My large apartment is buzzing with activity right now. Christina is bitterly complaining about none of her clothes fitting now that she's really starting to show while standing behind Ciara styling her long blond hair into an elegant updo for tonight's Valentine's Day celebration and dance. Marlene and Shauna are on my love seat with their heads huddled close together whispering intently about Uriah and Zeke in hushed tones. Every once in a while they giggle almost uncontrollably causing the rest of us to stop what we're doing and stare at them. They only blush a little at the unwanted attention then continue. Since it's a Valentine's Day party tonight, Kirsten and Ella didn't want to come, which didn't surprise any of us. They really don't get out much since Dante and Samuel's execution six weeks ago. Lynn is in the corner of the room at the bottom of the staircase putting a small puzzle together with Tyler, Tobias' 2-year-old little brother, who has every one of my friends as well as Tobias and me wrapped around his little finger. I'm sitting on a barstool at the island with a peach oatmeal mask on my face that quite honestly smells absolutely divine and is making my stomach growl and rollers in my wet hair waiting for my turn to have Christina work her magic on me.

Looking at Tyler makes my heart tighten a little remembering why he's here, and I can't believe how fast the past six weeks have gone. It still seems like yesterday when Tobias and I got that dreadful phone call. We were celebrating the drama around the lists Asher Parrish and Dru Wright developed being over and the fact I fought off the death serum Cameron Wright gave me at the masquerade ball and survived when we got the emergency phone call from the hospital in the center of the city telling us Evelyn had been admitted to the obstetrics ward with life-threatening pregnancy complications. What was worse, the baby was in severe distress as well. We were told Evelyn went to the emergency department earlier in the day complaining of a terrible headache, blurred vision, severe fatigue, nausea, shortness of breath, and sharp pain in her abdomen. She wasn't sure what was going on; she thought she was losing the baby. Thankfully, she went to have it checked out. The doctors who examined her diagnosed her with severe preeclampsia and immediately admitted her to the hospital to treat her with blood pressure medication, a strict low sodium diet, and bed rest until she's far enough along to safely deliver the baby. At the time she was at 24 weeks and 2 days, and the goal is to have her make it to 37 weeks. I pray every single day as hard as I can that Evelyn can make it and my baby girl will be born healthy.

Tobias and I immediately raced to the hospital that day to make sure our baby was going to be okay and check on his mother. I've never been so scared in all my life. I thought my terrified heart was going to hammer its way out of my chest while Tobias sped maniacally through the snow-covered streets of the city to get to the hospital. When we got there, we didn't know exactly where to go and had a hard time finding anyone who was kind enough to help us, which amplified our increasing stress. Tobias completely lost it and blew up. He was screaming at the top of his lungs for someone to take him to his mother and daughter. Finally a nice older Amity volunteer with kind hazel eyes took pity on us and showed us the way to the obstetrics wing. Tobias and I thanked her profusely.

When we stepped off the elevator, we immediately looked for the nurse's station so we could find out which room Evelyn was in. It didn't take us long to find it once we calmed down and followed the plentiful signs on the walls. We announced our arrival to the first nurse we saw, and she kindly took us to Evelyn's room, which was down a series of long corridors. Finding our way now is like second nature but then we were too amped up to follow the simple verbal directions she gave us at first.

When we walked into the room, it was shocking. She looked absolutely dreadful. Her already pale olive complexion was sallow and sickly. She seemed even more frail-looking than she appeared not one short week earlier when Tobias formally introduced me to her at the train yard, and she told us about the baby. She smiled weakly up at Tobias and reached out for him, and after several tense moments he relented and went to her side to hold her hand. I sat down in one of the two comfortable chairs in the corner of the room not wanting to interrupt them.

After a few minutes, Evelyn asked about his decision to adopt the baby. Tobias turned to me and motioned me forward. I went to stand beside him, and together we told her we wanted to adopt the baby. He didn't stop there. He also told her about our fears and reservations, and she seemed to understand so when he told her we had some paperwork for her to sign giving up her parental rights, she immediately agreed. But when Tobias mentioned the baby's father, she got really quiet. She told us he was reluctant to meet with us because of the fact he's still married and living in Abnegation and doesn't want his wife to find out about the baby. That information caught us both off guard. We thought her lover was factionless just like her. Tobias explained to her that we needed the baby's father's information and signature also for the adoption to proceed. She promised us she would have him get ahold of us. So far he hasn't, which has us both on edge.

