Discoveries ✔ (Divergent Fourtris Fanfiction)

Chapter 47: Monday, 2 days after initiation

So, as you've all (hopefully) figured out, the last chapter didn't depict reality. Sorry if it left some of you confused. I think this next chapter makes up for it somehow. ;-)
Thanks for your patience!

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Tobias

A high-pitched scream wakes me up in the middle of the night.

Tris!

She's sitting upright, her hands clenching the sheets, and after her scream, apparently when she realizes that she's awake, she starts crying.

I sit up and take her in my arms, trying to shield off whatever it is that she's dreamed of.

"Tris, it's okay, you're here. I'm here. It was a dream. Just a dream. You're okay. You're safe, Tris. You're safe."

I mutter soothing words to her while I rock us back and forth on the bed, my arms closed tightly around her. She's gripping my arms as if she was hanging on to them for dear life. I don't care that it hurts. This pain is obviously just a minimum of the pain that's shaking her.

When her crying turns first into sobbing and then into heavy breathing, I finally dare to ask what her nightmare was about.

I notice how difficult it is for her to put it in words, so I force myself not to interrupt her, even if what she tells me is confusing, as she's jumping back and forth between different scenes. It must have been a very vivid dream by the sound of it. Maybe it doesn't even matter that I don't get a chronological description. It's enough to hear the main theme and several horrible images that she describes in surprising detail.

"It all felt so real, Tobias. So real. It was as if I was in a twisted version of a fear landscape that I couldn't escape from."

"But now you're here, with me. I'm not going anywhere, I promise. That situation from your dream, it won't happen in reality. I won't let that happen. We'll stop them before anything bad happens."

I kiss the back of her head while she presses the side of her face to my chest to listen to my heart beat. I know that's what she needs to calm down further. I wish there was more that I could do right now, but I can't.

While I'm holding her, my thoughts wander off to my own nightmare that I woke up from earlier tonight. It's the first I've had since I share my bed with Tris. Some of its content overlaps with hers. Our fears are becoming alike in the face of the looming war.

When Tris' breathing is back to normal, I lay back down and take her with me.

"Try to sleep again, Tris. I'll fight the nightmares off with my bare hands if I need to," I whisper.

She chuckles sadly. "Thank you, that would be great."

And some time later, she finds back into sleep, and I follow her soon.

Tris

I wake up still in the same position that I fell asleep in with Tobias. With my hand over his heart, I think about my dream again. It felt so threatening, so real. Apparently, I carry more fears around with me regarding the war than I'm consciously aware of.

And then there's Tobias. We've become so much closer during those last two days that I wonder if he'd be showing up in my fear landscape again in another context than he used to if I went in there these days: He's become so important to me that the thought of losing him physically hurts me.