Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Divergent.

So I had a quick plot bunny that attacked me and needed to be written down immediately.

This starts after Tris is led by her mother into the light . . . and is also simultaneously a Modern-Day AU . . .

~ Tris's POV ~

The pain rips through my abdomen, and then is gone.

No more.

Then light floods around me and I breathe sharply.

A white world fills my eyes and I cough, distracted by the wires plugged into my skin and thinking I shouldn't be able to breathe. I can't breathe. I'm dead.

But I'm not dead. I'm lying on a metal bed-frame and a white mattress. Headphones with chips stick in my ears, and the calming murmur of a heart monitor is beside me. Then blonde-haired Jeanine Matthews, wired glasses and all, is detaching wires from me.

Shock. Horror. She's in heaven? and a traffic full of other thoughts fill my head. But I react in the only way that makes sense. I hit her with the flat of my hand.

She cries out at the pink splotch applied to her cheek. "I should've remembered from the last time someone woke up," she mutters. Turning her head, she calls, "Andrew, Natalie, Tris is awake."

Andrew? Natalie? My parents? What are they doing here?

They hurry to my side; my father wears a grey T-shirt and jeans, but my mother wears a hospital gown, her familiar hair dissolving into ringlets from her bun.

I dissolve into tears and clutch them to my side. Mom strokes my cheek and whispers comforting words. Dad says, "I knew she'd be like this when she woke up."

"She thinks it's all real. In a way, it is." Jeanine's voice is objective, clinical. Matter-of-fact. "Her parents, you two, died, for her. Her grief is understandable. She did die in a video game I designed. Of course it was realistic," she mutters. Her fingertips press against the mark I made against her cheekbone, and Eric, greasy hair and all, hands her an ice pack he's retrieved. Jeanine meets his eyes and says, "Explain it all to her again. I'll be in my office."

Eric nods and Jeanine, offended and physically hurt, coolly walks away. Eric folds his arms and smirks. I'm surprised; his arms aren't patterned in harsh ink; his lips, while chapped, are untouched, smooth. There's no piercing in his nose.

I must look a sight, hair all mussed up from lying on that cold bed, and my grey eyes wracking over Eric with wild confusion.

Eric laughs. "Yeah. I look different."

"You're dead," I spit.

"Yeah. I was." Eric pulls over a folding chair and sits on it backwards, hugging the back with his clean arms. A crooked grin fits his mouth. "That wasn't real. Any of it."

"Would someone make sense, right now, please?!" I demand.

Mom sits up and her warmth and presence reassures me with peace. "Tris," she says quietly, "that world wasn't real."

"See those wires, Tris?" Eric points to my new extensions. "Those are plugged into your brain and nerves. Connected to them, memories have been cooked and added into your mind, like files into a computer's library. You were installed, as a character, into a video game."

"A video game?" I sneer, shocked. My entire world, my life, my memories, my family, my friends, the deeds I've done, the actions I've regretted, the secrets I've spilled, the moments I've shared, Tobias . . .

"It's a reality stimulated by brain activity. We're all volunteers for Jeanine Matthews's exclusive new science project. While you're unconscious on the table, your brain waves are being monitored; it's been illuminating, the data she's gotten back, about liars relating to Candor, loyalty, friendship, devotion to faction manifestos and certain moral beliefs, and needless to say, thought processes concerning decision-making, especially when influenced by an attractive member of the opposite sex." Eric whispers with wagging eyebrows, "There's a screen displaying your brain activity during everything. Things picked up when your heart rate picked up, and not just from fear. You and Tobias spent a lot of time together."

I stare at him, incredulous. I fumble around for an available question but can find none.

"How long do you think you were in there, Tris?" Eric asks.

His question echoes Tobias. "Months" is my answer.

"Eight hours, tops," Eric shrugs.

"But I knew I had a life, memories, before I . . . I . . ." What was the first thing I remembered?

"Before your aptitude test," Eric says. "Implanted memories." He waves a hand to my parents. "You've got real memories with them, though."

I remember now, looking at their faces. Days of enjoying their company volunteering at a charity, picking up Caleb from the library, all playing paint ball with a laughing Christina, tousle-haired Will, nervous Al, glowing Uriah, sweet Marlene, unapologetic Lynn—

—who all walk through the glass lab doors with hospital cafeteria food. Dauntless cake. Well, excepting Christina.

I look at them, shocked, and Will says, "Oh, you died, too?"

"What'd we miss?" Lynn asks.

"What are you all doing here?" I want to know.

Eric says, "I explained," but Will takes it a step further. Sitting on the edge of the cot next to me, he says, "We were video game players in a virtual video game. One life only, though, not nine lives. No re-dos or lives to be bought. Once and you're out black until they unplug the wires from the computer and you're back home."

My hand reaches up and caresses his temple. Unmarked. Unharmed. Not bleeding or punctured by my hand.

"You're not dead." Tears well up.

Will nods with this understanding smile. My guess is that his time in the video game wasn't as long; he's known for hours that his character had been eliminated. Now he knows I've thought for so long that he was actually dead, and so though it might've been a stimulation, an experiment for brain wave studies we all volunteered for, I'm still shocked emotionally. He gives me a hug to help and I squeeze him tightly for a good long time.

Then pull back to ask immediately, "Where's Christina?"

My demand is met with Will looking to one of the other beds in my room. There's no sad pain in his voice as he says, "She's still there, in that world." He already knows he'll see her, alive, again soon.

Christina, with her hair down to her shoulders, murmurs in her sleep and almost rolls over.

If Christina is still in that world, then—

"Where's Tobias?" I demand.

"Tris, calm down. He's here," Will says, almost amused.

No. He doesn't know I left him. He doesn't know that I sacrificed myself for Caleb's sake and left Tobias behind.

I climb off the cot, and realize what I'm wearing; under this hospital gown is a black tank and grey sweats, no shoes or socks. Barefeet hit the tiled floor and Mom holds my arm as Dad says, "Tris, stop!"

Tori, one of Jeanine's assistants, hurries to separate me from my prison. The tiny wires hold me back like little arms pulling me away. I exchange a grateful look with Tori once she's done; it's a haunting one. I never expected to see her again.

I stop short of getting past another room when I see who's in it. Uriah, Marlene, and a scoffing Lynn follow me in as I stare, surprised, at my brother Caleb on a cot, lined up in a row, with Marcus, Matthew, Peter, and Zeke. Unconscious of my presence, I watch him. I'm surprised to find how deeply I love him, for having sacrificed myself for him; he thinks me dead, as I stand outside his door, watching him proceed in his ignorance.

Uriah beckons me on and then nods to a cracked-open door down the hall. He doesn't step forward, so I walk in myself. Among others in the long line of cots, among the sound of others' heartbeats radiating off heart monitors, I find his. And I clasp his hand as I kneel by his bedside, to breathe in the face of the man who I never thought I would see so soon again. It's etched in a grimace, sharp-boned and fine. My free fingers dance down his jawline and I find myself weakly smiling. He doesn't know I'm here, that I'm not dead. He mightn't even know I'm 'dead' yet. But I wish I could let him know before having him die to see me alive.

So I whisper to him, half-hoping he'll understand me, "I'll be here when you wake up."

Thanks for reading!