happy new year everyone! as promised, here is the next installment and WAY before the insurgent movie premier too.
NOTE: i changed the title to the antithesis of us because like the number was lame. i actually spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to looking up words that end in "-nt" that means opposite or reverse but the best i found was, wait for it, "divergent." you win this time, veronica roth.
EDIT 6/8/15: why did i suddenly change jeanine's last name to williams? fixed now.
part two
(trying, lying, dying)
They sleep on cots with the factionless, the large room lit by several trashcan fires. Four (or maybe he should go by Tobias now) and Tris find a secluded corner for themselves with the cots drawn close, so the second he jolts awake from one nightmare or another, she reaches over and places a comforting hand over his chest. He doesn't think it's hit him yet, the fact that he's an orphan. His father is finally gone forever, but he had to lose his mother, twice. Perhaps it all evens out in the end. Perhaps he accidentally made a deal with the devil. In any case, he is now utterly and completely alone in the world, save for the saving grace beside him with a gentle hand over his racing heart. Perhaps that's enough.
Sometime later, he gets woken up by the sound of whispers. Tris's cot rustles from movement and then her hand is gone. He feigns sleep until the footsteps are a good distance away and then he opens his eyes. In the flickering campfire light, he sees Tris's retreating figure following her parents and brother to the other side of the room. He can just barely make out their silhouettes and the Prior family's conversation. Tris seems angry. Caleb puts a hand on her shoulder and she shakes him off with enough force to send him staggering back a few steps.
When she storms back, Tobias quickly turns away to lie on his side facing the wall. He closes his eyes and pretends he's been asleep this whole time. He hears Tris slide her cot even closer to his, so the two mats are touching, and then lies down again. A soft finger reaches out to trace the top of his tattoo peeking out from his shirt.
"You can turn around now."
He wants to ask how she knew he was awake, but he figures it's pointless.
"What did your parents say?"
"Apparently, the Erudite stole something important from Abnegation during the attack. We need to get it back, but we're going to need both the factionless and Dauntless to bring down Erudite. My parents want us to go to Candor where the loyal Dauntless are to talk alliance."
"What did Erudite steal?"
"I don't know. My parents wouldn't even tell me."
He peered down at her. Eyes focused, eyebrows narrowed, fists clenched. She looked every bit the part of the Dauntless daughter who didn't want to be ordered around by her Abnegation parents.
"Tris? Why are you so upset? It can't be just about the Erudite."
She simply looks up at him, her stern expression melting into something more like sadness. It immediately clicks in his head.
"Your parents…disapprove of me."
"That would be a nicer way of saying it."
"Because I'm younger than you?"
She laughs heartily and he can't help but laugh as well. She cranes her neck to peck him on the mouth, almost makes a big show out of it as if she knew her parents were watching, and then snuggles into his arms. She doesn't end up telling him why her parents disapprove of him.
/
The next day, Tobias, Tris, Uriah, and Marlene embark for Candor.
It's a quiet journey and the sun is hot on their backs as they trek across town. Marlene has become severely depressed since the attack. Tobias watches her walk beside him with her head turned down and back slouched. The spark is gone from her eyes now and is replaced by a marked despair, a sadness so strong it seems she will never recover, a grief so immense it seems she doesn't even value her own life anymore. And that scares him more than all his four fears combined.
"How is she?"
"Not good. I can barely get her to talk and when I do, she only apologizes over and over again for killing the Abnegation and for almost killing me."
A few steps ahead, Tris is walking with Uriah. Tobias wonders if they realize their whispered conversation isn't soft enough. Then he glances back at Marlene and wonders if she can even hear them. Or if she cares. It triggers the Amity inside him, the side that so often gets overshadowed by the others, and he wraps an around her shoulders in comfort.
The whole trip was so uneventful that they are severely blind-sighted when they get ambushed at Candor. One second, they're inside Merciless Mart asking a passing man where the Dauntless are and the next second, they're surrounded by armed Dauntless guards. Their best friends are the ones pointing guns at their faces. Tris raises her hands in the air and the rest of them hurry to do the same. Somewhere in the hustle, Marlene gets pulled aside.
