Missing

Chapter Five

Tris POV.

"Oh honey!" Niomi exclaims hugging me tightly. It's like I have been put under a simulation, because all I hear is ringing and my vision blurs from tears. I hear Tobias whisper something to me, but the only thing I can just make out is his voice shaking as he speaks. My body thinks before my mind does and I get up out of the chair and go into the hallway, and I start to run. I turn corners sharply not keeping track of which way and how many. I run until my limbs give out, I slump onto my knees and bury my face in my hands which are furiously shaking. I lean forward so that if someone passes by they can't see my face which I can feel, is contorting in weird ways.
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I stay like that for about maybe ten minutes when Tobias turns around the corner out of breathe, he must've struggled finding me. The wall ahead of me is a dead end with a window on it, which lets in the day light marking an awkward V shape around me on the floor.
"Tris..." Tobias says breathlessly.
"I'm so sorry." He leans down next to my crumpled body, but I stay put.
"Tris, look at me." His voice cracks on every syllable. He touches my chin and guides my face to look at him, and I see tears running down his face too.
"I don't understand what happened.. We were so careful of you and made sure you got enough sleep and ate enough and I just-"
"Tobias." I cut him off, I completely forgot what I was going to say so I just sit up and hug him hard. It hurts me to see him in so much pain, I hold him in my arms as if he's glass ready to shatter.
"We should go pack." I whisper in his ear. He helps me up and we walk to our room, my arm around his back and his around mine. We're two hurting, broken people. Broken people who will heal each other every passing day to come.
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The cold floor of the train reminds me of back when the factions were around, and the Dauntless would jump off the train, fascinating me beyond what you could imagine. It took us about three hours to drive from the Bureau into the inside of the fence, and now we will ride the train over night. Me and Tobias already said our goodbyes and see you soons. It'll be good to just be the two of us, at least for a while. The sun is just beginning to set when Tobias laces his fingers with mine.
"I love you, you know." He says.
"I love you too." This moment reminds me of when I said that to him for the very first time after he cleaned my feet from being cut, walking through the halls of Erudite, when Peter saved me.
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Maybe I was afraid to trust him with something so personal as my devotion. Or afraid that I did not know what it was to love someone. But now I think the scary thing was not saying it before it was almost too late. Not saying it before it was almost too late for me.
I am his, and he is mine and it has been that way all along.
He stares at me. I wait with my hands clutching his arms for stability as he considers his responses
He frowns at me. "Say it again."
"Tobias" I say, "I love you."
His skin is slippery with water and he smells like sweat and my shirt sticks to his arms when he slides them around me. He presses his face to my neck and kisses me right above my collarbone, kisses my cheek, kisses my lips.
"I love you, too," he says.
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"I can't wait to be alone with you for a long, long time. We don't get that very much anymore." He doesn't respond he just squeezed my hand kisses my cheek. After what seems like a long time he says,
"I have always wanted that." I lay my head on his should and smile, we have been through some pretty bad patches. But life with him couldn't get any better.