Once we found out Evelyn had been stabilized and the baby was out of any immediate danger, we decided it was safe to go home. We were slowly walking past the nurse's station on our way out, both totally exhausted, when we were stopped by a social worker who had been placed in charge of Tyler's care when Evelyn was admitted to the hospital. Sadly, both Tobias and I had forgotten about little Tyler, who had spent the entire day playing by himself in the hospital's daycare center, when we got the call about Evelyn and the baby. After very little discussion, we were happy to do it, he was immediately transferred into our custody until after Evelyn could safely deliver the baby and be discharged from the hospital.

Tobias and I knew we were going to be parents but we weren't expecting it to happen so soon, and we definitely weren't ready for a toddler. Having a rambunctious, inquisitive, and sometimes temperamental two-year-old to look after when you have zero child raising experience – Tobias and I neither one had younger siblings at home to look after and babysitters weren't needed in Abnegation because parents think date nights away from the family are selfish – is like trying to perform delicate brain surgery when you're a classically trained French chef, you don't have a clue as to what you're doing.

The first night was the hardest. We didn't know Tyler's routine or if he even had one since he'd been living among the factionless his entire life. We didn't know what he liked and didn't like. We also had a hard time communicating with him. He can still be talking away and I don't have a clue as to what he's saying. Thankfully, Hana told me that was perfectly normal, and he will get easier to understand in time! He remembered us but was extremely shy and didn't want to leave the hospital or his mother to go home with us but once Tobias put him up on his shoulders to give him a ride, he was as happy as a clam and ready to go. He liked the ride Tobias gave him but riding in the car was even more exciting for him. Thankfully it had a built-in car seat, or I'm not sure what we would have done.

I texted Christina with the news we were bringing Tobias' little brother home so she kindly went out and bought everything she thought we would need for him: Clothes, toys, a toddler bed, which Tobias and I neither one had thought about, additional food, and baby shampoo and other necessities. When we got home, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed but he settled in nicely. He only cries once in a while for his mom, which still breaks my heart. We've established rules and a routine, and he seems to be thriving. Every day it gets a little harder to think about giving him back to his mother.

"Earth to Tris," Christina says with humor in her voice. I look up over my shoulder at her, and she's grinning at me. "Where were you? I've asked you the same question three times. Who's watching Tyler tonight?"

"I'm sorry. I was daydreaming. Avery is watching Tyler tonight," I say. "I wouldn't know what to do without her. Four and I would never get to leave the house except to go to work."

"Avey!" Tyler says with excitement on his face, clapping his little hands together. Everyone grins at him. Avery has been a life saver since Tyler moved in with us.

After we got him to sleep that first night, he had cried for his mommy, which threatened to tear my heart out, Tobias and I stayed up late talking about what having Tyler live with us meant for our relationship. We knew our life had changed drastically and permanently that day, much sooner than we thought it was going to. We promised each other a date night every Saturday and time with our friends every other Friday night. Sunday's were no longer going to be spent in bed for hours on end making love, which we were both a little sad about. We decided they were to be spent together as a family with Tyler and then later with the baby. The three of us have done all kind of things from spending the afternoon making dozens of freshly baked cookies then delivering them to all our friends and random strangers in the Pit to just this past Sunday, which was an unseasonably warm February day, going to the large children's park in town to let Tyler run and get all his bottled-up aggression out. He's not used to spending all his time indoors. He wore himself out playing and slept on Tobias' shoulder all the way home since we had taken advantage of the weather and walked.

We were extremely nervous about leaving Tyler with just anyone so Tobias and I talked to several people with kids throughout the compound and were given a list of responsible babysitters, and a familiar name popped out at me immediately, Avery Parrish. I remembered her name from Dr. Parrish's middle of the night visit the day Asher was arrested. I immediately called him and asked if she liked babysitting. He told me she loved it and was very good at it. I called her that afternoon after upper levels was dismissed and made arrangements for her to meet Tyler. They hit it off and she agreed to be our permanent babysitter. I think we made an excellent choice because she's wonderful with Tyler, and he loves her and looks forward to their time together. A towel hits me in the face bringing me out of my reverie and everyone laughs at me. I blush bright red even though no one can see it under my mask.

