Real- Years and Years
Ty
I hold Hannah on my hip as Maddie and I step into our house. I set Hannah down as Maddie walks over to Dylan's playpen and sets him down inside of it. Hannah races over to the playpen and stares at Dylan as she sits down. "Deelon," she says quietly, and I smile, then frown.
They're a threat to our city. Whether Jeanine and the Elite and Jordan remember anything or not, they're still dangerous. They're just like us. They're dangerous. Hannah Sofia and Dylan Lee are deadly.
Maddie and I are deadly, and it's been proven. People have died because of the two of us, but I guess we've just learned to live with the blood on our hands. Hannah and Dylan will have to do the same.
I hold my gaze on Dylan, who lays in the playpen, and Hannah, who sits down beside it, her hands against the mesh walls, staring at her brother. "Bababa," Dylan waves his arms towards Hannah, and Hannah grins.
"Deelon! Deelon! See-bing!" She grins at him, and the smile on my face reappears.
Maddie places the diaper bags off to the side of the living room, and I do the same with our bags.
Maddie lays down on the floor and stretches out. "Home sweet home." She whispers, "Where we can do whatever we want." She wiggles her eyebrows, and I feel my cheeks heating up.
I didn't realize until now, but it's been like a month since Maddie and I have actually had a date or done anything intimate. Sure, we've had those little moments where we hold each other's gaze, held the other in our arms, and just silent time where we tell the other that we love them, which I guess you could say are some of the most intimate moments, but it just doesn't seem like we've had many of them.
I miss our exciting sex life, but I guess you do kind of have to give it up when you're running from the authorities and are the parents of two children, a toddler and an infant, while you're also maintaining a job to survive.
Man, I guess it really is give and take.
I grin as I stretch my arms out to Maddie, and she takes them. I pull her to stand up, and she's flush against me. Her body is warm, I can feel the heat radiating off of it, and I lean down to kiss her, my hands still in hers.
My hands spasm in hers, and I feel her smile against my lips. "Mommee!" Hannah exclaims. "Da?"
I pull my lips away from hers slightly, and she looks at me lovingly, her lip caged between her straight, white teeth. I lean down close to her ear. "You know how I feel about that." I whisper into her ear, and she shivers, but releases her lip from between her teeth, and sticks it out as she pouts.
I kiss her lip, and then turn to Hannah. "Yes, baby girl?" I ask her as I crouch down close to the floor.
Maddie stands beside me, and Hannah toddles over to the two of us like a penguin. She falls into my arms, and I stand back up, picking her up. I place her high up on my hip, and her little whale spout ponytail bounces around on her little head.
Maddie runs her hands up and down her crossed arms as she walks over to us. "Hey, Hannah." Maddie says, and kisses her little red cheek.
"Lo Mama, Lo Da." She whispers, and I look at Maddie as I smile.
"Mama loves you too, Hannah." Maddie says to her, and I smile.
"Da loves you sooo much!" I say to Hannah excitingly, and then hold Hannah in front of my body, then dip her down and back up again, causing her to burst out in laughter.
"DA!" Hannah gurgles, and then waves her arms. I dip her down again, and then raise her little body above me. "Yee!" Hannah exclaims, and then I put her back down on my hip.
She claps and then curls into my body. Maddie smiles at the two of us, and I can't stop the smile from appearing on my face. Dylan whimpers slightly, and Maddie turns, walking over to pick him up.
She cradles him close to her as she walks into the kitchen and grabs a bib. She emerges from the kitchen a few minutes later with a silent Dylan in her arms, a bottle in his mouth. Together we walk over to the couch, and Maddie grabs Dylan's little blanket from the back of the couch.
She wraps the little snuggle blanket around his body, and I wrap my arm around her. I place Hannah on my lap, my arm secured around her as well as I bounce her up and down on my leg.
This is family.
>>
I stand in the mirror covered wall elevator that leads Maddie and I to the leadership offices. I look around, and it's as if there's an unending universe of Maddie, there's an unending universe of myself.
Maddie takes my hand. "You ready for today?" She asks as she stares forward, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.
