From Here On Out

sixty four

"It's like you've been the only one for all my life, Like I've never looking into another's eyes,"

Four Years Ago

"Why are you going through this again? Letting yourself go through it again?" Christina asks, as she and Tris sit on the couch talking. Tris had dropped Tobias off at rehab the day before, and she needed someone there with her.

Tris sighs, and with her finger she traces the rim of her mug of tea. The steam warming her fingers, as she tries to find the words.

"Because I love him." Tris says, and lifts her head to look at her friend.

It was as simple as that, her reason... love.

"I know he's going to make mistakes, and he's already made a hell of a lot of them. But that doesn't alter my feelings for him."

Christina tilts her head slightly, "But he's hurting you Tris, and this is his third go around. How long are you going to put up with it?"

"I don't know." Tris shakes her head. "I could wake up tomorrow and feel like I just can't do it anymore, or three days from now. But what I do know, is that no matter how much time passes or when I decide it's all too much, I won't be leaving because I stopped loving him."

"Just because he makes choices I wish he didn't, and just because there's parts of him that I wish I could fix, doesn't change how much I love him."

Tris smiles softly to herself, "It doesn't change that after all the time we've known each other, that I still feel fluttering butterflies when he's with me. It doesn't change how when I look at him, I see someone I want in my life forever. It doesn't change my love for him. No matter what he does, what he says, what choices he does or doesn't make."

"I'm always going to love Tobias Eaton."

| | | |

Present Day

Are we crazy? Doing this, starting over again?

Maybe we are. Maybe we both know that this will end the same as it did before. Maybe we both know that there's a possibility that it's just not supposed to work between us. Maybe we both are just holding onto false hope.

But then, that's the thing. Hope. It's gotten me this far, it's gotten Tobias this far, it's gotten us both here. Maybe we are crazy for trying again, but I think as long as we have hope and each other... we'll be alright.

Tobias sits spread out on the floor of the bedroom, going through some of Tris's old journals. He always knew she kept them, always knew she liked to write things down. But he never read them, they were hers and for her eyes only. But now, he wanted to read the words she wrote. Maybe they could make him feel closer to her, make her seem as though she was truly in the room again.

He's everything. That man I married today, he is everything to me. Everything I dreamed of, everything I prayed to the good Lord for. That man I married today, is my everything.

When I stood at that alter with him today, I didn't see a man who tried and failed with his addiction time and time again. I didn't see a man who made mistakes that broke my heart too many times to count. I didn't see a man that stumbled and lost things along the way. I saw a man who was strong. I saw a man who was brave. I saw a man who didn't give up on things, for he didn't give up on me.

He could've. He could've looked at me long ago and decided that getting me back was impossible. But he didn't. He tried, and he didn't give up. And here we are... man and wife.