Chapter 74 - Dumb

—Tris

"You alright?" Amar sits across from my desk, concern on his face.

I know I look like hell.
I didn't bother trying to hide it either.

These past few weeks I've been working from home, but today I was forced to come in to hold our monthly meeting. Of course, it only lasted fifteen minutes, ten of which were spent of the Jacobs messing around trying to smack the other in the face.

"Christina leaving you alone?" He asks when I don't answer.

"I haven't been talking to her again. We stopped training two weeks ago, she tried to pick a fight with me then, and we haven't talked since. I mean, she's tried to reach out, but I'm done. I have to deal with Tom missing Four and my own job and sanity. I can't be dealing with her and her creation of drama upon me right now."

"Good for you." He nods his head but I shake mine.

"She's my best friend," I run my hand through my hair. "She's gotten angry or jealous at me before, but not this aggression she's been doing the past few months. I know Christina, and this isn't her."

He nods apologetically, thoughtfully.

"Tom has finally begun to sleep through the night again, but now I'm keeping myself awake."

I've started remembering things about my past again.

Memories of training, sparing and sleeping in rickety bunks flood my mind each night I fall asleep.

I'm finally remembering eighteen year old me, and it's awful.

"Do you remember, you know, the brandings?" He motions to the visible genetically pure Bureau lines burned into my wrist.

"They were when I was seventeen, I think, I don't remember, but I recall back to eighteen now. I just barely can keep it all straight, and I can't find an order."

"Write it down." He says simply.

I toss the idea around in my mind when he speaks again.

"Do it in pencil, in a notebook you can rip pages out of. Then you can erase, add and change the order as much as you want."

And I do that.

Every time I lay awake, either from Thomas being upset, or from my own mind denying sleep, I write what I remember as detailed as I can.

I hear my phone buzz across the table and finish the sentence I am writing before shaking my cramping hand in preparation to grab the phone.

Looking up at the clock, I notice it's already three in the morning.

It's been just three days, and I've already blown through two notebooks of memories.

I notice the text us from Will, and he's asking if he can come over.

At three in the morning?

I say yes, knowing that through all of this he has never not been a friend to me.
He can't control Christina.

I compile the papers I've written tonight and clip them into the binder I have on the kitchen table. I close the cover just as a soft tap is on the door before the door answers.

I'm grateful he remembered my conversation about Tom barely staying asleep and us quiet.

Or maybe he's just a smart person who will be a natural father.

"What's up?"

"Sorry to do this at three in the morning—"

"I was already up." I cut him off quickly, not wanting him to feel guilty.

"She got mad, I don't even know what for, something about me never being around, and then kicked me out of my own house saying she wants a divorce." He sits down at the kitchen table, his elbows on the table using his hands to hold his head.

I shake my head in disbelief.
That's extreme— even for Christina.

"She started freaking when I left, apologizing that she didn't mean it, but I just need to clear my head. I can't be around her right now."

I'm quiet for a second, wondering if he's going to speak again or has more to say of the story.

"What did she mean by not around?" I ask.

"I've been putting more hours in at the control room, you know, before the baby comes. She understood at one point, but I guess now it's my fault that I care," He sighs in irritation.

"It could be the pregnancy," I can see him tossing ideas in his mind. "But she was being a bitch to you way before she was pregnant."

"When did she add you to her attacking?"

"Since she was two months, honestly. It's not attacking physically like she did to you, but just verbally she fucking hates me. I don't even know what I'm doing!" His voice raises slightly closer to a normal volume and I hear Tom in the other room.

"Could she be going into early labor, do you think?" I ask.
Hormones can surge before birth, but she's only seven months.
But with all the stress she's been putting on herself with this unnecessary tension... who knows.

"Mommy...?" I hear Tom's small feet and I sigh, telling will to give me a minute.

"Oh baby, come here," I pick him up, knowing he won't go back to bed, especially hearing me talk to Will out here.

Tears are streaming down my son's face, but I'm glad that he doesn't break into a full tantrum for the moment.

I set him on my lap and continue my conversation with Will, soothing my son by rubbing his back.

"I don't think she's going into labor," he responds to my earlier question. "I just..." He contemplates his words again. "This isn't her, and you know that."

I nod my head.

I've been saying the same thing for months.

"You can stay here if you want," I offer but hope he declines.
I might be not speaking to Chris, but if she is possibly going into labor, I don't want her to be alone.

"That's alright, I just need to get away for a little while. Not just for my own sanity, but to prove a point to her, you know?"

I nod, Tom's head lying heavy on my chest. He's still awake, clearly fighting sleep from the slow blinking of his eyes.

We're quiet for a little while, just quiet. It's not awkward, not angry, but normal.

It's four in the morning, his wife is mad, my husband is away, and my son is upset.