"Yeah, I can do it." I say to her, in reference to the Ambassador job that I just took yesterday. The elevator rumbles to a stop, and the doors slide open ungracefully with a screech. We step out and walk hand in hand down the long hallway. We stop in front of our doors, and Maddie smiles at me.
"If you need any help, ask me." She winks, and I smirk before squeezing her hand once more.
"Oh I will," I say as I let her hand go and walk inside.
I close the door and turn on the light. There's a small piece of paper taped to my monitor when I approach it. I sit down in my large desk chair and look down at it once I peel it off.
To Do:
• Log into your computer.
User: TylerPedrad
Pass: dauntlessambassador*
* default. You can change it to whatever you'd like.
Your settings and other things should be set up for you already.
• Write down future meetings into your planner.
• Fill out the progress sheets for the week*
* ask Maddie or myself if you need any help.
Have a great day! -Uriah
I set the paper down and run a hand down my face. Shit, I think internally. I press the power button on the back of my monitor, and the computer turns on. I write down the meeting dates in my planner that Uriah left for me while I wait for the computer to load.
When the computer does load, I smile. I type in my username and password, and then a screen pops up. It's the desktop.
"Okay, I must've done something right." I say to myself as I look around on the desktop. I hear a knock on my door.
"Come in?" I ask, and the door opens. I'm still looking down at my planner, and I almost drop my pen when I hear the person's voice.
"Hey, since when did you become a leader?" Four asks casually. I look up at him as he closes the door and takes a seat.
"Since yesterday." I say. He nods.
"It's a good job," He says. "Ambassador Pedrad." I roll my eyes jokingly at him and then allow my eyes to glance over the surface of my desk.
I pick up my phone and dial Maddie's extension. "Yes?" She asks.
"Okay so I have this list that Uriah left for me and it says something about progress sheets, but I don't know what those are." I say simply. Four's eyes burn into me, but I ignore them.
"I'll be right over, let me grab a copy of one and I'll show you how to fill them out." She says, and hangs up. I put the phone back down and scroll through the computer. There isn't anything on the computer about them, so I guess I did the right thing.
I wanted to scream, Your dad is in my office and he's making things awkward, at her while I was on the phone, but I couldn't.
Seconds later, Maddie steps in with a file in hand. "Hey babe," she says before she sees her father. His eyes widen as he looks at me. When she turns and sees him, she sighs. "Why are you here, Dad?" She asks him as she walks over to me.
"Oh I just wanted to talk to Tyler, kinda see how he's liking the groove of things, touch base, you know?" He asks. She rolls her eyes but nods, then tucks a piece of hair behind her ear as she leans down to talk to me.
She places a filled out form on my desk and then a blank one. She places a stack of the blank ones behind me, on the shelf, and then turns back to face me.
"Okay so you'll fill out a progress form for each week. It's all based off of information that's in the computer, so..." She leans over me and types a few things in before clicking the confirm button, and a large black screen of glowing green text appears.
"It's really just copy and paste." She says, then leans over me once again and points to a spot that says Faction: Dauntless and then copies it down on the blank faction line of the form.
I nod. "I've got it now. Just copy this," I gesture to the computer, "onto the form, and then put it in this binder." I say, and Maddie nods.
"Yep. You've got it." She says as if her father isn't sitting two feet away from us, giving us a concentrated look. "Just call if you need any other help." She smiles and walks toward the door.
"Thanks." I say to her, and she smiles. "Welcome," she whispers before walking out.
I lean back in my chair, and Four looks at me with a small smirk on his face. "What?" I ask him as I copy a few things down into the form, completing it. I sign it, and stick it into the binder rings before closing the binder and placing it on the shelf behind me.
"Oh nothing." He says. I narrow my eyes.
"Oh nothing, oh nothing is definitely something." I say, my voice low and my eyes still narrow. He chuckles.
"So you two are back at home?" Four asks. I sigh.
"Yeah, Jordan has apparently turned for the better because of some serum and now he's way too happy, but it's give and take. At least now Jeanine doesn't remember anything and the databases have been wiped. So we're safe." I raise my eyebrows.
He nods. "Well, you two don't be up to too much. Zeke told me about how he walked in on you two once while you were at his house, so..." He says, and I look up at him once again.