"Four, Uriah, and Tris, you are arrested for assault, abduction, and murder."
"WHAT?"
"You have committed crimes against humanity and will be tried under law."
Tobias feels his stomach drop to the floor. They know what happened back at Dauntless headquarters. They know.
Suddenly, Lynn charges at him, pressing the barrel of her gun straight at his forehead.
"You left my sister to die!"
Marlene shrieks from the sidelines. She tries to run towards them but Zeke holds her back.
"No, we were all under the simulation still! It's not their fault! It's not their fault…it's my fault."
As Marlene breaks down sobbing, Lynn finally lowers her gun. Tori tells the guards to bring the three Divergents up to Jack Kang. When Tobias passes Zeke, his friend wouldn't look him in the eye.
Tris desperately grabs Lynn's arm.
"Where's Will?"
Lynn wrestles out of her grasp and Tris looks as if she's been slapped.
"He's not here. He's at Erudite."
/
Three vials of truth serum. A whole crowd of Dauntless and Candor watching, waiting, judging. Uriah goes first, giving his testimony with dead eyes. Tris goes second, falling to shreds as she recounts killing Christina. Tobias goes last. The serum is heavy inside him, pulling at his brain. But it's not irresistible and he discovers he can fight back.
"State your name."
"Four."
Niles gives him a look from judge stand.
"State your full name."
Again, he feels the serum pulling at his mouth like threads, coercing the words out of him, but his willpower is stronger. He clamps his mouth shut and doesn't say anything for a full minute. The Candor in the room look at one another with curiosity over his ability to resist the serum. When he makes eye contact with Tris across the room, she shakes her head with a stern expression, like she did back when he was doing too well at target practice. Slowly, he lets out the breath he was holding and decides he would test his serum-fighting powers some other time, when his conviction wasn't on the line.
"My name is Tobias Eaton."
Gasps across the court room. And thus, the secret is out.
/
They all get exonerated for their crimes. But it does nothing to exonerate their guilt.
After the trial, Tris goes walks up to Christina's family and drops down to her knees in front of them. She keeps kneeling until Christina's sister finally helps her up.
/
"It doesn't make sense. Why would Will go to Erudite?"
"All the traitor Dauntless are at Erudite."
"But Will is not a traitor. He's nothing like Eric."
They're all sitting in bunks dragged into a circle. Tobias, Tris, Zeke, Lynn, Uriah, Marlene. Lynn still hasn't forgiven him, but at least she doesn't constantly hold him at gunpoint. Zeke looks up at the mention of the Eric.
"Where is that bastard anyway?"
"Held prisoner with the factionless."
Tris lies down horizontally across the bed so that her head hangs over the edge of the mattress. Her hair pools on the ground beneath her.
"The factionless are stronger and more numerous than we think. Everything we were told about them is false. Maybe…maybe Dauntless should ally with them?"
Tobias knows what she's trying to do. She's casually planting the idea before officially making the suggestion, hoping to gain a consensus. But it backfires when everyone laughs. Uriah leans over and playfully flicks Tris's upside-down forehead.
"An alliance with the factionless? Don't be ridiculous."
/
It happens when Tobias is in the cafeteria with Zeke. Hector runs into the room, panting, and tugs on Tobias's arm urgently.
"She's back! My sister's back!"
Dauntless and Candor alike bolt out of their seats and sprint down to the first floor to find Shauna, Will, and Will's sister Cara. Will is carrying Shauna and Tobias feels a large lump form in his throat. That means she can't walk. He did that to her. But before he can say anything—apologize profusely, promise to not let anyone harm her ever again—the Dauntless are screaming at Will.
"Where the hell have you been?!"
Will sets Shauna down on a bench and turns to the angry mob.
"Guys, calm down. I was spying on the Erudite with my sister. What, you didn't think I was a traitor, did you?"
The crowd goes quiet. Zeke gives him a sheepish smile and claps him on the back.
