From Here On Out

twenty

"When my faith has lost all meaning, You keep me believing."

Present Day

Waking up the next morning, their limbs tangled with soft wool blankets keeping them warm from the winter cold it felt familiar. Like something from a memory, and maybe it was.

Blinking her eyes in an effort to get rid of the sleep lingering behind, she turns her neck a bit to see Tobias staring right at her. She squints, "Don't just stare at me please."

He can't help but laugh, she'd always been blunt... especially first thing in the morning.

Snuggling her back further into his bare chest, the warmth and slight stick of sweat being felt against her bare skin.

"I do not ever want to leave this bed." Tris sighs, as Tobias's arms wrap around her body tighter.

"Feels like you never did." Tobias mumbles softly in her ear, kissing her neck lightly.

She turns in his arms, so she faces him now. Looking deep into those hypnotizing blue eyes, the ones she falls back into time and time again.

"You still love me?" She asks him, as he twirls his fingers lightly through her hair. "like you used to?"

He looks at her, not breaking the gaze he has. A smile curves at the edges of his lips, "You really have to ask?"

Running her thumb over his soft bottom lip, "I did things wrong. I just want to know if the love you had for me is the same, or if it's shifted."

Tobias lets out a soft noise of laughter, no longer able to keep it in. "Tris, my love for you has always stayed the same. It's never faded, never gone anywhere. Maybe it's grown but it'll never go away."

Her eyes sparkle with something more. Was it love? Was it fear? Was it the look of finding your destiny?? Whatever it was, Tobias loved being able to see it.

"Years ago, and right here and right now..." Tobias says kissing her collarbone, he lifts his head back up to look her in the eyes once again.

"You know darling, that there's only one that's gonna make me happy."

Smiling she kisses him, capturing everything she feels right there in that moment. The feels of his lips upon hers sparking the fire in her heart, the one that had been burning out for the year without him.

The way his hands roam over her body, makes her feel a sense of security. A feel of home, and happy ever after.

The way his words repeat over and over in her mind, makes her feel content. Reassures her that she is in fact enough, that she got back what she risked losing.

There are moments in life where you fall in love with someone all over again, and it's like breathing for the very first time all over again. It's like realizing what you need to live isn't air, isn't meaningless necessities... but them. And their love.

That keeps you breathing, your heart beating, and your body feeling.

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A Year and A Half Ago

She sat silently beside him in the backseat, the driver driving them home from a party they were invited to.

He had done something to make her mad, to push her to her limits and he could see that. Tobias had the tendency to do that, whether he meant to or not. And that was always something he felt guilty of.

"Hey." He says, his voice seeming odd in the dead quiet air.

Tris was looking out the window, watching the raindrops fall down the glass.

"Talk to me."

He pleads it to her, she had yelled at him earlier and hadn't said anything since.

She turns to him, tears clouding her vision. Trying to keep them in, for the sake of her make-up and maybe the fact that she didn't want another night crying over him.

"You can tell me everything," Tobias tells her, facing her now. "or you can tell me nothing at all."

She loses as a tear runs down her face, biting her lip to keep back her cries.

"But you can't tell me you don't love me," Tobias says, his voice wavering just the slightest. "because that's the one thing I'll never believe."

Her head tilts as she looks at him, deeply. "I love you, so much."

"You just scare me," Tris admits to him. "the choices you make over and over again... they scare me."

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Present Day

She was pale. She was empty. She was numb.

He was pale. He was empty. He was numb.

Tris sat beside him on their front porch, her arms clinging around him. Afraid he'd leave, or get snatched sooner than she was ready.

"We just have to stay positive."

The words she let out didn't really mean anything to her either, they were just words. Meaningless words in a time like this.

Tobias had received a call from his doctor the next day, and the news wasn't good.

He was in a need of a liver transplant, soon. One he most likely was not going to get from a donor on the list.

"We have to stay strong, you and I." Tris adds, knowing that this was his support system. She was the biggest part of that system.

That was when it really hit him, he was going to die. Tobias knew this would be one of the last moments of them together, where he was healthy and living.

When he got the call, the doctor asked again if he had any family willing to get tested. To see if matches could be found, and he could get the transplant from them. But there wasn't. No father, no distant family, and what hurt the most... no mother.

The remainder of their day was spent on that wooden porch, hand in hand, holding each other. Watching the sun go through the motions and eventually set towards dusk. And they were as content as they could be in a moment like that. Knowing they were with each other... but that their time was now running out.

A/N: Shorter filler chapter and kind of a sad one towards the end.