I shake my head.

"I didn't come here to steal anything, David."

I twist and lunge toward the device.

-Allegiant by Veronica Roth, pg. 474

I am expecting a loud bang to come from the gun. I am expecting pain to course through my body. I am expecting to fall to my knees.

The bullets do not come.

My hands tremble as I type the code into the device, my brother's voice echoing in my head. I press the green button. It is done.

I look up at David, not sure what to expect. He should have shot me- I betrayed him. But when I look into his eyes, I see the last thing I would ever expect.

Love.

Not for me, no, he doesn't even know me. It is love for my mother. He is still in love with her, no matter what he told me. And he cannot, will not, shoot me. It is his last gift to her. And then I see his eyes go blank.

He has forgotten me.

He has forgotten her.

It is over.

I walk along the hallways of the forgotten compound, still quaking from my near-death experience. Maybe, once I find Tobias, we can leave here and never come back. We could live a quiet life with no guns or serums or DNA damage. I think I am done with death for a while.

I wander towards the hotel, not even realizing where I am headed.

Then, I see Caleb rushing toward me. I stare at him, aghast. My eyes ask him what my mouth cannot- what happened to him?

"When you left, the guards found me. They tried to take me to the dormitories, and then to the jail after I resisted. I tried to get away, to get back to you. I guess I thought I could help, but the second I got away from one guard, another hit me over the head with the butt of his gun. I woke up on the floor in the hallway."

I am still staring, dumbfounded, at the sight of my brother, alive and okay.

We both open our mouths to speak at the same time, but I stop him.

"No, let me talk. I just need you to know, Caleb, I don't hate you. I still love you. You're still my brother, after all. I'm sorry I couldn't see that before," I said, staring at my toes.

Caleb lifts my chin up with his hand, forcing me to look at him. To my surprise, his eyes are angry. "Beatrice Prior, don't you think for a second that you have anything to apologize for. I delivered you to your execution, leaving one of you worst enemies to save you when it could have been, should have been me. And then, after everything, you still saved my life when it was the last thing I deserved. Don't you dare apologize. Not for a second." His voice sounds so much like it did when he scolded me as a child that I have to laugh.

Caleb looks shocked. "Why are you laughing? I just apologized for trying to kill you!"

Just then, Cara runs up to us. "Tris, Caleb! Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine," I said. Then, "How do you remember anything?"

"I'm not sure. Some guards found me at the light panel, but I knocked myself out before they could get anything out of me. When I woke up, I came to find you." There is an awkward silence before she speaks again. "Look Tris, I'm sorry I held a grudge for so long. You're a good person. I understand why Will liked you so much now."

I am utterly shocked. An apology from Caleb was unexpected, let alone an apology from Cara! I'm not quite sure what to say, so I simply stand there with my mouth open and my eyebrows raised. She must have thought I wanted more or something because she added, "And I don't really think your nose is that big. It's actually rather… striking." My mouth opens even farther and my eyebrows shot up even more, if possible. And then she embraces me. I go entirely still and start to wonder if the memory serum did affect her, but it doesn't matter because she pulls back and says, "You know, I can see why they call you guys Stiffs now." And then all three of us are laughing and walking back to the dorms together.

We sat and talked for about an hour before the three of us drifted off on our respective bunks. We had been out less than an hour before two familiar faces burst through the door, screaming my name at top volume. I groggily opened my eyes to see my two favorite people in the entire world: Christina and Tobias. I jumped up and flung myself into Tobias's arms.

"Woah there, what happened?"

"Yeah, we've been looking everywhere for you guys, fearing the worst, and we find you guys taking cat naps! Seriously? We've been working our butts off all day!" Christina adds. By now Caleb and Cara are sitting up in bed, slightly annoyed.

"Can we talk about this later?" I whine. "I'm really tired and you guys woke me up."

"Whatever, wimp," Christina says, throwing herself onto her bed. I could use the sleep too. I haul Tobias back to my bed and fall asleep in his arms.

When we wake up the next morning, the first thing I notice is that sometime in the middle of the night, Christina moved to Uriah's bed. Tobias is still sleeping soundly, so I attempt to extract myself from his arms without waking him. Unfortunately, his Dauntless instincts wake him and he pulls me back to him, murmuring sleepily into my hair, "Trying to escape this early, are you?"

I sigh, relaxing into him and burying my head in his shoulder. I make a silent deal with myself: When the others wake up, then I'll tell him what happened. I figured that I would have enough time to prepare myself. I get about three more second of peace before Caleb hops out of bed, and, unfortunately, wakes Christina in the process. She sits up in all of her usual morning glory and smacks him across the face, then burrows back under her blankets like a groundhog.

I let out a strangled noise, somewhere between a whine and a moan, and I pull myself out of bed.

Ten minutes later, I find myself being interrogated relentlessly by Tobias and Christina. I tell them everything. At first, they are angry that I took Caleb's place, but by the end of my story I can tell that they understand; I did what I had to do to save him, because no matter what, I love him. And we all belong to the people we love.

Tobias

When Tris finishes, I feel the same fear I felt so many days ago at the Erudite compound. I could have lost her.

I can't lose her again.

I know what I have to do now.

She is looking at me expectantly, waiting for a response, but I don't have one. Not the one she is expecting.

I get down on one knee.

I don't care that Caleb, Christina, and Cara are all watching.

I will not lose her.

She is looking at me, obviously confused.

"Marry me," I breathed.

Her eyes widen, and she simply stares at me.

"Please."

For a moment I am scared of being rejected. I think she might say no.

But then she nods her head.

I jump up and grab her, swinging her around, and then she's laughing and I'm laughing and she's mine all over again.

"I didn't get a ring or anything but…"

She smiles again. "I have a better idea."

Tris

3 Months Later

We are sitting in the Dauntless compound again, in Tori's old tattoo shop. I see her all over in this place. I think of my aptitude test, the times I interrogated her about my Divergence, the time she died, and the time we broke the news to her brother.

Tobias looks over at me. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I just miss her more than I thought I would."

For a moment he looks concerned but I smile at him.

"Today's just about us," I tell him.

It took us three months to find Tori's business partner, but we finally located him with the Allegiant. We showed him the simplistic design we wanted, and he picked up his tattoo gun, circling it expertly around our fingers, forming two simplistic golden rings. No symbols this time.

We are not Abnegation or Dauntless or Divergent or Allegiant or GDs or GPs.

We are Tris and Tobias.

Tobias and Tris.

And we are together now.

Forever.

Okay, let's face it. The ending of Allegiant was terrible! Tris is not allowed to die. Ever. I mean, she just realized that she wanted to live, and she just found the love of her life, and she survived death at least a hundred times, and then it's like, she got shot by her mother's ex-lover so now Tobias is alone. The End!

What.

The.

Heck.

I suffered through so much at the hands of Veronica Roth. Let's face it: The last two books weren't even that great, but that is no excuse to kill off the main character! No excuse!

But don't worry Divergent fans. I've fixed it! The book has a real ending now, in which Tris, Tobias, and all their friends live happily ever after as their own people, not categorized by factions or DNA or alliances.

So, hopefully, we can all accept this as the real ending and sleep peacefully once more.

You're welcome world.