"Uh…nah man, we're just messing with you. Of course we didn't think you were a traitor…"
Cara steps in, interrupting the hasty reunion.
"Never mind that. We came to warn you that the Erudite are planning an attack on the factionless tonight and there isn't much time!"
Once again, the crowd is silent. The urgency in Cara's voice seems largely unmerited. Tobias looks between the three Erudite escapees with confusion.
"Why does that concern us? We haven't allied with the factionless, not yet anyway."
Cara and Shauna both share a look of exasperation. Will comes up and grabs Tobias by the shoulders, forcefully shaking him with every word.
"Tris is leading a group to meet up with factionless rebels. Right. This. Moment."
/
They arrive too late.
Tris had brought several Dauntless—including Uriah, Marlene, and Lynn—to meet her parents and the factionless army in the safehouse. Their plan was to congregate and then go to the top of the Hancock building to spy on the Erudite. Unfortunately, the Erudite got word of this plan and scheduled an attack on the safehouse. They didn't know how the Erudite knew of the plan or how they knew of the safehouse location; could there was a spy among the factionless? Fortunately, the Dauntless had spies of their own.
By the time the loyal Dauntless arrived, the safehouse was filled with motionless bodies. Four rushed to inspect the bodies and noticed all had a weird blue mark somewhere on their body, as if they had been shot with bullets of ink. He called out to the others.
"They're alive! Just unconscious."
As they made their rounds through the rooms, it became apparent some people were missing. Zeke walks up to Tobias, eyes wide with fear.
"Where's Uriah?"
Tobias looks back with the same expression.
"Where's Tris?"
And then another unsettling realization—it's the Divergent that are missing.
A gunshot rings out from one of the back rooms.
Tobias is the first to reach the room. And the scene inside ruins him. Traitor Dauntless guards surround a group of Dauntless, Candor, and factionless rebels who are kneeling in rows. They also have the blue marks on their arms, yet they are conscious. He presumes the Erudite used this blue serum injection to weed out the Divergent and herd them here like cattle. But worse, a small Divergent boy lay dead at the front of the row with a bullet wound to the head. But worst, Peter stands with his gun pointed directly at Tris because she is next in line to be executed. Tobias doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to think. He is paralyzed with fear. The guards have yet to notice his entrance, so he must take advantage of this situation. He reaches for his gun, then he feels the dagger in his pocket.
Peter cocks his gun and fires.
Tris twists out of the way just in time and knocks his hand so he shoots a traitor Dauntless instead.
Peter turns back to Tris, raises his hand to hit head with the handle of the gun.
Four throws the dagger and hits Peter straight in the chest.
/
After all the loyal Dauntless arrive, the traitors flee like cowards. They took Eric back with them, along with Caleb Prior. In retaliation, the loyal Dauntless take Peter as a prisoner of war. The safehouse is no longer safe, so all the factionless are reassigned to other safehouses around the city and the remaining Abnegation seek refuge in Amity. Tris insists on bringing her parents back to Candor headquarters, but Andrew, being the perfectly selfless Abnegation leader that he is, goes with the rest of his faction to Amity. Her mother, however, does go to Candor and on the train back, Natalie tends to Peter's knife wound while he screams bloody murder. Tris and Tobias watch the scene and she turns to him with a half-smile.
"Nice shot. That's what he gets for making you throw knives at Shauna in practice that day, huh?"
But he is in no mood for half-hearted jokes.
"You didn't even bring a gun with you?"
"…I haven't been able to hold a gun since Christina."
"Why didn't you tell me? And why didn't you tell me about this mission?"
"I—"
"Your parents put you up to this, right?"
"Yes, but—"
"Why are you keeping secrets from me?"
"Because I don't want you to get hurt, Tobias!"
Her eyes are fierce and wet with tears and just as beautiful as that night on the Ferris wheel. She calls him by his real name. She has a bruise across her left cheek and she flinches when he ghosts his thumb across it. He softens and pulls her towards him, cradling her head against his chest.
"Who's protecting whom here, Tris?"
/
Once they're back at Candor, they finally face their demons.
