Chapter 12

— Tobias

"Just take the pills, Tris," I sigh, already being late this morning. She rolls over in bed, now facing away from where I stand.
She had a rough night last night. Today is two weeks since she left the hospital, and four days into halving her dose of oxycodone every morning.
She doesn't sleep and she is in a lot of pain. She paced until three this morning, wanting to be alone every time I checked on her.
She hasn't paced since she was pregnant with Thomas. Her first time being home from the hospital so many years ago she paced just about every night.
She hasn't told me that she is in pain, but I know her, and I know that she is hurting.

It hurts me to see her like this again.
But this isn't about me; it's about her.

"Tris," I plead, sitting down next to her on the bed. "You're going to have to come down to the main building with Tom and I if you don't take these."

"Leave me alone." She mumbles with her face in the pillow.
"I will if you take these."
"Go away."
"I will once you swallow them."
"Stop Tobias!"
"Tris, you have to take them."
"No."

I sigh, resting my hand on her arm as I hear Thomas running around the living room.

I rub small circles on her forearm, giving her a minute to breathe. She pushes my hand away, causing my heart to throb.

I know this isn't her right now. I know she didn't choose this, and she really can't control her emotions or actions from the fading addiction, but it's hard.
This is the woman I love, and deep down I know she loves me the same, but right now all of her thoughts are clouded until she gets this medicine in her.
This is the medicine she refuses to take.

I look at my watch, seeing I have about a half hour until I need to leave.
The tablet dissolves quickly, the doctor said, so I don't need to worry about her vomiting it up as long as she keeps it down fifteen minutes after she takes it.

"I really need you to take this, Tris." I harden my voice. She scoffs, not moving.

"Are you going to start talking down to me, just like everyone else does? Wow, you haven't done that to me since I was sixteen, Four."

"I don't want to, but you need to take this." I defend myself.

"You know I love you," I continue. "I'm only doing this because your doctor asked me too. I'm just doing what the doctor said, because they're the professionals, not us, honey."

"Then why do I feel worse?"

"Because if you quit cold turkey than you would feel even worse than this."

She groans, sitting up and holding out her hand. She clearly had a burst of confidence, but I won't let it go to waist. I set the pills in her hand and she takes them, accepting the glass of water before laying back down.

"I love you too," she mumbles and I kiss the side of her head. When I leave, I leave the bedroom door open so I can hear her if she moves or needs me.

Alright, I just need to get Tom's shoes on, grab the keys and some breakfast. Simple enough.

"Hey Thomas?" I call, knowing he was just running around a second ago but now is gone. I hear him giggling down the hallway, so I go from our bedroom to the end of the hallway, only to see my son who was dressed butt naked giggling outside his bedroom door.

"What did you do with your clothes?" I can't help but laugh at the sight and he takes off running and slipping past me to the living room.

I shake my head going into his bedroom to grab the clothes he was wearing before chasing and catching him.

"You can't leave the house naked, Tom!" I laugh as he does another lap around the couch, clearly living in his toddler glory. I catch him on his third lap, throwing him over my shoulder as he continues to giggle. I eventually get all of his clothes back on his body along with his shoes. I throw some food in my bag along with what I need for work before I head to check on Tris.
I'm opening my mouth to ask her if she wants Indy to come with me or stay with her when I see that she is fast asleep with Indy's head on her stomach. I lightly smile before turning away and getting ready to leave.

"Hey, that stays on, mister," I shake my head when I see Tom trying to get his shirt over his head. He giggles but obeys, putting his arm back in the hole. We head out, locking the door behind us as we both head to the main building. As for me, I'm going to work. As for Tom, he is basically going to a playground.

He loves coming to work with me. To him it's basically getting to hang out with all of our family-friends and be spoiled by them all day. He's been coming with me much more frequently lately because I don't want to leave Tris to deal with him. She already has so much to take care of with just herself lately, I don't even like leaving the house without someone there knowing she's okay.

Usually she or I do schedule to have someone come over, wether it be her parents or my mom, or even just a friend to keep her company during the day. She's really struggling to get her stamina back, and even just the other day she went to the grocery store with Chris and was exhausted by it.
It's hard to slow down a girl who just wants to go, go, go.
It was one thing for her to have to slow down while in the hospital. It is a whole other story trying to slow down when all she wants to do is get back to the life she had before she tripped, fell, then re-injured herself and was given oxycodone for the pain.

