Chapter 52 - Shopping and Exciting

— Tris

"You don't wish you did this for your wedding?" Christina flips through the book of fabrics, plopping down on her couch next to me.

"Not even in the slightest," I laugh. She makes a face at me and then returns to the book.

"When's the wedding?" I ask as she pulls out a blue piece of fabric.

"We aren't sure yet. Definitely not before One is here though," she nods to my stomach. "Still can't believe I lost money on that bet, ugh I was sure you were having a girl." She shakes her head and I laugh.

Of course our friends took bets on what the gender of my kid would be.
Why wouldn't they? I shake my head laughing to myself.

"We have to plan your baby shower!" She closes the book, keeping out the blue fabric she had pulled earlier.

"Chris I don't know—"

"You said you don't even have a crib yet, now you're going to try and get away without having a baby shower? Oh come on, Shauna and I will do the hard work, all you have to do is show up and eat cake and open presents! Hell, I'm sure Cara will help us plan it too, and it'll just be us girls. It'll be fun!" She whines at the end trying to persuade me, putting her head on my shoulder and giving me puppy eyes.

"I don't like you," I try my hardest not to smile when I look at her, but the look on her face makes me break and I start laughing.

"You're stuck with me though," she sings and kisses my cheek before she stands from the couch and goes into her kitchen.

"When does initiation start?" I ask. Things got all messed up with the attack, so I'm sure that the weeks have changed from Rose being in the last class.

"Oh, not for a while now I think. The way it falls, I should be good until," she pauses thinking. "Probably the Fall will be the next group. The rotation of it is weird, and I hate training in the summer. God it gets so hot in that training room." She says and I nod in agreement.

"That reminds me," she says sipping her water then speaking again. "When are we training again?"

"Tomorrow morning?" I ask and she nods in agreement. "Sounds good."

"When are they hiring all those ambassadors?" She asks standing in the doorframe of her kitchen still. She has to leave for work soon, so I assume she's getting ready while we chat.

"The end of the week. I see Rose applied."

"God, she never tells me anything. She did?"

"Yeah, and she'll probably get a job too. There wasn't too many applications, and they're hiring at least five new ambassadors that now I'm going to have to train," I groan just at the idea of the work cut out for me these next few months.

It will be nice to work with Rose though.
Her and I have been growing closer, and she seems to be coming around to me compared to when I first met her during the Faction War.

My phone buzzes and I look down to see a text from Tobias.
-Still at Chris's? If you want let's go shopping for One later and look at cribs.-

"I gotta go to work soon," Chris groans while looking at the clock.

"I have to go too. Four and I are going to look at cribs in a little bit."

"Send me pics!" She says as I stand from the couch holding my stomach.

"Won't you be working?" I raise my eyebrows at her skeptically.

"Shh." She presses her finger to her lips and pulls me into a hug laughing.

"Pick a good one, and I'll see you." She bids me goodbye and I walk down the hall to my and Tobias's apartment.

"Hey," he says when I enter, Indy greeting me as Tobias smiles from the kitchen.

"Hi," I sit down on the couch holding my round stomach.

"Ready to go?" He sits down next to me.

"Can I sit for a minute?" I look at him and he smiles running his hand over my bump.

Today is my last day of my second trimester.
I can't believe tomorrow is thirty weeks already.
He's going to be here before we know it.

"Did you feel that?" He asks looking down at my bump.

"You can feel it with your hands?" I ask him.
I thought the movements were indigestion.

"He's moving!" Tobias laughs pressing his lips to my stomach as I feel the bubbles again.

I'm still convinced it may be indigestion until I feel a small thump.

"Oh my god," I breathe holding my stomach.

"Are you okay?" Tobias panics and I laugh.

"Yeah."

"He's going to be here so soon, Tobias." I say looking at his glowing face as he coos to my stomach.

"I know," I see the reality sink into him as his eyes change.

"Let's get ready then," he kisses my stomach one last time before standing and helping me stand. "Amar let me borrow his keys so we don't have to worry about trying to get the stuff back here on the train.

"That's good." I smile. I was wondering how one would do this sort of thing back when the trains didn't stop and Dauntless had no kind of store to buy things for a newborn.

Thank god times have changed.

We head out of our apartment and find Amar's parked truck just outside of the compound. Tobias heard about a baby and maternity store between here and Erudite, along with a multi-purpose store located just before Erudite. We decided that between those two stores, we should be able to find what we are looking for.

Tobias drives towards Erudite and stops at the baby store first. Helping me out of the truck, he holds the door into the store for me as we enter. The store is filled with so many things for a baby that I find myself overwhelmed and hold onto Tobias's hand.