"We're married." I say, emphasizing the two syllables in the word married.
"Yes but you two are just really sexual and you should be aware of that because you and Maddie have two kids." He says as he leans forward.
"You have four kids, Four. It's just natural." I say as I clasp my hands together over my desk.
"To be fair, three of them came at once." He says, a small smirk mixed with a grimace on his face.
"Well then," I say moving my head slightly from side to side, mimicking my words like Maddie did the last time this came up, "At least we know it didn't break." I emphasize the words to him flatly.
He gasps.
"No one questions my safety skills. You are just like Maddie, and you're just like your father." He says, as if it's the worst possible thing in the world to say to me. People say that to me every day, Four.
I furrow my eyebrows. He stands up and walks towards the door. He opens it and looks back slightly. "Have a GREAT rest of your day." He says sarcastically as his voice drops, and then he turns to walk out.
I turn to look out at the city, and see the sun rising up higher into the sky, it's reflection sizzling on the side of the Hub and the other glass buildings that surround it, including the Upper Levels building and the Hancock building.
"Hey," a voice whispers. "How are you holding up?"
I shake my head as I turn to face Maddie. "I was fine until your father came in here, babbling on and on about how we need to stop being so sexual, and I was like Dude, we're married, but he wasn't going to take that." I shrug, then look back at my computer. The morning sunlight reflects off of the monitor's screen, making it hard to see, so I turn up the brightness.
She frowns. "I'm sorry, Ty." She says, and I shake my head.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, Maddie. Your father has been like this since he first met me, and it has nothing to do with your choices. He just doesn't want to watch you grow up." I raise an eyebrow at Maddie, and she nods.
"Yeah, you're right." She says, and then hugs me. I wrap my arms around her and hold her to me. We're standing now, and I release her. "I love you, Ty." She whispers as if it's a secret that only she knows and she's too afraid to tell.
I tuck a piece of hair behind her ear, and lean down to kiss her. When I pull away, I whisper to her, "I love you too, Maddie." She hugs me once more.
"We have a meeting tomorrow, and you're gonna get to come with me. You'll be inducted tomorrow with the rest of the Ambassadors." She says to me. I nod.
"Where are we going for the meeting?" I ask her. I remember the last one Maddie went to was in Erudite, but I don't know about the one tomorrow.
"It was going to be here in Dauntless, but then Jeanine changed it to Erudite." She shrugs. I nod.
"Did you see Hannah and Dylan talking to each other yesterday?" She asks me. I nod, smiling. "He was just babbling, but it was so cute, and the two of them, that was adorable!" She gushes.
"On the scale of adorable," I say, using hand quotation marks around adorable, "Ashton thinks he's cute when he calls Hannah Hannah Banana and Dylan Dyl Pickle." I say, shrugging. Maddie laughs.
"He was going to have this job, but he curses too much. At least that's what Uriah told me, and I believe it, because Ashton curses like twenty four seven, and the first word his children will learn will be a curse word." I tell Maddie and she laughs.
"It's only funny because it's true." She says in between fits of laughter. I smile, slinging an arm over her shoulder. There's a knock on the door.
"Come in?" I ask, and the door then clicks open, revealing Uriah.
"Dude, what's going on in here? All I heard across the hall was a lot of laughing." He says as he raises his eyebrows at us, smirking while doing so.
"Jokes and stories." Maddie says, giggling.
"Ooh, what kind of jokes? I love jokes!" He says, "Stories are pretty cool too." He winks, and we shudder.
"Okay, so Ashton didn't get the job because he curses so much and—" I start, but Uriah cuts me off.
"Like a sailor, I mean come on. Continue." He says as he sits down and perches his head on his hands.
"Okay so if he curses so much, then the first word his daughter will say will probably be a curse word." I say as I raise a finger. Uriah laughs.
"It's true though." Uriah says while he laughs.
"That's exactly what I said." Maddie laughs as she holds my shoulder tightly. I smile. I already love this job. Everyone gets along and we can all just drop what we're doing and have a break where we tell jokes and stories and laugh.
We enjoy each other's company, and that's what makes this job amazing.