Both of our lives may seem to be crumbling, but this silence, thus quiet may be what's keeping us both sane.

"Four still in Candor?" His voice makes me jump from the quiet, despite it not being loud at all.

"Yeah," I nod, not sure how much of what Tobias has told me is allowed to be said to the public.

Things are bad.
Tobias might have tried to reassure me, saying things weren't too bad, but I can read between the lines, and what he was saying was bad.

The Bureau wants Peter for his actions. They say they want to execute him themselves, give him their own torture, but Chicago wants the same.
Chicago wants him dead: behind their own gunshot.
Give Peter to the Bureau, we might avoid a war, but Peter might live and this all could happen again.
Kill Peter ourselves and not only will the Bureau be more pissed, but there might never be a way to avoid war after that. But at least we will know he is dead because of his actions for sure.

Tobias and I, shockingly, are on the same side of the argument: give Peter to the Bureau.
It's the safest option.
However, Chicago doesn't care about save.
Chicago cares about revenge.

We sit and catch up for a little while, and eventually Thomas falls asleep. Will decides to go home when I decide to put Thomas back to bed, and I tell him to text me if he never needs anything.
I feel bad he's stuck in this situation.

I also worry that Chris might come find me and Tom if she discovers Will was here when he left.
I make sure that I lock the door before I go to bed, my eyes shutting one moment and opening the next morning as if I never slept.

"Mommy!" I shake to see my three year old attempting to crawl up onto my bed.

I should reprimand him for leaving his room.
We do try to enforce him not leaving until we come and get him in the morning, just so he knows he can't get up and play whenever he wants.

However, I decide against it when I look at notice it's already nine in the morning.

We never sleep past seven in this house.
He's probably been laying there alone for hours.

"Hey there, my boy." I wrap him in my arms, causing him to shriek laughing when I jostle his already bedhead hair.

I look at my phone and sigh upon noticing that I missed a call from Tobias this morning.
He left a message after calling twice;
-You must be sleeping. Figured I had a fifty/fifty chance of catching you. If you're up before eight, call me back, but I've got a big meeting at eight thirty— they're making the decision today, I think. Check the news if you're getting this later, I guess. I love you.-

I pick Tom up and leave the bedroom, Indy following us closely, probably also wanting his breakfast.

I put some dry cereal in a bowl for Tom before putting kibble in Indy's bowl. They both eat while I grab my coffee and turn on the news. A few titles flash by, but nothing important catches my eye.

I sigh, returning to the kitchen to see my son crushing the cereal under his fist instead of eating it.

"Thomas, don't do that."  I reprimand. He obliges by making a guilty face and putting a piece in his mouth.

I toast a bagel and sit down next to Tom.

"We have to give you and Indy a bath today," I try and get my mind off of my lingering anxiety.

"Indy get bath time?" His eyes grow wide when he turns to me smiling.

"He's smelly, and so are you!" I tickle his stomach when I stand, putting my plate in the sink to wash later.

"Who's first?" I look between my boys.

I decided on letting Tom help with Indy first, knowing if we did Indy second Tom would get all wet again and basically have to start over.

Thomas giggles the whole time, finding the image of Indy in the bathtub absolutely hilarious. He screeches when Indy shakes, soap suds flying everywhere.

"Indy!" I laugh, wiping some suds from my face. The dog innocently licks my hand, clearly not understanding what he did to make Tom and I laugh.

Once Indy is finished I quickly give Tom a bath, only getting really upset at him once when he splashed me in the face making my hair very wet. I lift him out of the tub when he is finished and start to dress him when I hear my phone buzz in the other room.

"Let's see who that is," I say, pulling his shirt over his head and leaving the bathroom. I hear Tom's feet run to the living room, probably to grab a truck or some toy when I see the text from Shauna.

-Have you dropped off the planet or something? Haven't seen you in days! Come for dinner tonight at five, we miss you!-

I respond okay and look over to see Tom jumping on the couch.

"Get down, young man!" I scold, my voice slightly loud. "You know better than that." I shake my head.

"Sorry Mommy," He says when I kneel down to his level.

"It's okay, baby. I just don't want you getting hurt." I kiss his forehead, brushing back his wet blonde hair with my hand.

He goes on with his life, driving the car Evelyn gave him all around the living room.

The bath time was a good mental break.
Now he's happy, and it got my mind off of the pile of papers in the guest bedroom that contain my haunting memories.

I go into the bedroom and sit on the bed; the same bed I gave birth to my son on. All around are the pieces of paper I ripped out of various notebooks in some kind of organized piles.

Sixteen has one memory: being shot in the abdomen by David while trying to release the memory serum. I feel there is much more there than that, but so far that's all I have.

