites, and follows. Thank you also to the wonderful BK2U, who kindly beta-read this story for me!

Chapter 3: Girlfriend

They don't spend every day and night together for the next two weeks, but it's certainly enough for him to get thoroughly attached.

"This really is an awful movie," Tris comments about a half-hour into the bizarre monster-movie-gone-spectacularly-wrong flick they've been watching in his apartment.

He pulls her against him, leaning down to nuzzle her ear. "But it's perfect for a date. Visually interesting whenever you happen to glance up, but something you don't mind missing large chunks of while you're…distracted with other things."

She laughs. "That's why you've been picking such sucky movies. I was starting to think you had terrible taste."

His grin presses into the side of her neck, since that's where his lips happen to be at the moment. "Actually, my best friend, Zeke, recommended this one. I should know better than to listen to him by now."

"What's your excuse for the last one?"

"His fiancée, Shauna, insisted you'd love it." He presses his hand to Tris' back to support her as he leans her body slowly backwards. "They're always dying to give me dating advice, but they don't get the chance often. So, now that I have a girlfriend, they're taking every opportunity."

There's a slight pause, and he can feel her smile as she says, "Girlfriend, huh? Is that what I am?"

The words send a jolt of nervousness through him, since it's the first time they've acknowledged a longer-term status – other than his fumbled admission the morning after they met.

"Well, I certainly hope so," he decides to say boldly, "or I've been lying to my friends."

She grins as their eyes meet, and it's all the answer he needs. His lips find hers, kissing her with a depth that can't begin to match his feelings for this woman – but that perhaps hints at them.

"Would this be a bad time to tell you that I have a boyfriend?" she says when they pull apart. Her tone is light and teasing, but the statement certainly doesn't affect him that way.

He sits up sharply, horror churning through his insides as he stares at her. "What?"

The humor falls from her face as she sits up, too. Stammering a little, she tries to retrieve the moment. "You know, the big, tall guy I've been spending all my time with?" She looks worried as she gives him a crooked half-smile. "The one named Four?"

It's obvious that his reaction is alarming her, but it's having the same effect on him. She clearly wasn't serious, but there's no way he can deny how much jealousy and betrayal and loss went pulsing through him at her words. It's more than a little unnerving.

"I was joking, Tobias."

"Yeah." He runs a hand through his hair, trying to clear his mind, or at least figure out why his reaction is so out of proportion to what she said. "I know. I just…." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry – it scared the hell out of me to think I was losing you."

For a moment, she stares at him in silence while he looks down, realizing with some level of shame that his hands are shaking. She reaches out tentatively, placing her palm on his cheek, and he lets it stay there.

Her tone is gentle when she asks, "Who did you lose, Tobias?"

It's not until she says it that he understands his blind panic. He should have known he couldn't escape his past….

His eyes find hers, and he swallows hard as, for the first time ever, he contemplates releasing his lifetime of secrets and pain. He's only known Tris for two weeks. How could he possibly consider doing that?

And yet, he does.

"My mother." The words are scarcely a whisper. "She left when I was nine." Tris stays silent, and somehow he finds himself continuing. "She had to, I guess. My father was…awful to her. He…." He shakes his head again, at a loss how to explain all the evils that Marcus committed.

But Tris seems to understand. "He hurt her." It's a simple statement, but one that manages to carry the full pain of what his mother endured.

Tris' voice turns much colder when she adds, "And her solution was to leave you with him?"

Tobias just nods, unable to defend that action.

For a long moment, Tris stares at him, disbelief and anger warring in her expression. "He gave you the scars on your back, didn't he?" It's not so much a question as a statement of fact, and that makes it easier to nod again, even if the motion is so slight it's hardly noticeable.

Tris closes her eyes, shaking her head as if she wants to deny that people could be capable of doing such a thing. Her eyes are moist when she opens them again, and she places her hands on either side of his head, pulling him down so his forehead rests on hers.

"I'm so sorry, Tobias," she whispers. "You never deserved that, and I'm sorry that I reminded you of it."

There's something about her tone that reaches all the way through him, despite how soft it is. She's not speaking with pity. Instead, she's conveying a mix of understanding and anger. She hates his parents for what they did, rather than viewing him as a victim.

It sends a startling amount of relief through him. For the first time in his life, he revealed the worst parts of his past, and Tris is still here, holding him and accepting him.

The sensation is immediately followed by something much darker, as he abruptly figures out why she understands.

"Who hurt you, Tris?"

Her breath catches, and she doesn't answer for a long time. The words are barely audible when she does. "A former boyfriend."

His hands seek her out instinctively, gripping her arms with a sort of fierce comfort as she continues. "He had a drinking problem, and when he drank, he'd get angry and…hit me." She swallows. "He kept promising to get help, but he just kept doing it."

Tobias' body tenses, and his eyes close as he wonders exactly how much her life was like his mother's.

"I was so afraid that he'd drink himself to death if I left him, but I finally had to." She sighs. "I still wonder sometimes what happened to him."

Clearing her throat, she adds, "To be clear, I never want to see him again. I would just feel less guilty if I found out that he didn't die because I left. That he turned his life around instead and didn't hurt anyone else."

An odd sort of choked smile works its way onto Tobias' face as he realizes why she said the last part. She wants him to know that she wouldn't choose her ex over him, even if he stopped drinking.

"I love you, Tris."

The words come out with a breath before he can think better of them. But he freezes immediately afterwards, a fresh type of panic coursing through him. What the hell was that? It's much too soon to say the L word. He undoubtedly just screwed everything up.

He pulls away, sweat already starting to form as he stammers for an excuse. "I mean…. I…. I was just…. I…."

"It's okay, Tobias." Tris' hands reach out, taking his arms this time, as a smile slowly forms on her face. "I've definitely been falling for you, too."

Their gazes lock for the longest five seconds of his life before Tobias pulls her to him, their lips connecting in what is unquestionably the most incredible kiss he's ever had. And in that moment, he knows somehow that this is his forever. After everything he has endured – after all the loneliness and emptiness and pain – this is his reward.

It is the most unimaginably perfect one he could ever have received.

A/N: I don't have any immediate plans to continue this story, since I did originally intend it to be a one-off, after all. However, there's still one chapter playing in the back of my mind, so I might write it at some point. We'll see... In the meantime, please let me know what you thought of this chapter. Thanks!