Chapter 44 - Recipe for Disaster

— Tobias

I wake when I feel the bed shift. Blinking a few times, I begin to recall my surroundings as I sit up.

I hear Tris in the bathroom attached to our bedroom and suddenly I remember how Christina told me she had been throwing up a lot lately from the stress of the attack.

I stand, stretching my left arm and groaning from the pain in my right as I take a few steps.

"Tris?" I call, tapping my knuckle on the open door. "You alright, babe?"

She doesn't answer as she hurls over the toilet and I bend down next to her, rubbing a knot in her lower back.

She calms down after a minute or so and flushes the toilet. I wipe a stray tear from her cheek as she looks up at me, her back pressed against the wall.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Help me up." She holds out her arms and pulls herself up with just my left arm.

I pull her to my chest and she leans on me, her one hand on my chest while the other wraps around my left, uninjured side. "I've missed you," she mumbles into my shirt.

"I love you, Beatrice. I can't wait to call you mine for the rest of my life." I say and she looks up at me.

I move to press my lips to hers, but all I find is her fingers. 

"You don't want to do that," she chuckles, her voice small. "Let me brush my teeth first."

+    +    +

"Are you sure you didn't want something more, well, Dauntless?" Josh asks sliding the papers across the table.

"No," Tris shortly responds, taking the pen from me once I finish struggling to write, with my non-dominate hand, my name and placing my signature on the line. I assume she does the same, for she clicks the pen and slides the papers back across the table.

I turn to her and take her hand in mine, slipping the simple gold band with a single diamond in the center that she chose on her ring finger.

I can see the happiness in her eyes: a sign that the smile on her face is not a lie. She takes hand in hers, slipping on my choice of a simple gold band as well.

"There you have it, then. Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Eaton!" Josh pronounces and I press my lips to Tris's, my hand cupping her cheek.

"As your leader, here's this," he hands us a copy of the marriage papers in a folder. "And as your boss and friend," he pulls a small gift bag from under the desk. "Here's this."

We thank Josh for the gift and head on our way back to our apartment.

I assume Tris has no clue that Christina asked me to leave it unlocked when we left to go down to the main building this morning.

She holds onto my left hand somewhat tightly, and I notice her awkward gait as she walks.

I know better than to ask.
Of course her leg got re-injured somehow in the attack.

"I'm not sure when to take back Indy from Zeke," I make small talk as we walk. "I know it will be hard for me to handle him with one hand, so I'm going to let you make the call, because I don't want him jumping up on you with your bruise and leg either."

"He's not that hyper anymore," she shows ponder as I see her bite her cheek. "But I don't know."

I planned to open the door for her when we reached our apartment, but I forgot to compensate for currently having only one arm and did not release her hand soon enough.

There was no hiding and jumping out and yelling, and no over the top messes that we would be forced to clean up later.
Thank you for listening, Christina. There's a first time for everything.

"You're kidding," I hear my wife's voice among the talking of others and I laugh, wrapping my arm protectively around her waist.

"There's the newly weds!" Zeke says and everyone starts clapping.

I smile, scanning our apartment and the faces that fill it. I notice my mother, along with Tris's parents, and Caleb and Cara as well. Bea has already found her way over to Tris, who has knelt down to greet her niece.

I begin greeting our friends, accepting their congratulations, until I hear my wife over the crowd.

"George!"

I turn, and there he is next to Amar in a wheelchair.

How did I not see him there?

"When did you get home?" I go over and join Tris and shake George's hand in greeting.

"You didn't think I'd miss you two getting married, did you?" He says, obviously trying to act like his old self, but it is clear he hasn't slept and is in pain.

I look over and see Tris wrapped in Christina's arms, then Cara. The three of them carry a conversation for a while until I am blocked from my thoughts when Tris's father comes over and shakes my hand.

"Welcome to the family, son." His handshake turns into an embrace; a weird gesture for an Abnegation man, especially Andrew Prior.

"Thank you," I smile at him and I notice Bea making her way over towards me.

"Uncle T!" She exclaims, wrapping her small arms around my leg.

"Hey there, kid," I chuckle, my attention turning from Mr. Prior to the five year old with a blonde fishtail braid and her blue-grey eyes staring up at me.

"What happened?" She points to my arm in its sling, releasing my leg.

"I hurt it," I put the concept lightly.

"I sorry," she smiles a toothy grin that I can't help but smile at.

I look over and see Tris talking to Shauna, Christina's sister, Rose and Marlene, and her eyes find mine and light up when she smiles at me.

God, I love her.
How did I get so damn lucky?

Eventually Bea shows me the snacks set out in my kitchen and gets preoccupied by the food. I take the time to go around and look at some of the decorations our friends put together.

There's pictures everywhere of Tris and I; pictures I didn't even knew existed. I get a chance to look at a few, smiling when I find one from just two days ago when I returned home to Dauntless. I physically feel the memory while staring at the picture: my hand on her lower waist, her hands on my cheeks, her lips pressed to mine.

"Hey," I feel my wife lean her face on my good arm, looking over to see the frame in my hand.

"Christina has proven herself to become a professional stalker-photographer," I feel her smile on my arm, and I can hear it in her voice. "When I was staying at my parents', some of these were in a bag that Shauna brought, but clearly there was more where those came from."

"I guess we have to be careful of our display of affection in public then, huh?" I turn to face her.

"Well..." she smirks, her face almost glowing.

I peck her lips quickly, teasingly. She makes a face at me when we separate and I laugh.

I take a moment to scan the room again, noticing my mother talking to Bea and Natalie, and Cara introducing Shauna to Caleb.

"It really is like all of our families have collided," Tris comments, noticing my gaze across the room. "All our friends, my family, and your mom, all in the same place."

"Sounds like a recipe for disaster," I scoff laughing.

"But somehow it's not," she laughs with me.

"It's not." I repeat, matter-of-factly. "It's shocking that it's not."

"Enjoy it while it lasts, Mr. Eaton," my wife says, poking me in the uninjured arm playfully.

"As long as you're here, Mrs. Eaton," I turn to her, my eyes growing lost in hers. "I will enjoy every second."