"Shauna, I'm so sorry—"
"Don't."
She has a wheelchair now, but she looks at him with the presence of someone who's ten feet tall.
"It wasn't your fault, Four. We were under the simulation. If anything, I should be the one apologizing for misjudging the Divergent. If it wasn't for you guys, none of us would be here."
"But I didn't have to shoot you. I could have saved you like Uriah saved Marlene."
"Maybe. But at least I'm still alive, right?"
They both turn to look across the room where Tris is talking with Will. She's crying and it looks like he's crying too and Shauna's right because at least she's still alive. Because Christina will never, ever come back.
Then, out of nowhere, Will pulls out a gun and points it at Tris's head.
Before Shauna can stop him, Tobias is racing towards Tris and Will. Lynn and Marlene rush up to grab his arms and hold him back.
"He's not gonna shoot."
"How do you know?!"
Marlene gives him a smile that doesn't quite reach her hollow eyes.
"Because Will is Tris's friend."
Lynn gives him a sharper look that pierces his conscience, all five of them.
"Friends don't shoot friends."
They watch the standoff between Will and Tris. After a few seconds that felt like eternity, Will lowers the gun and lets it fall to the floor with a loud clang.
/
"There's something else."
"What's wrong, Shauna?"
"It's Lauren. She wouldn't come with us when we escaped."
/
After the attack, Jack Kang calls for a meeting and asks for all the Divergents to step forward. Tris, Tobias, Uriah, Natalie, and several Candor rise. In the end, Jack announces that he will schedule a meeting with Jeanine Matthews in hopes of reaching some sort of ceasefire or peace treaty. In the end, his intentions are clear.
He will do what it takes to keep Candor out of the war even if it means delivering the Divergent on a silver platter.
/
Tobias knew he'd run out of luck eventually. After his confession at trial, everyone knew he chose Dauntless to escape his father, which made him the one thing Dauntless despises most of all: a coward.
At first it was whispers. Then snide remarks behind his back. Finally, one day at lunch, it escalated to one of the Dauntless boys in his initiate class walking straight up to him and saying it in his face.
"Coward."
The cafeteria goes silent. Tobias slowly stands from his seat, anger rising within him like heat waves. It takes a lot of willpower to keep his voice calm and level.
"I. Am. Not. A. Coward."
"Sure. Not anymore because he's dead."
He throws the first punch before he even realizes it. They're fighting for about half a minute and someone is screaming for them to stop but he doesn't listen, when Tris suddenly squeezes her way in between them, catching him off-guard. He doesn't have time to stop his fist from colliding into her ribcage, a blow meant for the stupid bully behind her. She takes a step back in shock and presses a hand to her side in pain. His heart stops beating altogether.
Oh god.
He just hit her.
What has he fucking done?
The Dauntless boy snickers and is about to make a rude comment when Tris whips around and glares at him. The former trainer still intimidates the boy who promptly shuts up and walks away. Tris turns back to Tobias with a wounded expression and disappointment written all over her face. She storms away without a word and he doesn't go after her, just stands there and feels his world shatter.
/
That night, he goes to the Dauntless headquarters alone. The compound is hauntingly empty and his footsteps echo throughout the halls. He makes his way to the fear landscape room, turns on the simulation, and injects the serum into his neck. He has to know if it's changed since Marcus died.
Heights. Confinement. It's not until the third fear that there's change. He's still holding the gun to an innocent girl's head, but this time she's not nameless or faceless. She's Tris. Usually, he would kill the girl because he knew it wasn't real, just turn his head away and shoot her. But he can't do that now. Not to Tris, never to Tris. She stares at him with defenseless eyes. And so, he takes a lesson from Tris's book and points the gun up to his own head and shoots himself instead.
Finally, the fourth fear. He's back in his Abnegation house, but there's no Marcus now. Just an empty house. He's relieved that his dead father still doesn't torment his fears, but he's confused what new fear replaced it. Fear of loneliness? Fear of abandonment? As he takes a step, he realizes that his legs feel a little off, like they're heavier somehow. He looks down and finds his body thicker than normal. Then he notices the grey hair on his arms and the wrinkles on his old hands and the watch on his wrist. He never wears watches. A dreadful realization settles in and he races to the bathroom and presses the button to uncover the mirror.
