Rekindling

Chapter 21: Tobias - Resolution

A Special Note to Wattpad Readers: Unfortunately, this site's editor is continuing to misbehave.  It loses my formatting, so I'd suggest that you read this story on either Archive of Our Own (under the same username and story name) or on the Fanfiction net site (the story name is the same, but the username is "Windchimed M-Stories" there).  You'll be able to see the formatting that way, which will give you a better reading experience.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who took the time to review the last chapter, and to my wonderful beta reader, BarbaraK2U! I should have reminded all of you earlier that this is the last chapter. I know that probably seems abrupt right now, but hopefully by the time you finish reading it you'll agree that this is a good place to end the story. With that in mind, enjoy...

Chapter 21: Tobias – Resolution

Tobias feels deeply and utterly relaxed when he wakes up in the morning. He lies there for a long time, watching his fiancée sleep. She's loosely curled on her side, facing him, with her left hand resting by her pillow, and he gets even more pleasure than he expected from seeing that ring finally sitting where it belongs.

His mind processes the last eighteen hours while his gaze remains fixed on her. Marcus turned yesterday into one of the worst days of Tobias' adult life, only to have this phenomenal woman change it into one of the best. He smiles a little, imagining the look on his father's face when Tris stood up to him – and succeeded. The smile grows when he remembers that Tris will be with him for the rest of his life. How did he ever get so lucky?

Eventually, though, his thoughts shift to the more difficult aspects of their future. He is thoroughly committed to what he told Tris – that they won't be leaving Chicago – but that means he needs to start planning now. He knows that his options are limited, but there must still be some avenues open to him.

Moving carefully away from Tris, he rises, grabbing his cell phone from where she plugged it in for him last night. He's vaguely surprised to see that he has five missed calls – and an equal number of voicemail messages – until he recalls silencing the phone before the ceremony. With everything else distracting him, he never changed it back to its normal settings.

"Don't quit!" Amar states emphatically in the first message. "I just had a long chat with Max, and he wants to take a personal look into how this contract was handled. He agreed that Eric shouldn't have written you into it without your approval, so he wants to figure out how and why that happened and what can be done about it. Give him some time to do that, okay?"

The next message is from George. "Well, the pile of excrement has been delivered to the hospital. He...um...tripped on the way there, so they're going to have to wire his jaw shut for a few weeks while it heals. I tell you what, that guy is a total klutz. He managed to break his nose backstage, too." He scoffs. "He had the nerve to try to blame Tris for it, but fortunately Andrew and I both saw him fall, so there's no way he could possibly press charges. Anyway, just thought I'd let you know."

A disbelieving chuckle goes through Tobias. It must be killing his father to know that Tris and George will get away with exactly the kind of thing that he always did – only against him this time.

The third voicemail is from Amar, again. "I've been told that Marcus is temporarily out of commission, and that our new contact is Andrew Prior. He wasn't involved in the original contract, and he seems to really want to rearrange some of its details, so I'm hopeful we'll get somewhere quickly."

Amar sounds tired in the fourth message, which Tobias notes was received around midnight. "Fucking assholes," he mutters semi-coherently. "You wouldn't believe the garbage that's in this thing. The original contract is fine, but Eric accepted a bunch of 'Change Requests' without going through the proper channels, and that's where the real mess is. The lawyers are having a fit over it, and I've never seen Max so pissed." He gives a gruff laugh. "I'm pretty sure at least one head will be rolling in the morning, or maybe even sooner."