Written for the One Prompt, Many Fandoms challenge at HPFC, or the prompt: New Horizons: Write about a fandom you have not written for before.
Through the Darkness
Christina
I thought I learned all there was to know about grief when Will died. The raw ache in my chest. The constant sting in my eyes. The memories that float to the surface in a cloud of joy only for them to burst open like a chasm with the word 'dead'.
Will had been my one shot at a happy ending, my one light in the everlasting darkness of war. He'd been am easy smile and a strong arm.
But I got through it. In some strange way, I felt guilty for that. I forgave the one who shot him. I let myself laugh again at other people's jokes. I allowed myself to forget him from time to time and feel content enough, from time to time, to give a genuine smile. I even forgave the one who shot him.
But how couldn't I forgive her? Tris drew people to her like moths to a flame, without even knowing a flame was lit within her. She was braver than anyone I knew, because her bravery was not for herself. She was brave for those who could not be brave for themselves. She was brave for me when I was certain I would fall to my death. She was brave for all of us, when we thought we could not go on. She was Dauntless, in all essences of the word, as much as she was Abnegation, and Erudite.
And then she was dead.
Her death ripped through me with such resounding pain, I wouldn't have thought it possible. How could I go on without her there to remind me of the best in myself? How was I to know what I was without her?
She left me with the pieces of myself, separate and jagged, strewn on the floor. But I wasn't the only one she left a shell of a person. Four. Tobias. He shut himself up with his grief as if there was nothing else in the world, nothing left but the imprint she'd left on us. I watched him when I was not wholly focused on my own pain. Eating without tasting. Talking without saying anything. What was there left to say?
I saw him sat on the bed she used to sleep in, but he didn't see me. I didn't blame him. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words fell dead on my tongue. In Candor, I was taught to speak exactly what was on my mind. But there was nothing on my mind but loss, and that wasn't something I could put into words. So I didn't. I just sat beside him. Not close enough that we were touching, but close enough that he would feel my presence. I hoped it would offer him some comfort.
Tobias
There was a sick humour about it. When Tris was here, life was complicated, difficult, lethal. But I had been happy. I'd been sure of myself in a way that brought me my first taste of peace. Sure of her in a way that frightened me, because I always knew which path she would take when faced with a choice. Sure of our love, even in the days it was tested. We always fell back together. Without her, life was easy. It was plain, and ordinary, and free of strife. And I was miserable. I'd never been so unsure of myself and of what would become of me. In the worst days, the thoughts that got me through were those of the future. Of our future. Me and Tris. I thought it would always be me and Tris.
And suddenly it wasn't. Suddenly it was just me, in a world I'd never been comfortable in. Except the world had changed. And I didn't know how to change with it.
I was consumed by my own grief. I barely saw anyone else, going about their lives as if the world hadn't ended in some sense. I left them all to it, and they left me alone, occasionally throwing me pity glances, hoping I'd get through it soon. I knew I wouldn't.
I found myself going to the places my memories of her were strongest, which were few and far between in the Compound. I knew I'd be heading back into Chicago soon, to Dauntless headquarters, and then to Abnegation. It was the closest I had to running back to Tris.
I headed into the hotel, into the old room we'd all shared when we'd arrived here. I wasn't necessarily aware of where I was going, I was just thinking about Tris. And then I found myself sat on her old bed. I could still smell her. The pillows still held the imprint of her head, as if she'd just got up to shower, and she'd be back soon to kiss me good morning. But the bed was too cold for that. Her absence too keenly felt.
I was alone.
I didn't notice the door open as someone else slipped into the room. I didn't hear the footsteps. Not until the bed beside me gave a little under the weight of someone else. For a moment, for just a moment, my heart let me believe it was her, Tris, coming back into the room with a smile on her face. The weight of the truth nearly broke me again. Tears threatened to fall as a lump formed in my throat. I swallowed it and took in a deep breath. I was learning how to do that. How to not break down. It didn't feel healthy.
I looked up briefly and my eyes met Christina's. Neither of us smiled. She was here for the same reason I was. I felt a little guilty at that thought. I'd been selfish. I'd thought I was the only one struggling, the only one whose grief was so profound. I'd been wrong. She was here, just as I was.
Christina
Since I sat with him, Four seemed to notice my presence. I think he'd thought himself alone until then. But now, when I sat with him at breakfast, we were not two people alone, we were two people together. He looked at me, briefly, and we knew we were thinking the same thing. At first, we were content with each other's grief. Someone else's pain is easier to cope with than your own.
As the days turned to weeks, a panic began to rise within me. A panic that I would forget her face, her voice, the way she walked. The grief took on a new form, as I worried that human nature would get in the way, and I'd forget she even existed. With all that she'd done for me, I couldn't allow myself to forget her.
I saw the same panic rise up in Four. The way he paced the floors at night like his mind was racing. The wild look in his eyes. I saw the way the others looked at him with concern and pity, as if he was a man going insane. I saw him and recognised myself.
In a rare moment of quiet, I found myself sat opposite him in an empty dining hall. I knew this, too, was something we could get through together. So I chanced a smile. He looked confused until I started speaking.
I shared a memory of our training, our Dauntless Initiation. A memory he hadn't been a part of. I saw his lips turn up at the ends as I spoke. It wasn't quite a smile, but it almost was. That was progress. That was enough for me.
