From Here On Out

twenty six

"Distance don't mean a thing. I come when you pull the strings. The strings of my heart."

Present Day

"You know tomorrow will never come if you don't get some sleep." Tris says to Tobias as he sits in the living room. Still looking at the frost on the window, the sparkling tree with hundreds of tiny lights, and the many wrapped presents underneath.

It'd been two weeks since Tobias's surgery and according to his doctors he had recovered well. Emotionally he was still standing, after losing his mother. 

"I know I just," Tobias pauses, looking at her as she comes to sit beside him. "can't believe I get to spend this Christmas with you."

Tris smiles, "Well I can't believe that I get to spend this Christmas with you."

Tobias doesn't take his eyes off her as he starts to speak again. "I didn't think I'd get another one."

He looks at her with such admiration for her beauty, and a feeling as if this is all some wonderful dream. That she sits beside him tonight, in their home, on Christmas Eve.

Tris's hand is placed lightly on his cheek as she rubs her thumb back and forth over his skin. The warmth flowing into her slightly chilled hands.

Tris isn't sure even what she wants to say so she slowly kisses him instead, her lips telling him.

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A Year Ago

It'd been the first Christmas they spent apart.

Tris had realized she couldn't do it anymore, after dropping Tobias off at his fourth rehab stay. She couldn't do this anymore, live her life in that way.

And even though a month had passed since had said goodbye, there was still pain. Pain whenever she thought of him, which was everyday. Whenever she saw something that remembered her of him, of them.

Christmas was something else, something deeper. They had spent the holidays together; whatever the holiday. They were together, and the first year without was a new feeling to both of them.

All Tobias wanted that Christmas was to see her, to be there with her. Not there stuck in a rehab facility, surrounded with people just like him. He wanted to be the one he loved.

Tris wanted nothing that year but the impossible, the impossibility that the past could rewrite itself. That every wrong could be righted. That Tobias's demons were easily slain, and that they weren't where they were today.

That their time wasn't up.

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Present Day

Waking up to the feet of snow collected outside, and the sun high in the sky was a beautiful day in winter. There may not be any songs of the birds, or newly green trees. But this was one of the days of winter that showed natures beauty.

His arms wrapped tightly around her waist, makes it difficult for Tris to turn over to face Tobias.

When she finally manages to do so, his eyes are still shut and his breaths still slow and steady. There was something about his sleeping form that always made Tris smile. He looked so peaceful as he slept, giving the thought that nothing in his life was hard. That he hadn't faced any troubles, when the truth was the exact opposite.

Tobias seemed younger, his face relaxed and he just seemed years under his honest age.

"Morning beautiful." His voice laced with sleep is low and rumbles from somewhere deep in his chest as he wakes up. His voice in the morning always making her heart beat and few beats faster than usual.

"Morning." Kissing his nose softly, Tobias opens his eyes slowly.

His deep blue eyes like the sun parting through grey clouds on a rainy day, lighting up the room.

"Merry Christmas." The way he mumbles it still half asleep as he buries his face deep into her shoulder, makes her laugh.

"Merry Christmas." Kissing the top of his head, his hair all disheveled.

Finally getting up to brush their teeth, grab sweaters to keep them warmer as they move into the living room for presents. The sound of the heat running, mixes with the tunes of soft Christmas music that Tobias turned on.

Sitting on the couch as she sits on the floor, excited just like a child, near the presents. Gift after gift, they open together. The morning seeming to go fast yet stay still in that moment at the same time.

"Open that one." Tobias points to a small red wrapped box, leaning his elbows on his knees.

Anxiously awaiting for her to open it.

She smiles as she unwraps it, going slow just to tease him.

Finally getting all the paper open, she lifts the top of the box. What she finds laying in the center of white tissue paper, at first confuses her until Tobias explains.

"A key?" She asks looking up at him.

Tobias pulls on his bottom lip with his teeth nervously.

"Found a small shop, it's a few miles from here actually. And it's the same size, maybe even a little bigger, but it's the perfect place for a bookstore. So I bought it, for you."

Tris's eyes widen as Tobias tells her this.

"I know how much that old bookstore you had meant to you, and I caused you to lose it. This is to make up for it."

Tris gets up to go sit on his lap, kissing him and hugging him. Whispering 'thank you' over and over to him.

She knows that Tobias felt guilty about her losing the bookstore, he'd told her before. She was devastated and also fairly angry that she had to give it up to pay for his treatment.

But she later realized that it was just a place, there may have been history there but it was just a place. Something she could always replace. Tobias however, there was no replacing him. There was no finding someone, anyone... who could take his place.

"Last ones for you." Tris says, picking up the larger pine tree green bag. Handing it to Tobias, taking the seat beside him on the couch.

Tobias takes out the tissue paper, filling the bag to the top and reaches out to lift out the light blue glass sculpture his mother gifted him with as a child. The one that Tris has smashed against the floor the day he tried pushing her away, the day he realized how desperately he needed her. 

A soft mixture of a gasp and a sigh escapes his mouth, as he looks at the object.

"I got it fixed."

He hadn't even recalled what happened to those shards, if they were simply discarded or if they were placed somewhere.

Tobias turns his head to look at Tris, and you could read the nerves on her face now.

"I felt-- I felt so bad. After I threw it on the floor, I just," Tris shakes her head. "I'm sorry I broke it, and I know it's not perfect but I just hope that it--"

His arms pulling her into a hug, is the answer she needed.

Pulling back he looks at her, "Sometimes people do the wrong things for the right reasons."

That day was full of wrongful things that in the end benefited a bigger, better reason.

Christmas this year, they'd both remember as their favorite.

They both received something that day that they'd never expect to get back, a place that held such history and such meaning. And an object that held even more significance now that the giver was gone.

But above all, they were together. Even if they didn't have anything, didn't get anything... they wouldn't feel the need to have things. They had each other, and to them... that was the biggest gift either one of them could receive.

A/N: I want to thank you all because the other day, From Here On Out reached 10k reads! Thank you all, and I will hint(and possibly warn you) that the next few chapters are full of twists and turns, intense moments, and of course... FourTris feels! :)