There, in the reflection, Marcus stares back.
/
Natalie is waiting for him near the entrance of Merciless Mart when he returns from Dauntless. It's a conversation he'd rather not have, apologizing to his girlfriend's mother for punching her daughter. To his surprise, Natalie doesn't talk about the cafeteria incident at all.
"I need your help."
He's taken aback by her statement. Abnegation never ask for help; they only give it.
"…what for?"
"Jack Kang's meeting with Jeanine is tomorrow and Dauntless rebels are planning to go spy. I need you to convince Beatrice to not go."
Tobias scoffs.
"With all due respect, no one can stop Tris from doing what she wants, least of all me."
She sighed and gave a small wistful smile.
"I guess that's true. She got those stubborn genes from me. Just…look after her, okay?"
She's about to turn away and leave but he calls out and stops her. There's something else that's been bugging him in the back of his mind.
"Why don't you think I'm good enough for your daughter?"
The question makes her freeze and she hesitates before responding.
"Tobias, your father was a good friend and a great leader. He sacrificed his life to save my husband and—"
"You think I'm lying? You think I'm pathetic enough to lie about my father abusing me and my mother to the point that it drove both of us out of Abnegation?"
"I simply think the Marcus Eaton I knew would never do such a thing."
"Well, I'm so sorry he wasn't available to testify at trial."
He doesn't mean to snap at Natalie but he couldn't help it. Candor Tobias will not stand to be called a liar and Abnegation Tobias will not have his sixteen years of suffering be discredited. Before she can respond, Tobias walks to the stairs and runs up to the Dauntless floor. It's been the shittiest day so far.
/
Later, when they're sitting on her bunk, he lifts the hem of Tris's shirt and sees the start of a giant bruise forming on her side. The sight is all too familiar to the bruises on his own body when he was a child. He apologizes approximately a thousand times and tells her about his two new fears. (He doesn't tell her about his conversation with Natalie.) When he mentions the fear of becoming Marcus, she adamantly starts shaking her head, all anger from earlier dissipating into the air. She climbs into his lap and holds his face in both hands.
"Do you know what I see in your eyes?"
"Stupidity?"
"I see remorse. I see guilt and pain. Do you think Marcus ever felt that?"
She kisses him, hard and passionate, and he hopes she can taste the remorse on his lips. He can taste the sadness on hers.
"I will never, ever hurt you again, Tris."
"I know."
What she means is: fuck up again and it's over.
/
The next morning, they all prepare to roll out for the meeting with Jeanine. He notices Tris is wearing eyeliner, has been ever since they arrived at Candor, and a sleeveless top and bares all her tattoos. She looks more Dauntless than usual. He wonders if that's the point.
What no one saw coming was Jeanine ditching the meeting entirely and sending Max instead. On behalf of Jeanine, the traitor Dauntless leader gave three demands: return Peter, hand over the Divergent, and give a list of all the people who were not injected with the blue serum. From Tobias's vantage point beneath the bridge, he sees Jack's facial expression and he knows it's a lost cause. Jack is going to give in.
Then Lynn shoots Max and that's the end of that conversation.
/
It's apparent they're running out of time. Candor will ally with Erudite sooner or later, so Dauntless needs to elect new leadership, return to their own compound, and deal with Peter before Candor can use him as a negotiation prawn.
Tris gets nominated almost immediately along with Tori and Harrison. Is this why Tris has been wearing so much eyeliner? To prove herself Dauntless enough? Four gets nominated as well, but he turns it down. People like them don't belong in leadership, remember? He wonders when that changed for Tris.
(Later, he finds out it's because she still wants to forge an alliance with the factionless. But Tori and Harrison overrule it because they think Dauntless can bring down Erudite alone. Tobias doesn't know which side he's on.)