Tobias
I didn't know how she knew. I'd been trying to picture Tris's face for days, to hold its intricacies in the front of my mind. I wanted to imprint it there so that I could always call it to attention when I needed comfort. But it was slipping away. It was slipping away and I was terrified that it would soon be gone, that it would be as if she'd never existed.
And then Christina started talking. She talked of Tris, of the Tris I knew but in a way I'd never known her. She made me realise, in a simple moment, that Tris was not gone. That she would never be gone. That there were thousands of breaths she took without me, thousands of moments she shared with other people. I could learn all about Tris all over again with Christina. The things Tris herself should have told me, would have told me, if she'd been here now.
It started slowly, and I took a lot of coaxing. It stung to say her name, somewhere in my gut where the tears came from. But as I began to talk, the memory of her floated up to the front of my mind as if she was still stood in front of me. It helped. Christina helped.
We fell into an easy rhythm quickly. It was comfortable. It wasn't easy, but it was more than I had expected. I didn't think I'd ever feel comfortable again. With Christina's words, I found a vestige of my strength. Strength enough to go back and seek Tris out, in the dark corridors of Dauntless headquarters, in the training room. I knew I had to go, walk those same corridors again. I made plans to say my goodbyes.
Christina
"Where are you going?"
Four was packing up a small bag in the dead of night and I'd heard him pacing from the next room. He didn't look at me as he sighed.
"The city." Well, I could have seen that answer coming, but it didn't tell me what I wanted to know.
"Where?" I asked again.
"Dauntless," he told me, and then I understood. It was where he'd known Tris best.
"Let me come with you." I wasn't sure where that came from, but I knew I wanted to as soon as I said it. I missed her too, and walking where she'd walked, where I'd first met her, was exactly what I didn't know I needed.
He looked at me, his eyebrows drawn together, and I was nervous for his response. If he said no, I'd have to respect that. But I wanted to. There was a part of me that felt certain he shouldn't be doing this alone.
"Why?" he asked. It was a perfectly reasonable question.
"Because…" the words stuck in my throat. I wanted to say everything at once, but I'd learned not to do that. I didn't know which reason to give. "Because I miss her too. Like a giant hole somewhere in my chest. Maybe going there will help it close up, just a little. It's time I faced her absence. Stood where I expect to see her in the knowledge that I won't. Maybe it will help."
He stared at me for a moment, and I felt like a Candor transfer all over again, small in the eyes of my instructor.
He nodded, and I smiled in thanks. I went to get my things.
Tobias
Christina had surprised me when she'd said she wanted to come with me. Every time I thought I was alone with my thoughts, she reminded me that I wasn't. I wanted to go alone, but I couldn't deny her the same thing I desperately craved. And if anyone was going to take this journey with me, I was glad it was her.
It helped. The whole trip helped. We met strangers in the places that used to be Dauntless, Abnegation, Amity, even Erudite, who told us they were sorry for our loss, who shared our grief, however briefly. It helped to know that she had touched so many lives. It helped to know she lived on it hearts that were not mine, that I'd never known. It helped to discover her again in the places I'd once known her.
And Christina was there through it all. For two and a half years, she was by my side, close enough to reach out for, if I needed it. She was on her own journey, of course, but our paths were the same. The darkness began to shift to shades of Abnegation grey, shades I knew and could be comfortable with. I was learning myself all over again, the pathways of my veins, what it felt like to sleep alone. I still wasn't very good at that. At the same time, Christina was discovering who she was without Tris. She was learning that she could still be all the great things Tris saw in her, even without the reminders.
When we planned our final goodbye, we planned it together. We put all the best of Tris into that moment, the best of Dauntless, everything Tris had stood for. I faced the greatest fear I had left in honour of Tris, who had helped me face so many of them. I wondered what my fear landscape would look like now. I wondered if Tris would be in it.
I went to Abnegation when it was through. I didn't know that Christina had followed me. I stood outside of her house, looking at the place she'd spent most of her life and as keenly as I felt Tris's presence in the four walls in front of me, I felt Christina by my side.
It didn't feel wrong when she slipped her hand into mine. It felt like healing. We'd seen the darkness inside of each other. We'd made it through the worst, through the shades of grey. As the light began to peek in around the edges, it felt right that I would share that with Christina too.
We weren't in love. There wasn't passion between us. There was trust and understanding. There was patience and kindness. There was hope.
I would miss Tris for the rest of my life, I knew. I also knew that Christina was the only one I knew who wouldn't judge me when she found me staring at her picture in the middle of the night, drawing out her tattoos just to feel them under my fingertips once more. I could talk about her without feeling guilty that I was still in love with her. Because in some way, Christina was too.
Christina
I never meant to fall in love with Tobias. In some ways, I didn't. There were no racing hearts, no chaste kisses in dark hallways. But we fell into a rhythm, brought together in sadness. We showed each other the darkest parts of ourselves, shared our fears and our heartache. We trusted, and with that trust came contentedness. We'd lost so much, we knew we'd never be whole again.
It was only with him that it didn't matter. With him, I wasn't forsaking my memories of Will and Tris. I was honouring them. We were brought together by them. Slipping my hand into his as we stared at Tris's old house didn't feel like betrayal. It felt like I was making them proud.
We were giving each other hope and a future. We were giving each other a safety net.
I hoped that if there was a God, and an afterlife, Tris looked down on us with a smile. I thought she would be, and I think he did too.
After all the death and destruction, it was as though we had no other option but to fall together, and that was okay.
We'd feel our way in this new world and find our place in it together. I felt as though I could finally say we'd be okay.