I decided to take a half day at work because of how rough of a night Tris had last night. I don't feel comfortable leaving her home alone for that long, and everyone seemed unable to check in on her this afternoon.
Will and Chris have to take Layla to her first doctors appointment, Shauna and Zeke have yet another stomach bug raging in their home, Marlene had to go out to the fence this week and Uriah is watching their new puppy, and the list just goes on.

I settle in and finish my work quickly: checking emails, responding to some, then continuing my project on connecting all of the medical files in each faction.
If Tris's Dauntless medical files matched the medical files Erudite made for her, she wouldn't have ended up in this mess. She would have had surgery to fix her leg yet again, would have recovered, and not have had as many problems as she currently has.

"Hey!" Amar taps on the door and Tom runs up to him. He throws him up in the air, causing him to giggle nonstop.
Amar has been juggling all of Tris's duties as head ambassador since she had been gone, so he hasn't been able to see her much. Everyone is grateful how willing he is to step up, and he is skilled in all the duties so it's not like he needs to be trained.

"How are ya, One? Keeping mom and dad busy I assume? Being a pain in the ass? Oh, that's my boy!" He holds Thomas upside down, my boy shrieking in laughter.
He eventually sets him down and Tom returns to playing with his toy cars in the hallway.

Amar, like I expected, hows serious and concerned when he asks about Tris.
"She had a rough night. She's pacing again, so I know it's bad." Most times I don't brush more than the surface when explaining Tris's current scenario, but I don't have to be brief with Amar. He has known Tris since the beginning, and he knows her pacing always has been a bad sign. "She doesn't want to be comforted when she's pacing, and she really doesn't want to talk to me once she gets in these mood swings. They say it's a side effect of lowering her oxycodone dose, and it can change day by day, so I guess it's just how it's going to be." I shrug and he nods.

"I mean, she always seems fine before bed," I continue. "She'll lay with me, talk to me, and seem almost normal, but I know most of her pain also is at night so at some point she ends up awake and pacing. I don't know if it's the pain that brings on the mood swing, or vise versa, but it's not her fault. I just wish there was more I could do."

"You're doing all you can, Four. She knows she's lucky to have you, I'm sure of it."

"I'm taking a half day today to go be with her. No one is stopping by to be with her and after last night I just don't want her home alone. This morning she refused her meds for a solid hour and I was almost late, but I'm lucky Josh completely understands."

"Actually, Tori and George were going to see her today."

"Tori's home?" My jaw drops. I know after her injuries healed she left the city, but I didn't know she ever planned on returning.

"Yep," he chuckles. "George got a message on a blocked number just yesterday actually, and we were totally convinced it was some hack or scam of some sort so we didn't get our hopes up. She actually was really eager to see Tris, so that's where they planned on going. Don't not take your half day though! She really couldn't wait to see you either."

"Where did she go? How is she?!" I am in awe, wanting to know everything she has done these past years.

"She ended up traveling West, but I can't tell the stories like she does. She ran into so many cities and just had such an experience. I can't even begin to tell you because I know I won't do a justice," he chuckles.

"Does she have pictures?"

"Boy does she," he shakes his head. "They're somethin' else, I'll tell you. The things she got to see, how beautiful the Earth is, goddamn did she get an experience of a lifetime."

I smile, suddenly more eager for the next hour to be over.
Amar leaves within a few minutes, both of us having a lot of work to get done.
The hour goes fast as I organize the lists of names each faction has sent me for Dauntless. Each time a person has been treated in a different faction's medical center, a new file has been created. It's actually pretty dangerous if you do think about it. Like, someone who has a drug allergy from Candor seems as if there is no allergy in Amity, and vise versa. I've been able to get a person from each faction, some leaders, others representatives, to receive and compile names of people from their faction and send names of people treated in their faction to other factions.
Currently, all of those names have been sent, and now we are combining the data. I am doing the Dauntless names, and each person from the other factions is doing their faction's list.

It's time consuming, but it's insane that there hasn't been serious incidences like Tris's because of this lack of unity in information.

Once it is one in the afternoon, Tom picks up his cars and stashes them in the bin in the corner upon my request, and I repack my bag so we can head home.

"Let's go see mama." I pick him up, deciding that we will get there faster if I carry him.
It also is nearing his nap time, so I hope he can keep it together and not throw a tantrum when he meets Tori.

It's strange to think that he and Tori have never met, him being three years old now. She has been gone for some time now though, so I mean it does make sense, but it is confusing to imagine.
Tori has had such an impact in both Tris and I's lives, and yet she hasn't met our son who is three years old.
I laugh to myself, opening the front door to be met with the familiar face of my old friend.