>>
"Fuck, dude. I didn't know what to do." Ashton says exasperatingly as he rubs his forehead with his hand.
He's telling the story about how he didn't have a seat in the dining hall and he was sure he was screwed. I roll my eyes as I lean back into our couch, Maddie by my side.
Ashton sits down across from us on the love seat. Abby sits beside him, their one month old daughter, Rosalie, in her arms, a bottle to her mouth.
I look over at Maddie. "This is exactly what I meant earlier." I say, referencing to our talk in the office.
"So I grabbed that tray like a boss ass bitch and walked over to my fucking table and shoved Rick the dick off of the edge of the seat and sat my hungry ass down." Ashton says confidently.
I look over at Maddie, raising my eyebrows. She smirks, and then we both stand up, clapping for him. He wipes away a fake tear. "Thanks so much, guys. It's just, it's hard living my fucking life." He says as he he puts a hand over his heart and looks up at the ceiling.
"Ashton, you couldn't tell a story without cussing," Abby says as she looks at Ashton and laughs. He stares at her, mouth agape. The disbelief painted into his facial expression actually scares me.
"I'll prove it to you." He says. "Okay what should I tell a story about?" He asks himself. "Oh, I know!" He cheers.
"Okay so I was in the fucking pit, and—" he starts off, and we all laugh. "What's so fucking funny?" He asks seriously.
"Dude, you already cussed." I say to him, and he runs a hand over his face, and then through his hair.
"Shit, I guess I did." He says. "I really do have a problem, I guess." He looks over at Abby and she grins.
Rosalie finishes with the bottle and starts to cry. Ashton takes her from Abby's arms and cradles her. He kisses her forehead and tells her that he loves her, and she soon drops off and falls asleep.
He hands her back to Abby, and she smiles down at her, pushing her little tuft of chestnut blonde hair back as she sleeps. "Well, I think we're gonna head home." Ashton sighs as he looks down at Rosalie. "Hey, where's the pickle and the banana?" Ashton asks.
"They're both asleep." Maddie says softly, her voice floating past her lips in a warm breath and rolling into the silence like ocean waves. I close my eyes at the thought.
"Ah," Ashton says, snapping me out of my little peaceful moment.
That fucker. He grins at me from across the coffee table and I narrow my eyes, puckering up my lips as I look at him. "What the hell just happened to your face?" Ashton asks as he narrows his eyes at me.
I raise my eyebrows to add to the effect. Maddie bites her lip to hold back her laugh from beside me. I look down at her and she allows a giggle to slip past her lips. I think of the ocean wave comparison and release my look, then smile.
"My face is fine." I say as I look at Ashton. "After all, I am the better looking one out of the two of us." I say, and I can see the fire exploding in Ashton's eyes. I grin before I get up and walk to the door, Ashton right behind me, only he's chasing me.
He thinks that he can beat me in a fight, but he's wrong.
I race down the hallway, and then turn right on the path and race towards the bottom. Ashton is still behind me, and he grabs my wrist. "Dude I'm fucking hot as fuck." Ashton says as he runs a hand through his hair and smirking.
I shake my head, then bend down to tie my shoe. Just as I come back up to stand, Ashton hops on my back. "Really Ash?" I ask him, and he smiles cheekily.
"You betcha. Onward to the house." He says as he points back to the house. I roll my eyes and grab hold of his legs, carrying him the whole way back.
Ashton opens the door, and we step inside, the door shut with a kick from me. Abby and Maddie turn around and Maddie smirks, but Abby looks confused. I drop Ashton and he groans, then shoots back up beside me.
"You ready, Abby?" He asks her. She smiles, nodding. Rosalie is asleep in Abby's arm, which I am surprised by considering all the noise we've been making.
Maybe she's used to the noise, I think, then smirk. Dirty thoughts, not now. Abby walks over to Ashton once she tells Maddie and I goodbye, and then they leave.
I walk over to Maddie and she smiles at me, before patting the spot on the couch next to her. She lays her head on my shoulder, and I sigh. "Today has definitely been a day full of firsts." I say.
Maddie looks up from beside me. "It has, Ty." She then presses her lips to mine, and I don't pull away.
I can't.