/
The trial for Peter is hurried and hushed before the Candor can find out and stop them. Throughout the whole thing, Peter does not argue or defend his innocence. He simply sits and accepts defeat. It's jaunting watching him like this, pale and sickly with no malicious tint in his eyes. They find him guilty and Tris is the one who has to execute him. As she stands before him, arm shaking, finger on the trigger, Peter says something that shocks every Dauntless in the room.
"I'm sorry."
Tris's breathing hitches and she narrows her eyes in confusion.
"What?"
"I'm sorry for how awful I treated you during initiation. I'm sorry I got caught up in this mess with Erudite. I wish I wasn't the person that I am."
Her hand is shaking even more now and she has to hold the gun with both hands, but it's still not enough. She can't do it. Her eyes are tearing up but she's willing herself not to cry in front of everyone. Tobias's heart hurts for her. Beside him, Uriah taps his arm and leans in to whisper.
"What's wrong with Tris?"
"She hasn't been able to hold a gun since she shot Christina."
He doesn't realize Will is standing behind them and overheard this exchange until Will is pushing Tobias and Uriah aside, walking into the center of the interrogation room. Tris looks up at him, startled, but Will just takes the gun from her trembling hands and takes her place before Peter. Murmurs rise from the Dauntless crowd. A leader couldn't even properly execute a war criminal? Will silences the room with a loud hey!
"Tris is not weak. She's just a better person than all of us."
Then Will kills Peter and turns away to envelop Tris in a hug. In that moment, she is truly forgiven and the two best friends hold each other, mourning the girl who will never, ever come back.
/
They return to Dauntless Compound, running and hollering, and it really is a lot better filled with people and energy. They pass out paintball guns to shoot at the security cameras but end up shooting each other. Tobias tried to stay out of the impromptu paintball fight in the Pit but then Marlene gets him on the back of the head and he's lost in the colorful battle. At least Marlene's smiling, he thinks. At least they're all smiling. Hours later, Tris is dragging him to her old room and grabbing the front of his shirt to yank him down to meet her lips and she tastes only a little bit like paint and he dares to hope that maybe things are finally going up.
/
(That turns out to be a brutally false hope.)
/
Late one night, the lights to the initiates' dorm where Tobias is currently staying get turned on, waking everyone.
"It's another simulation! They're at the Pit."
Without another word, he runs to the center of the Pit. A circle of Dauntless can be seen standing with blank stares. Marlene, Lynn, Tori, Harrison, and four others. At first it seems like a random sample, then Four realizes they're all Tris's friends. Finally, he makes the connection that these are all the people that went with Tris to the factionless the night of the attack. They all have blue splotches on their arms. The Erudite inside him wants to punch himself for not figuring it out sooner.
"The blue injection is an upgraded simulation serum!"
A crowd of unaffected Dauntless has gathered around. Uriah is beside himself trying to Marlene to snap out of it while Will and Shauna take turns screaming at Lynn. Tris herself runs into the scene with her mother. All at once, the eight Dauntless under the simulation open their mouths and speak in haunting unison:
"I have a message for Beatrice Prior. This is not a negotiation. It is a warning."
Tobias stares at all of them, slowly spinning in a circle. I have a message, they said. They are not speaking. No, their voices are simply borrowed to amplify someone else's words. Jeanine's words.
"You have two days to deliver yourself to Erudite headquarters. If not, your brother will die."
Then it's over.
The eight Dauntless blink and regain control of their bodies. After everyone filters out of the Pit, Tobias finally looks over at Tris. The expression on her face is everything that he feared. Shock and then complete resolution. Her mind is already made up. Of course she's going to go.
/
Natalie pulls him aside during breakfast and leads him to a secluded hallway. He knows exactly what she's going to say so he cuts her off before she even opens her mouth.
"I already told you, I won't be able to talk Tris out of it once her mind is made up. She won't listen to me any more than she listens to you."
"Then lock her in a room, tie her up, drug her. You just can't let her go to Erudite, no matter what. They'll kill her."
Something about the level of desperation in her voice is highly suspicious. More and more, he is getting the feeling that Natalie Prior is the one who is lying, or at least keeping a huge secret from everyone, including Tris.
