NB: Any dialogue from Tris that there is in this fic is taken directly from the book (Allegiant) hardback, pp. 455-6.

4 hours.

Tris,

I guess I should call you Tris. Even though you've been Beatrice my whole life.

I really thought you were going to walk out of there, until I heard the gun go off. You see, I watched you battle through that serum that I know I never would have survived. You made it in, not dead. I believed you capable of anything in that moment. But then I heard the shots and saw your gun on the floor, so I knew there was no way it was you shooting.

I stood there and I waited, sick rising up my throat. I tell myself you're just wounded, that you'll get out of this because I know that you have always got out of this, you've always got out of everything, that's one of the reasons you'd become so unrecognisable to me.

When the death serum dispersed enough to get you out of there, they carried you out and put your blood-stained body on one of their slabs. I stood over you, looked at you. Despite it all you almost looked at peace. I felt the urge to run, get away, just to not have to look anymore at what you've done.

I'm not going back. I can't see you again.

2 Days.

Tris,

I know how much you hate me. Perhaps the hatred has always been there, since the moment I chose Erudite. That moment rent us for ever, even though they say the factions don't matter now. It's so pointless, isn't it? We hated each other over a dead system, and now I don't have any family left.

I'm empty, Tris. And despite everything, I miss you like hell.

4 Days.

Tris,

Finally the tears stream down my face. I'm having to fight them back right now.

Both of us remember when we were kids, right? When we both did things together in Abnegation, such as help our mom with sorting out the food for the Factionless. I used to help you along and you used to smile and try and get on with it the best you could. I know why you left; you always felt you didn't belong there. I know that, I could tell. But despite that there was so much we did in Abnegation together: we went to school, helped cook, clean and maybe even got a few snatched moments away from the cloistered nature of it all.

Perhaps that's why I left Abnegation, because despite all this, we never really knew each other.

5 Days.

Tris,

You were always the true Abnegation. I was just a better liar.