Chapter 27 - Strong and Broken

—Tobias

I've been beginning to learn that she moves in phases.

Some weeks she will be pacing nonstop.
Some weeks she will hide under the couch in paranoia.
Other times she's close to normal.

No matter what week it is, I love her.

During those good weeks she tends to tell me what has been going on the past few weeks when she was upset.

It's usually her gaining a memory of some sort, and her PTSD is so severe from it that she cannot manage to focus on anything.

I'm constantly torn when she shares the memories she gets back.

Like, I hate hearing them. I hate knowing that she went through all of this suffering and her and I can't change that it happened. I hate that I couldn't have saved her earlier than I did.

But at the same time I'm dying inside to know what's happening with her. I want to know what she's been through. I want to understand what's happened.

There now is proof in her mind that there was a lot more to her prisoning than what we found on cameras of her trapped in a cell with her family surrounding her.

Derrick had been in charge of her before David was. He was training her for something; her and a large amount of females.

She keeps getting memories of a training room other than the one here at Dauntless. She tells me how they never used guns, but how fighting was to the extreme and way worse than the "new rules" Eric had come up with for her initiation.

She never explained the worse part of it, and I don't pressure her to. She may not remember, or she may not be able to bring herself to recall it verbally. I will never know unless she chooses to tell me, and that's alright with me.

I know our relationship isn't what it use to be.
I mean, I've changed since she was taken from me.
The odd thing about Tris is how her personality is just beginning to change.

Each time she has a good week or two, she's changing.

When she first arrived home, she was a blank slate.
She wasn't talking, she wasn't smiling or showing emotion, she had nothing.

As time went on and she was healing, she reflected her old sixteen year old self more, but in a slightly more broken, anxious older form.

Now her memories are coming back, and they are important to who she is and her personality.

She's louder, a little more rambunctious in her commenting, and she has a strong sense of sarcasm.

Most of all, she somehow picked up an accenting her lost memories.

.

"Do you wanna take Indy for a walk with me?" I ask. Indy pipes up at the sound of his name and the word 'walk' and he runs up to me in expectation.

"Go find Tris," I bend down to his height. "Go get her."

He barrels off on his mission to find my girlfriend, his nose high in the air knowing exactly where she is.

"Indy!" She whines when the dog finds her. I can only assume her whining means he either woke her up or he is licking her.

Who am I kidding. Probably both.

"I was going to take him for a walk," I enter the bedroom to see my dog half laying on Tris who is laying on her side of the bed. He sits with pride when I come in knowing he completed my task. "Do you want to come?"

"What time is it?" She asks.

"About..." I look towards the clock below the TV in the living room, "Quarter to eight."

"I guess. Just get your dog off of me and give me a few minutes to get my shoes."

"Alright. Come on Indy!" I clap my hands and he comes running out of the bedroom behind me.

I get Indy's harness on and he is basically running circles around the apartment in excitement. When he is quiet for a second, I notice I don't hear Tris moving to get ready.

I head over to the bedroom and peek in to see if she's alright. Her feet are on the floor as she sits with her elbows on her knees and her forehead in her hands.

"Hey," I walk in and sit next to her. "Are you alright?"

She doesn't move as I rub my hand over her back. I can't tell if she's crying but her breaths are steady.

"Talk to me Tris."

"I'm fine." She finally says. "I just hate this. I feel like I can't talk to anyone until I figure out how to get rid of this accent." She says.

She's expressed her irritation to her newly found, what she calls it, her "New York" accent  to me many times.

She's very self conscious about it ever since it randomly started when she was talking one day, and people she's friends with thought it was hilarious.

"I was never even there, in New York I mean. I, well, I think I was never there."

"Do you know how you managed to pick it up?"

"Gun to my throat."

She doesn't need to explain more to me, but she keeps talking.

"It was early on, I think. Before the actual training and the new location and and hands and everything. Only people in charge of us ever had guns, and we were never trained on them, but they had them. They told us to pick up on the accent they were speaking, and within a few days we had to speak that way at the threat of a gun."

I remember reading somewhere how it's uncommon to pick up an accent when you move to a place. Even then, it takes years to pick up on one, but it's never the same as a person who was born and raised with the accent.

That's why it didn't make sense that Tris had a New York accent. She was never there for an extended period of time, and she doesn't remember it at all.

Now, it makes sense.

It was either pick up the accent or die.

She chose to live.

"Well, Indy and I love you no matter how you speak. And all it takes is whoever cares so much about you speaking differently realizing it's not their problem to get over it. And they won't get over it if you're hiding in here trying to find a way to cover it up."

I stand up and put out my hands to help her stand. She takes my help, pushing up with her right leg and standing on both once she is upright. She had already gotten her shoes on before I came to check on her.

Her hand in mine, we head out the door to our apartment. She doesn't take a crutch today, only my hand.

"Visiting week is coming fast." I make small talk.

"Yeah. I meet with Ian tomorrow to start planning, and I think there's an Ambassador meeting this week sometime as well."

"Ian is still broken in the world or organization?" I chuckle.

"Oh my gosh you have no idea. I kept all the files that we got from the week last year in my office just because I knew he would loose them from last spring to this winter!"

"That should make the planning go easier though. Because now you know where everything is."

"I hope so."

I will admit it's hard to get use to her accent when she talks, and I'm around her all day.

I hate that I can't get use to it. The was she pronounces her a's and how they sound like 'aw' and how she's talking a lot faster than she ever did.

It's just hard to get use to.

We loop around the side halls of the compound, staying away from busier areas that distract Indy and make him harder to control on the leash. Plus, we can take our own speed on these quieter parts of the compound, for Tris is sometimes slower and sometimes faster depending on her pain level.

"My next scan on my leg is at the end of the week before my PT appointment." She comments out of the blue.

"That's good."

"There's a chance I may be able to get out of this walking cast."

"That'd be great! I wouldn't get your hopes up though."

"Oh trust me, they're not up. I don't think it will happen because I still have so much pain."

We walk in silence for a little longer, just the sound of people talking in the distance and Indy's toenails on the cement filling our ears.

We make it back to the apartment and I let Indy off of his leash. I let go of Tris's hand to hang up his leash on the wall and then turn back to her again.

She presses her lips to mine and at first I'm taken aback. It's only seconds before I kiss her back, her hands are on my cheeks as mine find their way to her waist.

She's stronger, more fierce and more confident each time we kiss.

She always seems to surprise me. The way her confidence strikes her and it's hard to remember the amount that she is struggling.

It's moments like these that keep us both sane. Knowing that we are both still humane, despite our troubles.

She saved me when she transferred to Dauntless.

I've been trying to repay the favor ever since she has returned to me.

Times like these, where it grows hard to stop kissing her and refrain from taking things further.

These times tell me that I have succeeded.

She's going to be alright as long as I can help it.

I'd do anything for her.

But right now, that anything is to stop kissing her way too soon for both of our preference.

We aren't there yet.

There is still time.

And when the time comes, we will take it.

But for now, I break our kiss, holding her close to my chest.

"I love you." I hear her say as we lay down in our bed, her head on my bare chest.

"I love you too."

We're going to make it.

She may not believe it yet, but I won't let us fail.

She's strong and broken.
I once was also that way.

An accent won't keep her from succeeding.
Nothing will stop her.