"I don't know where you keep going, but you better get that mask off your face," Christina says. I throw the towel back at her but she ducks out of the way. I go to the little powder room, which sits in the corner of the living room tucked neatly under the floating staircase and carefully wash the mask off my face making sure I don't get any water in my now dry hair. I go sit on the end of the couch with my legs resting on the cushions, and Tyler immediately leaves Lynn and the puzzle behind and climbs up on my lap. I hold him in my arms, and he rests his head against my small chest. When I notice his eyes start to flutter, I tickle a little up and down his arm and immediately he falls into a peaceful sleep. The whole world is right when I'm holding him in my arms like I am in this moment. I look over at Christina, and she's watching Tyler with an odd look on her face. I furrow my brows at her, and she smiles brightly.

"I can't wait to hold my little one the way you're holding Tyler right now," she says. "If I'm telling you the absolute truth, I'm a bit jealous."

"Hell, I don't even want kids, and I'm a little jealous," Lynn says, putting the puzzle in its box. "He's a great kid." I look down at Tyler and see he's out like a light.

"I don't want to give him back," I quietly say. I don't look at anyone except the perfect little angel who is asleep in my arms right now. I can't believe I said that out loud when I haven't even allowed myself to think the words in my head before. "I want to be selfish and keep him but I know I can't. He isn't mine but I feel like he is. It's going to break my heart when he leaves."

"You'll have your daughter to think about," Christina softly says.

"I know," I say. I have so much more to say but I need to stay quiet. My friends aren't the ones who should be hearing this revelation, Tobias should. Not that it would make a difference. We can't just take someone's child away from them. Isn't that what I was most afraid of when I was in my fear landscape?

Knowing he's totally out, I carefully get up off the couch and carry him up the stairs and put him in his toddler bed for his nap. Tobias had his old bedroom set taken out of the room closest to ours and put into storage. We set that room up as Tyler's bedroom. We bought a little dresser and a rocking chair to go with the bed Christina picked out. She went a little crazy and bought him more clothes than I have, and she kept bringing him more and more until I had to put my foot down. He has to be the best dressed kid in all of Dauntless, maybe the entire city. He's never worn anything twice. I turn on the baby monitor and bring the receiver downstairs with me. When I go to sit back down on the couch, Christina announces that it's my turn. I go and sit on the barstool directly in front of her and let her start working on my hair. I feel her talking the rollers out of my hair as I stare out the wall of windows at the sun reflecting off the tall glass and metal buildings across the way while Christina babbles on and on about tonight's party, thinking about Tobias.

Things are great between us, but we haven't been spending a lot of quality alone time together, and I miss him terribly even though I see him all the time. It's been more than a week since we last made love. To go from making love daily, sometimes more than once a day, to only once a week is brutal. I was watching him closely this morning while he was making pancakes and bacon for Tyler and me, and I got the distinct impression he feels the same way I do. I plan to make love to him tonight if it's the last thing I do but sometimes life get in the way and you don't get what you want. Sometimes a 2-year-old has a nightmare and wants to sleep with you or you're so exhausted you can't keep your eyes open and you fall asleep during supper or my favorite reason for not being with the one you love more than life itself, you have an absurd argument over the toilet seat not being put down and you won't even talk to each other for the rest of the night let alone touch one another. The reason's we haven't been together are mainly baffling to me, except for Tyler's few interruptions. The sound of my phone telling me I have a message brings me back to the present, and Christina hands it to me.

"Everything is stable with Evelyn and the baby," I say with a sigh of relief, reading from the text message. Tobias spends a couple of hours just him and Evelyn at the hospital every Saturday afternoon making sure she and the baby are okay. He's still hurt and very angry with her but he doesn't want to add to her stress so he's trying very hard to forgive her for abandoning him as a child. "She's now at 29 weeks and 1 day."

"How much longer do they want her to go?" Marlene asks while rubbing lotion into her long legs. "I forget."

"The doctors want her to make it another seven weeks and six days to get her to 37 weeks," I say with a yawn.

"Are you okay, Tris?" Christina asks, worry in her voice. "You sure have been tired a lot lately. It's like you're on those pain pills again." Oh, I remember the pain pills I had to take after I fell off the steep path that leads in and out of the Pit. I would sleep for hours on end but this is a different kind of tired. I don't feel dopey, I'm just really worn out. I've often wondered about it myself lately and concluded that the death serum did more damage than we thought, and it's going to take some time to recuperate but I can't tell anyone that. They are never to know exactly what Cameron gave me the night of the masquerade ball or I could end up a lab rat in Erudite.