I'm not ready for all of this.
I'm not ready to be a mom.

Tobias notices my discomfort and grips my hand back. We stroll around for a while among the, seeming millions, of highchairs, strollers and baby carriers.

"How much of all of this stuff are we going to need?" I feel like I am whispering when I talk.

He laughs and kisses my head as we continue walking.

"I love this dark oak," Tobias comments, pointing at a highchair and I nod.

"It's nice. How much?" I try and find a tag, but Tobias insists that we keep walking around and come back.

"Is he still kicking?" His hand finds my waist and I shake my head no.

I run my hand along a crib in the same dark oak color of the highchair when we enter the section of the store with cribs.

"I really like this one. And look, there's so much that matches!" I notice a whole set of the same highchair from before, along with a rocking chair, a changing table, and a dresser all in the same tone.

Shit, I forgot about all the other things we need other than a crib.
Changing table.
Rocking chair.
Highchair.
Bottles.
Diapers.
Blankets
And there's more than that.

My head spins as Tobias also runs his hand over the crib.

"Why don't we go to the other store and then come back? Then we will know what we've seen at both places."

"I really like this set," I say but nod at his idea. He agrees as we leave the store and get into the truck to go to the other place.

Flickering red lights are on the outside of the other store, a red bullseye the only light consistently glowing as dusk begins to fall over the sky.

"That's an odd logo," I comment and Tobias chuckles in agreement.

"Zeke took me in here once. Said it use to be a popular place back before the factions, but ended up dumped once the war began. They've cleaned it up nice, despite the outside, since," The doors open by themselves, creaking as we enter.

We stroll through the store, both men's and women's clothing in the front along with various celebration cards and kids toys.

"There's a grocery store in the back too," Tobias laughs. "They take the whole 'multi-purpose' title seriously when they say it."

Christina and I would get lost in here.
I wonder if she's ever been here...

"It looks like there's baby stuff over that way," I notice a sign hanging from the ceiling and we follow it.

The store is massive, and I wonder if the sign was lying to us as we continue to walk in the direction.

"Chris said she's throwing me a baby shower no matter if I like it or not," I laugh making small talk.

"That'll be fun," He says.

This store, even though massively larger, doesn't overwhelm me as much as the other one. The section of baby needs is only a small part of the store and the majority of it is strollers and clothing.

"Tris, we have to get this." Tobias finds a little green shirt that says -My big brother has four paws- and I laugh nodding in agreement.

I find myself relaxing at this store looking through all the little shoes and outfits with Tobias.

"If they're throwing you a baby shower, we should wait and see what gifts you get before we go nuts buying." He says as we look at baby carriers and strollers.

"Would we even need a stroller? It's not like we go on walks where he couldn't be carried." I think about the idea and Tobias says we'll see if someone gets one for us as a gift before we think about it more.

We look at the cribs and sets of furniture at the store and both agree that we like the one at the baby store more than anything here.

We get in line at the checkout to pay for the little things we bought for our baby before getting in the truck and returning to the other store.

I don't get overwhelmed with stress when we enter the store again this time. Tobias goes up to the counter and tells them the specific set that we picked out before and the person behind the desk says they will have an employee help bring it out to the truck.

Together Tobias and the store worker load the boxes onto two wheeling carts and get the five boxes into the bed of the truck.

"Can got text Zeke and/or Amar and ask them to help us unload this in twenty minutes when we get back?"

"Okay." I pick up my phone and scroll through my contacts.

Hey, Ian would probably would love to help too. I think to myself.

My heart sinks as I try to push my thought aside and put Zeke and Amar in a group text and ask them for help.

Ian can't help.
He will never get to meet my son.

"All this stuff is really alarming," Tobias talks, breaking my thoughts. "It's like it's almost real now. He's coming, and we have the stuff for him to come."

"We still need so much more than this, Tobias," my head starts swimming again.

"Yeah," he takes my one hand in his, the other still driving. "But we have more than we had before. We are more ready today than we were yesterday, and tomorrow we will be more ready than we are today."

How can he be so calm while I'm so anxious about the same thing?

"Two months from tomorrow is my due date."

"I can't believe it's April already."

"I have to meet the midwife who's going to come to the house."

"I have to figure out how to put all this stuff together."

"It's like we're going to blink and he's going to already be here," he rubs his thumb on my hand.

He's having anxiety about it too.

"It's exciting," he says quietly. "I can't wait to hold him in our arms." He pulls into the parking lot outside of Dauntless and moves his hand to my bump. The baby moves a little, squishing my intestines, like he does every time, in the process.

"It's exciting." I repeat, our eyes locking.