Four

Hey, first Divergent fic, but I'm in love with the books. Am I the only one who screamed when I finished Insurgent? And I really needed a break from all the LoK angst. Geez, it's getting dark in that fandom.

This is set nowhere particular because it doesn't fit in any of the plots in the books. Just a scene that popped into my head and I can't get out. Hopefully it won't turn out too terrible.

Disclaimer: Never owned, never will. All belongs to Veronica Roth, but someday Tobias will be mine! ;D Now enjoy!

I arched my back, feeling of the tight knots of the net dig into it. Tris shifted next to me, her fingers searching for mine among the rough fibers. I rolled onto my side, watching as her fair hair fell through the gaps of the net, like ghostly hands reaching toward the unseen pit below us.

She clutched it tightly, never looking at me as she stared up at the inky night sky. "Why me?" she said finally, breaking the silence that seemed to swallow us whole.

My eyebrows furrowed, and I leaned up leaned up on my elbow to get a glimpse of her face, ignoring the chafing of the net. "What do you mean?" She closed her pale eyes, her breath fogging out in front of her as she sighed.

"Why did you pick me? You could have anybody. Someone prettier, smarter, stronger, older. Everything I'm not." Her whole body was tensed, like my response would feel like a physical blow to her.

"Why do you doubt yourself? Don't you know how other people see you?" My eyebrows drew down over my eyes, puzzled beyond comprehension.

"Yeah, skinny, short, and weak." She said, laughing mirthlessly. "Give me one good reason why you like me."

"I can give you four." I challenged, watching her eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I edged closer to her, ignoring her flinch when my side pressed flush against hers. I shifted her hair, tucking it behind her ear before murmuring softly into it. "One: I love your selflessness." I hushed her when she began to protest, her thin lips pursed together as she waited for me to continue. "You'd do anything for someone you really care about. You would argue with Eric until you were blue in the face about Al's death."

"I'm pretty sure Eric's idea of arguing involves more bruises and blood than words," she muttered smartly, her lips curling up into a slight smirk. I followed their movement, my gaze sliding over her defined cheekbones and the slope of her nose.

"You'd still do it though wouldn't you?" She was silent, and I took it in stride. "Two: I love your mind. You can pick apart any serum, any test, any fear landscape in a matter of minutes when it could take someone years." Small blooms of color stained her cheeks and she turned away, trying to hide her expression.

"Three: I love your determination. You won't stop until you're satisfied. Look at how far you made it in the initiation. You were the one everyone was expecting to quit, but yet you didn't. You were first, even above the Dauntless born."

She scoffed, waving it away like an irritating fly. "Yeah, after I almost thrown in the chasm and nearly got us all kicked out of Dauntless."

I sighed, shaking my head. A tremor rocked through my body, electric and alive. I braced my arms on either side of her head, hovering over her. I brushed her face with calloused hands, marveling at the soft skin not yet marred by scars. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, looking at me through a forest of pale lashes.

"Four: I love your courage." I said, hesitating as I took in a deep breath. "I once told you that I chose Dauntless out of necessity. I saw how things were here, and before the next group of initiates came in, I was going to turn factionless." She gasped. It was my turn to hide my expression.

"The day you jumped, I was headed to Max's office. They told me he wasn't in; he had gone to break in the new initiates. So I waited for him to jump. And then I saw you." I could feel her gaze boring into me, burrowing deeper than any projectile and infinitely deadlier. "I knew there was something different about you."

I finally caught her gaze, urging her to believe me, believe in the words that were getting harder and harder to force out of my mouth. She looked up at me through that silvery forest of lashes, eyes piercing.

"No, you weren't particularly pretty, tall, or strong-" I admitted, trying to focus on the way the moonlight seemed to pool in her dip of her collarbone and smudge shadows under the line of her jaw.

She scoffed at this, rolling away from me with a hurt mutter of: "Exactly what every girl wants to hear, Tobias."

I tumbled after her, coming to rest with my thighs on either side of her hips, my hands locked tight around her forearms. I felt the muscle twitch under my palms as she fought against my grip. She huffed in annoyance, glaring up at me as I pinned her arms down.

"But you were fearless," I said through gritted teeth as she thrashed again. "I saw it the moment you renamed yourself. You had already started to leave behind the ideas of Abnegation."

I dropped my forehead to hers, and those stars, which were so far, far, far away from us, were suddenly dancing in her eyes, huge and bright as they stared back into mine. "I'm not telling you this to be cruel Tris. I'm telling you because I know you can take it. I'm telling you this because you're not like every other girl."

I turned my face in her neck, too much of a coward to look her in the eye as the words caught in my throat. I pressed a kiss to her shoulder, relishing in the way goose bumps prickled under my lips. "I never want you to be like every other girl. Ever."

The breath she took in was shaky, and her lips trembled against mine as she let it go. I kissed her cheek, tickling the side of her nose as I blinked. She put those trembling lips on mine, giving me a chaste kiss. None the less, I felt as though I was floating away, and she was the only thing that was holding me here. And in a way, she had, and was.

We parted, and she shifted slightly, laying her head on my shoulder as I wrapped my arm around her, resting my hand hesitantly on her hip bone. She tensed before relaxing, blowing her cool breath over the collar of my shirt. We were quiet as we stared up at the night sky: Me absently twisting my fingers of my free hand in the net, Tris tracing repetitive patterns on my chest with the tip of her finger, over and over and over again.

It wasn't a pattern. They were words, letters looping and crossing across the expanse of cotton covering my skin. Over and over and over again she wrote only four words:

I love you too.

So? What do you guys think? It's getting pretty late over here, and I was feeling inspired and kind of did this in the spur of a moment, or whatever they call it. Reviews are loved, the people who write them even more so.

SNO.