"I'm okay," I say, another yawn escaping. "I haven't been sleeping very well. I've also been under a lot of stress since well before Christmas, and for some reason my body likes to sleep its way through a tense situation. I thought everything was going to get so much easier after we found Asher, Dru, and Cameron and that situation was put to rest but then Four and I got the call from the hospital, and it was just one crisis right into another. I'm looking forward to some normalcy once the baby's here and she's healthy and safe in my arms."

"I hope you're right," Christina quietly says. She lets out a little gasp in my ear, and I turn and look at her. She's holding her stomach and has a goofy expression on her face.

"What is it?" I tentatively ask.

"The baby," she says with awe on her face. "I just felt the baby." She holds perfectly still for a moment then tears start to stream down her face. "It feels like little butterflies are moving in my stomach. I've never felt anything like it before. It has to be the baby." Her eyes meet mine, and I give her a bright smile. She wipes the tears away.

"Do you want to call Will?" I say to her. She shakes her head.

"No," she says. "He won't be able to feel it. It's so faint. I'll tell him when we get together tonight." She lightly rubs her fingertips on my cheek for a second. "It feels like that but on the inside." My eyes widen at the feeling. It must be amazing to feel a new life move inside you for the first time. "Turn back around, I have to finish your hair." I do as she says. Everyone tries very hard not to add to her stress nowadays. She can get very testy.

Within minutes, my hair is done, and I'm upstairs slipping into my new lingerie I bought especially for tonight, which consists of my normal style bra and boy shorts but they're a daringly see-through candy apple red, especially for Valentine's Day. Christina talked me into them last week. Maybe later tonight I'll be thankful for that but right now they seem extremely out of character for me. I slide the black long-sleeved see-through crochet swing dress that overlays a removable black spaghetti strap slip lining over my head. It barely comes to mid-thigh on me, so I decided when I bought it to pair it with my black and crimson thigh-high leather boots Tobias got me for Christmas. I'm sitting on the edge of the bed lacing them up when I realize it's the first time I've had them on since the night Tobias was attacked on the path. Thinking of that night makes my heart hurt. I shake off the bad memory and stand in front of the mirror. This is definitely the most daring outfit I've ever worn, and it shows a lot of skin but I love it. I have a sneaky feeling Tobias is going to also. Christina pulled my curls into a messy updo using sparkly diamond-tipped bobby pins to hold them back. She also did my natural-looking makeup for me. She wouldn't take no for an answer. I think she misses working in the salon since she got the promotion to manager of the boutique after Zoe was made factionless for helping Dru and Cameron fool me the night of the masquerade ball. I take one last look in the standing mirror then head towards the stairs but movement stops me at Tyler's room. He's sitting on the floor soundlessly playing with his cars.

"Hi," I say, leaning against the doorframe. He looks up at me and beams. God, he reminds me so much of Tobias, except his eyes are mine. I imagine if we ever have a son, he will look something like Tyler.

"Pitty, Twis," he says.

"Thank you, Tyler," I say kneeling down in front of him. "Do you want to go downstairs and wait for Avery or would you like to play up here?" He looks at his trucks then looks back up at me. "You can bring two trucks with you." He picks up his two favorites, a bright red fire engine and a big yellow dump truck, and carefully follows me down the stairs. When we get to the bottom, Avery is standing in the doorway with a bag. Tyler drops his trucks and runs full speed at her.

"Avey, Avey, Avey," he screams. She bends down and picks him up when he gets to her.

"Hi there, buddy," she says. Then she holds up the black red-heart-covered bag she brought with her. "I brought a new movie to watch and some popcorn." I smile at the pretty, petite auburn-haired girl who has her father's warm light brown eyes.

"We're going to go now, Avery," I say as Ciara, Marlene, Shauna, Lynn, and Christina gather behind me. Christina's already cleaned up my apartment while I was upstairs getting dressed. She amazes me. "There's a cheese pizza in the freezer you can put in the oven. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. You know Tyler's schedule. Four and I will be home before 1:00 a.m. You have our numbers if you need anything. Can I get you anything before we go?"

"No, Tris," she says. "You guys have fun tonight." I follow my friends out into the hallway but turn and look at Tyler before I go. He meets my eyes and gives me a bright, loving smile and a little wave. I return his smile and lock the door behind me.