Fourtris- One Shots

I'll Be Your Family Now

As we walk the streets I once called home, conversations sputter and die, and eyes cling to my face and body. As far as they knew-and I'm sure they knew, because Jeanine knows how to spread news-I died less than six hours ago.

I notice that some of the factionless I pass are marked with patches of blue dye. They are simulation-ready.
Now that we're here, and safe, I realize that there are cuts all over the bottoms of my feet from running over rough pavement and bits of glass from
broken windows.

Every step stings. I focus on that instead of all the stares.
"Tris?" someone calls out ahead of us. I lift my head, and see Uriah and Christina on the sidewalk, comparing revolvers. Uriah drops his gun in the grass and sprints toward me. Christina follows him, but at a slower pace.
Uriah reaches for me, but Tobias sets a hand on his shoulder to stop him. I feel a surge of gratitude. I don't think I can handle Uriah's embrace, or his questions, or his surprise, right now.
"She's been through a lot," Tobias says. "She just needs to sleep. She'll be down the street-number thirty-seven. Come visit tomorrow."

Uriah frowns at me. The Dauntless don't usually understand restraint, and Uriah has only ever known the Dauntless. But he must respect Tobias's assessment of me, because he nods and says, "Okay. Tomorrow."
Christina reaches out as I pass her
and squeezes my shoulder lightly.

I try to stand up straighter, but my muscles feel like a cage, holding my shoulders hunched. The eyes follow me down the street, pinching the back of my neck. I am relieved when Tobias leads us up the front walk of the gray house that belonged to Marcus Eaton.
I don't know by what strength Tobias marches through the doorway. For him this house must contain echoes of screaming parents and belt snaps and hours spent in small, dark closets, yet he doesn't look troubled as he leads Peter and me into the kitchen. If anything he stands taller. But maybe that is Tobias-when he's supposed to be weak, he's strong.
Tori, Harrison, and Evelyn stand in the kitchen. The sight overwhelms me. I lean my shoulder into the wall and squeeze my eyes shut. The outline of the execution table is printed on my eyelids. I open my eyes. I try to breathe.

They are talking but I can't hear what they're saying. Why is Evelyn here, in Marcus's house? Where is Marcus?
Evelyn puts one arm around Tobias and touches his face with the other, pressing her cheek to his. She says something to him. He smiles at her when he pulls away. Mother and son, reconciled. I am not sure it's wise.
Tobias turns me around and, keeping one hand on my arm and one on my waist, to avoid my shoulder wound, presses me toward the staircase. We climb the steps together.
Upstairs are his parents' old bedroom and his old bedroom, with a bathroom between them, and that's it. He takes me into his bedroom, and I stand for a moment, looking around at the room where he spent most of his life.
He keeps his hand on my arm. He has been touching me in some way since we left the stairwell of that building, like he thinks I might break apart if he doesn't hold me together.

"Marcus didn't go into this room after I left, I'm pretty sure," says Tobias. "Because nothing was moved when I came back here."
Members of Abnegation don't own many decorations, since they are viewed as self-indulgent, but what few things we were allowed, he has. A stack of school papers. A small bookshelf. And, strangely, a sculpture made of blue glass on his dresser.
"My mother smuggled that to me when I was young. Told me to hide it," he says.
"The day of the ceremony, I put it on my dresser before I left. So he would see it. A small act of defiance."
I nod. It is strange to be in a place that carries one single memory so completely. This room is sixteen-year-old Tobias, about to choose Dauntless to escape his father.

"Let's take care of your feet," he says. But he doesn't move, just shifts his fingers "fingers to the inside of my elbow.
"Okay," I say.