Always. (Divergent- The Epilogue)

Part 1- Four and Six

A/N

I dedicate this epilogue to my parents and my sister, who've always been there for me and supported me every step of the way.

Please do comment and vote, it would mean so much xx

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I kneel down to tie my shoelaces. When I get up and face the mirror, a beautiful woman is standing behind me. Tris. She's wearing the same clothes she wore when she died.

I don't feel anything other than hurt as I turn toward her. I've encountered her too many times in the past six years. I see her everyday, a mirage, a memory, shining before me, reminding me how much I've lost. But in many ways, the mirage is nothing like the Tris I knew. My Tris. Her eyes don't sparkle, alight with wonder. Her skin doesn't glow. Her hands are cold. Her cheeks don't blaze with warmth. It hurts, to see just a feeble copy of her perfection.

Seeing her brings so much hurt. The hurt is like someone repeatedly stabbing me with a million knives, just to see how far I can go. But what hurts is not that I see Tris again, because I see her everyday, and every night in my dreams, anyway. This time, it isn't a nightmare. This time, her death feels even more real than usual. What hurts is that here she is, my dead girlfriend, standing before me, and I am helpless. I am helpless, just like I've always been in my fear landscape. I am helpless, just like I was when she lost her life. I am helpless.

In retrospect, it all seems like  a test, a test of my love for Tris. I should have stayed. I should have known she'd risk her life for Caleb. But I left, and I left her hanging. There was no one to talk her out of it, no one to explain to her. As I remember that day, the day of her death, a wave of emotion threatens to engulf me. 

Tris. Beautiful, brave Tris.
Through all the lies and deception, we still found love. We had been through so much together, fighting to stay alive, every minute of every day.
As she stands before me, I want to kiss her, to hold her tight and protect her from harm. But I know that isn't going to happen. Deep down, I know. Because she is dead.  
She was a part of my fear landscape, once. She still is. In my fear landscape, she kept dying over and over again, and I couldn't stop it. Just going through the landscape used to make me crumble to pieces, and the only way to get better was to see her again. Then my fear turned into reality. My beloved died, and I could not do anything to stop it, do anything to protect her. Recounting this, I feel like I am falling apart, like every time I think of her, my soul is crumbling to the floor, piece by piece. Life without Tris isn't life at all.

I just want her to be mine. I want to kiss the ravens on her collarbone, and the Abnegation symbol on her shoulder. I want to kiss her jaw. But I can't. I can't kiss her, or even touch her, because I'm afraid. I'm afraid she'll vanish as soon as I go too close to her. 

I take a step forward, hesitantly. She doesn't disappear. "Tris," I croak.
"Tobias," she whispers. I feel alive again, but only a faint resemblance of what I felt when Tris was alive. Still, this is my Tris. Even if it's in the form of a memory or mirage, she came back for me.

When I told Christina about the mirage of Tris I keep seeing, and even talking to, she got worried. She told me to go see someone. I laugh feebly as I remember. They think I'm crazy. They all do.

"Tobias," she says. "Listen to me. You need to move on with your life. You need to fall in love again. You deserve to have a family and be happy. You need to understand that I am not coming back. All I want, and have ever wanted, is for you to have all the happiness in the world. I never wanted to leave you, but I had to. There was no choice. I hope you know that. I love you, Tobias. And that's why I want you to move on. Just remember that I'm always there in your heart, okay? Go and get 'em, Four." She smiles sadly at me and vanishes.
I am plagued with a feeling of sheer desperation. I don't think I can fall in love ever again, because what Tris and I had was more than that. It was different. It was true. We had this connection that drove me toward her, and every time I looked at her, I fell in love with her all over again. I loved Tris infinitely.
She was my Six, and I was her Four.
Then Death emerged, and took her away from me, where I could never see her again. Death took the part of me that I needed most, to survive. Death took Tris. 

She's gone.  She gave her life for her pathetic excuse of a brother, who betrayed her, and hurt her. She left me. But she wants me to move on. Even after all these years, my love for her hasn't ceased to exist.

Tris is not coming back, I tell myself sternly. Even as I say it, I have an ache in my heart that I'm sure is never going to heal. Even after six years, the memory of her is so deeply embedded in by brain, so deeply etched, that I can never forget her, never move on. Forgetting her seems impossible- she comes before me as a mirage. She appears and vanishes so suddenly that it's never enough. It's never enough, and it reminds me of the day she died. That day, she disappeared forever. I see flashes of the time we spent together. I guess it's impossible to forget anyone as perfect as Tris. I always got lost in her eyes. They made me think of clear, open skies. And her face.. Perfection at its best. She was beautiful, and she never saw that. She denied her beauty.
I honestly don't know what she ever saw in me. I'm just plain old Tobias Eaton -Johnson- I correct myself.
Tris Prior was the bravest person I've ever known, and nothing is going to change that, and no amount of memory serum could make me forget her face, filled with curiosity and wonder and kindness and warmth.

I look up into the mirror and lose my train of thought. I stopped cutting my hair close-cropped, Abnegation style, a while back. It's a bit overgrown, but Christina says it suits me.
I feel a wave of gratitude toward Christina. She was there for me when no one else was. She befriended me, even though I wasn't particularly nice to her in the past. She helped me. She guided me through my darkest phases, and we both understood each other, as we had both lost our loved ones.

I straighten up, fix my tie, and head out of the house. It's time for my first day at work, taking Johanna's place as a representative of Chicago. A lot has changed around here. The city has blossomed into a big metropolitan with sky-rises. There are no people who believe in being 'genetically damaged', and the Bureau has long since forgotten us. Tris died to make us all forget the factions, and it worked. It truly did. Christina quit her old job ages ago, and became Johanna's agent, so she's supposed to brief me on my job today. Johanna Reyes, former mayor of Chicago, passed away last week. We had her funeral near the old Amity farms, close to the place where she first felt like she belonged.
As I was the second best candidate for the job, it is now my responsibility to take up the position of Mayor.
I walk towards my car and turn the ignition key. As I drive, I look around at the city. So much has changed in these past six years. The old, broken down roads are now plastered with vanity parks and museums and zoos and whatnot. The sidewalks are surrounded by eateries and even ice skating rinks and bowling allies, things people of the past, people like Tris, were unknown to. I wish she was here to see all of this, I think, with an ache in my heart. She truly would have loved it.
When I reach my destination, I step out of the car tentatively and start walking towards the building. I enter onto the polished marble floors, and see Christina waiting impatiently.
"God, you're fast, Four!" She says, her voice heavy with sarcasm. Whenever she's being sarcastic or feeling annoyed she calls me by my old name, Four. It's actually quite amusing. Four. 

She quickly briefs me with what I'm supposed to do, and how I'm supposed to know so and so, and manage this and that. I am not really paying attention, to be honest. My eyes are drawn toward a girl, about my age, standing with her back faced toward me at the edge of the room. She has the same tiny figure as Tris did. I feel another wave of misery.
"Emily!" Calls out Christina. The girl turns to us, and I see that she looks remarkably like Tris. And in that moment, I know I have to be near this girl, because it feels like the last piece of Tris I have. I've lost everything. I lost most of my friends, I lost my girlfriend, then, four years later, I lost my mother in a car crash, and now I have nothing to hold onto. Except maybe this fake Tris--Emily.
I have the distinct realisation that I will be using her, and I do feel a little guilty, but I am so overcome with longing for the dead that I can't help myself but hold on.