Everything is a lie. Her name isn't Emily, her parents aren't Aaron and Laurel Bird, she wasn't born in Candor, and she turned sixteen two years ago. It's all a lie. Ironic considering Candors never lied.

The amount of lies, stacked like bricks so tall the sun is blocked out, are the only thing she can think about as she waits for her false name to be called to take the aptitude test. That brick wall could come crumbling down today if even one person suspected for the past three years she'd been posing as Emily Bell. And they'll all be killed: her of course, and Mr. Bird driven by love for a daughter too dangerous to stay in Candor, and the real Emily who sits hiding with the Factionless beside her mother. If she doesn't play her cards right everything she's been preparing for might fail.

No one would accuse her of being smart, she believed truth was subjective, she wasn't selfless by any standard, peace was an unattainable dream, and her lack of bravery had gotten her real father killed. She is nothing.

But failing isn't the plan. That's not why time was spent getting her into peak physical condition, teaching her how to pass every lie for truth, forcing her to rely on instinct and a courage she doesn't have, nor is it why she sits with her neck on the line surrounded by people who'd hate her if they found out. And it certainly wasn't why Aaron Bird, a good man, spent the last three years separated from not only his daughter but also his wife, while he was burdened with a girl he neither knows nor wants. Failing isn't an option.

She squares her narrow shoulders and straightens her slouched spine, her head high with determination. She could do this, it was simple all she had to be is brave.

"From Candor: Emily Bird."

She doesn't listen to the other name, all she listens for is her own – even if she had a choice, it would never be abnegation.

"Good luck, Em," Christina says standing with her, the other name called.

She gives as big a smile as her nerves allow, which isn't so much a smile as it is a grimace. "You too." Her response is quieter, less approachable.
It amazed her at first that no one noticed Emily's sudden change in appearance – granted they both have long dark hair, skin more beige than white, exaggerated cheekbones, rounded noses, and small chins, but they're by no means identical. Not to mention she's two years older and looks it. But it's all chocked up to the emotional strain of her 'mother' leaving them and becoming Factionless. Now she's used to it, grateful for it.

She walks into a room with mirrors lining every wall, takes note of her long body visible from every angle – a body two inches taller and several pounds thicker than it should've been. And yet still no one notices. The man in the grey shirt and slacks doesn't look at her and say, you're not Emily Bird – as she'd been afraid of. He simply tells her what to do, his voice kind as are his tired eyes. And she does exactly that, she sits in the lone chair she drinks what he gives her, and when his distant voice tells her to choose she makes the choice she knows she has to. The knife, choice of the Dauntless.

…

"How did the test go?" Mr. Bird asks when he comes home from work, having been as nervous as she had. That morning before she left he wasn't able to say what every parent should, that she'd do great, because that would've been a lie.

She's eating something sweet and crunchy out of a bowl full of milk, not used to food that wasn't selflessly given from Abnegation. "How it was supposed to," she answers not knowing what she feels in the pit of her stomach – relief that they're on track, or dread for the Choosing Ceremony where anyone might look at her face and recognize she wasn't who she said she was. "How was your day?" she barely remembers to ask.

"That isn't the question you want an answer to." He exposes her deception, both knowing she never wanted to hear about his day and that she only asked in the hope it'd soften him.

It's not like anyone else asks you, she thinks bitterly wilting under his sad gaze.

This isn't fair to him, he should've been allowed to leave with his wife and daughter the moment they discovered she was not only honest but also highly intelligent – it was the honesty that would've done her in, because no matter how smart she was if asked she would have to admit she was Divergent. So he sent wife and daughter away and because it was too good an opportunity - what with the girls close in age and appearance - a new Emily was sent back with a mission. Except now Aaron Bird's stuck raising this unknown girl in the place of the father she'd lost, and neither are welcoming. "Are you gonna leave after the Ceremony?"

"No." His answer is short and honest as he sits beside her at a table with two too many chairs. "I will visit to see your progress and then I'll leave to report." There's no warmth in his voice, no fondness as he speaks, just cold honesty and it almost makes her shiver. "Do you remember what Evelyn told you?"

Giving a short nod she answers, "be good enough to pass initiation but not enough to stand out." There was more, much more, but they were things Aaron hadn't been told so she keeps them to herself. She realizes, quite suddenly, that she's never been completely honest with him. "I wish you never had to stay," she tells him with more truth than she thought herself capable.

He touches her hand, maybe to hold it probably to just pat it gently as a show of companionship, but it ends in the tips of his fingers brushing against her warm skin doing nothing but make them want someone else. "I wish for that too," he says with an honesty she's grown accustomed, not meant to hurt or offend but no care for the fact that it did.

She thinks she might miss him. Yet she doesn't call him back to the table when he stands to leave – his thin frame wasting away the less he eats – and she doesn't follow him to his study because she knows he's trying to escape her face that's as equally strange as it is familiar. She keeps her place at the table knowing no part of the home is less sacred than another when every memory and crevice belongs to someone else.

…

She sits with her 'father' listening to all the names called to come forth, and staring at the faces that were unfamiliar to her and finding a few that were. Most of her attention is given to those who chose Dauntless, Peter Molly and Drew she doesn't care for but she likes Christina - as much as she can like someone who thinks of her as a friend yet didn't notice when her face suddenly changed.

Aaron's hand comes to rest on her knee at the call of the first name, and it stays a weighted thing as every sixteen year old stands and chooses their faction. He withheld the truth, something unknown to Candor, she was leaving him and he'd miss her too. Her own hand falls to his wrist and latches on, clings to the comfort of something she thought she'd lost. "I expect to see you again," he says softly in her ear, his voice nearly lost in a cry of loss and a cheer of gain.

Hers is one of the last names called, and with every step she takes her heart beats a little faster – waiting for one person to stand and say "that's not Emily Bird." Those four words might've been her biggest fear and she can almost hear it in her clacking knees as they tremble. But in the end she makes it to the stage and stands clothed in Candor black and white with the five factions before her. Glass for the honest, water for the smart, soil for the peaceful, coal for the brave, and stone for the selfless. After years of belonging nowhere, the freedom to be whoever she wanted, it seems so silly to limit the rest of her life to being one fifth of a person: the idea of factions make no sense to her. But that doesn't say a whole lot when most things don't make sense to her.

She takes the knife a towering weathered, gray clothed man hands her half expecting him to recognize her. As if he'd know her face because his wife did, because his son is her target. But he only smiles with a thin patience and waits like everyone behind her, Jeanine Matthews included. That woman and her ideas was Emily's main target, everything that comes next comes with the purpose of her getting close to Jeanine.

With a sting of the blade and sizzle from the burning coals her choice is made. "Dauntless," Marcus Eaton proclaims and a wild cheer sounds behind her. She looks up at him again, wondering if his son will resemble him, before she turns to face her future.

So this is an idea I got very shortly after watching the first movie, and I guess it'll follow along more with the movie since the inspiration behind it is Jai Courtney; but I might still pull from the books. My character is a bit of a mystery and who she is will be revealed more in the next two chapters as she gets to Dauntless and gets to know everyone. Now, what she's doing there is a different sort of mystery - and I'll give one hint, remember that Evelyn lies so my character herself might thinks she's doing one thing but Evelyn will use it in a different way. But I don't want to make this too long so I'll end it saying, thank you for reading and I hope you will enjoy.