From Here On Out

twenty one

"We stand on the shores, time runnin' by at our feet."

A Year Ago

"Do you think about her a lot? Your mom?" Tris asks him, as they stand at their spot on the bridge. Talking freely with each other as the wind blows over them. The season hadn't crossed over yet, still balancing on those cold autumn days.

Tobias looks out at the water under them, thinking for a moment. Feeling Tris take his hand and place hers in his. Holding it, as a sense of comfort.

"No, not really." She can tell that that isn't the full truth.

Tobias leans on the railing, "Sometimes I like to think she's still out there somewhere. Used to think that all the time but I also thought she was out there, looking for me."

Tris leans closer to him. "Maybe she is."

Tobias looks down at his hands, he wants to believe that. With everything, without an ounce of doubt... but he can't.

"You miss her?"

Tris's questions stirred so many things inside him, the hurt and the pain that was still there. The anger that still lays there beneath it all.

"Yeah," Tobias answers. "I miss her."

|     |     |    |

Present Day

 Drowning her cries with the record playing, Tris stands over it. Covering her face with her hands as the song she and Tobias loves plays. Filling the room with a calm and sweet melody.

It'd been a week since they got the news, and today for some reason was Tris's breaking point. All she had been keeping back, finally knocked down that wall. She had tried staying strong as long as she could, but today it all came crashing down.

"What's going on?" Tris hears the door open and close as Tobias speaks up.

He leans back against the closed door, Tris's back facing him.

She hadn't called him, didn't text. He just came home and heard the music all the way in the front room.

Tris turns to look at him, and her tears stained face with her make up beginning to get messy makes his face drop.

"Why'd you get sick?" Tris cries out to him, as Tobias's face becomes paler and can't stand to look at her this upset.

She wants to scream it out to the lord, to anyone and everyone. Just needing an answer as to why this had to have happened to Tobias and now.

Feeling as she may fall over, she clings to the table behind her, covering her eyes with her hand. As everything she's feeling leaks out of her eyes, and falls down her face.

Sobbing, Tobias moves over to her. Turning off the music, so now only her cries echo in the room.

"Baby," He says looking at her again. "you said it yourself. We gotta stay positive though all this, we just gotta--"

"I'm trying to stay positive," Tris says cutting him off, her crying dialed down for the moment. "and I'm failing."

He wonders looking at her, how he has stayed this optimistic when she's crashing down.

Taking deep breaths she feels Tobias hug her, folding his arms around her and holds her comfortingly in his arms.

"I just don't get it, it's not fair. It's not fair that it's you, of all people. That it's us, that after everything this---" Breaking again, Tobias holds onto her tighter, showing Tris that he has her. Sitting them both down on the floor.

"Come on, sit down." He whispers in her ear soothingly. "There you go."

"I keep trying to fix it," Tris cries. "I keep thinking I can fix this, and I can fix all those years you know?"

Pulling back to look at her now, Tobias feels his heart break even more for the woman he loves in front of him. He can see the hurt, in her eyes, in her heart, in her. And it kills him, that he swore he wouldn't cause her pain again... and now he has.

"It's just every time I've looked in my future, you've always been in it."

Her voice cracks, and it breaks as she says the next thing. The thing that makes him break too.

"And I don't know what I'm gonna do without you."

Crying is a vulnerability. One that Tobias didn't allow himself often, but there in that moment he let himself feel. He just let himself feel the pain.

This was the rawest, most open form of himself. And if he had looked in the mirror at that moment he wouldn't have recognized the man looking back at him. The one with tears swimming in the dark blue eyes the man had, the red in his face as he was having a breakdown.

But sometimes that's what we need. The break, the breather, the pain, the hit of reality. It doesn't make it easier, but it helps us cope when it's all crashing down.

A/N: this is a shorter one, kind of a filler. But I love this, not only the scene in the show but the heartbreaking moment between them.