Prior Rings

Chapter 43: Tris - Letting Go

A/N: I'm sorry this is a few days late. It's been an incredibly busy last couple of weeks. Anyway, thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and to my wonderful beta reader, Rosalie! Your reviews helped me figure out where she and I were seeing the last chapter differently. For those of you who agreed with her, I'll give just a quick explanation:

I see Tris and Tobias as both still doubting themselves severely at times. They've helped each other with that a lot, but having grown up in Abnegation, it's easy for them to fall into the trap of thinking, "everyone else is better and more important than I am," and sometimes they're each afraid that the other will wake up one day and realize that they should be with someone much better. Tris found a very incriminating letter in their private space, where no one else usually comes, and it looked like Tobias' writing, and she fell into that trap. She then spent hours reading and rereading it and obsessing over it and convincing herself more and more, and by the time Tobias came home, she was in way too deep to listen. It also didn't help that she's usually right; that made it harder for her to realize that this time, she just wasn't. But they got past it and are stronger for it. So, moving on...

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Chapter 43: Tris – Letting Go

It's taken two months of renovations, but we finally have the apartment next to ours ready for furniture. It's a unique space – not community rooms for the faction or living space for someone else – but I think it will be very helpful to have.

Half of it consists of a two-person office. Tobias and I will both use it as needed – whenever we're working on faction papers or the myriad of other things we do for Anna and the city council. It will give us a dedicated work space, so we no longer have to clutter our apartment up with paperwork or feel like we're dragging our jobs into our personal space at the end of the day.

The other half is a new concept. After the debacle with Dave's letter, Tobias decided that he didn't like having his sponsees come into our apartment in the middle of the night. We both learned from that experience, and he knows that I would never assume the worst again the way I did that day. Still, the more he thought about it afterwards, the more he realized that if he doesn't trust a sponsee to be alone with me, then he doesn't want that sponsee near me when I'm asleep in bed.

So, we added two rooms to the new apartment for him to use with his sponsees: a small living room for counseling sessions with them, and an even smaller bedroom, in case anyone needs to stay the night. That hasn't come up so far, but apparently it happens at times with people in support.

We spend the morning getting the furniture in place, with help from our faction-mates. George and Uriah drive back and forth to the resource allocation center, picking everything up and delivering it here. And Zeke and Amar help us get it all upstairs and into the apartment.

Amar laughs when he and Tobias carry a bookcase in and see Zeke collapsed on the couch we just finished setting up.

"Did you make Tris drag it there with you in it?" he quips as he lugs the bookcase past us.

"Well, duh," Zeke responds as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. "How else could I test its wheels?"

"You could lie on the floor and let it roll over you," Tobias suggests, deadpan, as he maneuvers his end of the bookcase carefully through the office doorway.

"That's Uriah's job," Zeke calls after him. "I wouldn't want to mess with our division of labor."

There's a pause before Tobias and Amar reenter the living room, rubbing their hands to restore circulation.