Seventeen has possibly two memories, both of which I am unsure about. First is the brandings burned into my body which I do not remember receiving. The second is the slice that goes down my jawline from my ear— a scar I received for loosing my first fight. That was our instruction; if we were to win a spar, we were required to slice the opponent we beat. Scar their body in some way so that they will always know that they lost.

Somewhere between seventeen and eighteen I believe I first learned sparring with staffs.

Eighteen is filled with me giving many people scars. I remember a lot of tension with being eighteen, but I can't recall what the tension was about. Eighteen was busy, I don't know what it was busy with, but I know a lot happened compared to years past.

Sometime during nineteen I was rescued. Maybe I wasn't nineteen yet, but I don't know for sure.

Someday I will completely remember everything ever since writing all of this down I've already felt like I know more about myself; about my past.

Its absolutely mentally draining to write down my history and upheave all these memories.

But it's worth it.

People can know who I am, what I've been through, without me needing to speak about my life.

My children, grandchildren, whoever can read about me even when I'm long gone.

I jump when I hear Indy bark. Leaving the papers and shutting the door to the bedroom, I see Thomas laughing with glee playing with Indy. The dog pulls Thomas across the room with the rope he clings to. I can't help but laugh at the sight of my son sliding across the floor on his butt, and I quickly pull out my phone to catch a video for Tobias.

The rest of the day goes smoothly. Thomas falls asleep for a few hours while I sort more memory papers and take a shower. Before I know it it is nearing five and I clip on Indy's harness and take Tom's hand to go to Zeke and Shauna's.

"Hey!" We let ourselves in, Thomas letting go of my hand to run up to Zeke. I keep Indy on his leash, making sure the twins aren't on the ground.
I'm not worried about him hurting either of the twins... I know he wouldn't. He loves all people, and he is great with babies. I just don't want him unsupervised with any babies.

"Well hello there, Erin!" I exclaim, taking Shauna's daughter from her. She's much less fussy than her brother, Jake, and gurgles when I talk to her.

As if on cue, Jake starts screaming in the other room, interrupting my conversation with Shauna.

I sigh, bouncing Erin back and forth as Zeke spins Thomas around, Indy running after both of them.

I needed this.
Nothing makes me relax more than a happy baby in my arms and my son having a good time.
Especially with the baby fever I've been having lately...

We all sit at the table and eat the chicken dish Zeke and I put together. Shauna intended to cook, being the much better cook out of her and Zeke, but Jake kept her attention, so I was glad to step in.

"I can't believe they haven't made a decision yet," Shauna makes small talk. "About Peter I mean. I keep checking my phone all day for news. Have you heard anything from Four?" She looks to me.

I shake my head no, my mouth full with food.

"He told me they were deciding today, and left a message this morning about the meeting being early today. I haven't heard from him since, but he's suppose to be heading out to the wall and Amity as soon as a decision is made."

"What's out there?" Zeke asks referring to Amity, I assume.

"Bureau soldiers that need to be befriended, I assume."

"Four is suppose to befriend people?" Shauna gives a skeptical face that makes Zeke choke on his food and me laugh.

I pick up my phone, opening my texts with Tobias. I texted him earlier asking how everything was but he has yet to respond.
I sigh, placing my phone back on the table.

My heart aches for him.
I miss him.
I hope he's okay, wherever he is, whatever he's doing.

"How hard could it be? The guy has caused enough trouble. Just click the bullet into the chamber and shoot him, it's not complicated, even I could do it!" Zeke states. I shiver from his bluntness referring to shoot someone.

It's not that simple.

"We really don't need the Bureau as enemies right now," I cough loosing my voice at the end.

"I mean, either way he's being executed, according to the Bureau at least. It shouldn't matter that much—"

"Which is why we, Chicago should be able to execute him. It doesn't matter, and if the Bureau watches us kill him, why should they care?"

I silently shrug, shaking my head.

It's dumb.
All of this is dumb.

One asshole possibly starting a civil war and putting so many lives at risk— it's dumb.

+    +    +

Tom is exhausted by the time we leave Zeke and Shauna's. I carry him home and he falls asleep on my shoulder as Indy leads us home.

I sigh, entering the apartment and locking the door behind us.

I miss Tobias.
He hasn't called in two days, and I missed his call this morning.

I miss his face.
His voice.
His smile.

I miss him.

"Mommy?" Tom slowly wakes when I lay him down.

"Shh, good night Thomas." I tuck him in and kiss his forehead. "I love you."

I close the door to his bedroom and move towards my bedroom. Unlike every other night, Indy isn't sitting outside of the door. I look over to see him passed out in his bed already.

Guess it was a big day for everyone.

I leave my bedroom door cracked in case Indy decides to come in and change into my pajamas.

For the first time in a while, I sleep soundly.