"Wait a minute. What about Caleb? Don't you care about him at all?"
"You don't understand, but you're just going to have to trust me on this. Beatrice is more important. This is bigger than Erudite or Dauntless or factionless, this is bigger than all of us."
She hands him a small, thin medical syringe filled with a clear liquid. He recognizes it as a sedative.
/
When he returns to the mess hall, his table is empty. Both Tris and Will are gone. Shauna wheels herself up to him in a hurry.
"Where have you been, Four? Everyone's up on the Pire's roof. Marlene is gonna jump!"
He races up the stairs to the Pire and jams the button to the elevator. When he arrives, he sees Marlene standing at the edge of the roof. Lynn, Uriah, Tris, Will, and Zeke surround her a safe distance away, scared of accidently pushing her off if they try to grab her. Tobias looks at Marlene on the ledge, her long blonde hair billowing in the breeze. She's strikingly beautiful and tragically suicidal. She stands facing them with those hollow eyes. Eventually, she speaks and this time, her words aren't the monotone echo of Jeanine Matthews; they are all Marlene, broken and jaded.
"They can't make me kill any more innocent people or use me against you anymore. I will not be their stupid puppet."
"Marlene, please, don't be irrational. We will get through this. Please come down."
"Don't you get it?! It will never be over. With this blue serum, we will never be free. They can enslave us at any second. I can't fight the simulation. I'm not Divergent, so I have to be defiant my own way."
Just like that, she leans backwards and disappears over the ledge. Lynn screams. Tris screams. Uriah runs to ledge and leans over and screams. The three of them scream until their voices are hoarse and their throats are raw. Ultimately, Will has to help Lynn down to the compound and Zeke has to pry Uriah away from the ledge and Tobias has to carry Tris because she's too lifeless to walk on her own.
"It's all my fault. Jeanine wants me and she used them to get to me and now Marlene is dead…"
She buries her face in the crook of his neck. And he knows, without a doubt, that she will try to go to Erudite tonight. Because she is Dauntless brave and Abnegation selfless and that is a deadly combination.
Fortunately, he is also both those things.
/
He seeks out Cara in the dorm.
"You were spying on Erudite, right? Why does Jeanine want Tris?"
"She hates how Divergents are immune to the simulation serum. She needs to experiment on one of you to develop a stronger serum, one that no one can resist."
"Okay, but why Tris specifically?"
"I don't think there's a reason, it's just Jeanine happens to have her brother hostage."
"So, she doesn't necessarily need Tris. She just needs a Divergent test rat."
"Yes…why? Are you going to do something stupid, Four?"
/
He goes to her room that night and she weakly smiles at him, like she knew he was going to come.
"I'm not going to turn myself in, Tobias."
"Sure. Can I stay here tonight?"
She walks up to him and wraps her arms around his neck.
"You can always stay here."
Then she's kissing him more hungrily than she's ever kissed him before and he boldly picks her up and carries her to the bed. He slips a hand underneath her shirt and to his surprise, she doesn't pull away. To his even greater surprise, she raises her arms so he can lift the shirt over her head and then she yanks his shirt off too. They're sloppy and clumsy and falling over each other beneath the sheets but it's perfect. He feels slightly guilty because he doesn't want their first time to be the night before he deceives her and turns himself in to Erudite. He doesn't want their first time to be tinted with grief for Marlene or fear of upcoming death. But if there's going to be a first time at all, it has to be now, because his days left alive are numbered.
It's astonishing how far she's willing to go, but it's probably because she thinks she is about to die and never see him again. Ironically enough, he's kissing and touching and pushing into her with the same audacity because he thinks the same about his own fate.
Una duos nox perdet amantes.
/
Hours pass and they're lying in bed, both pretending to be asleep. He waits for her to make her escape.
When she tries to pull his arm from her waist to get out of bed, he tightens his grasp, pulling her flush against him. The action is so sudden she gasps. With his other hand, he reaches for the syringe he had surreptitiously placed between the side of the mattress and the wall earlier in the evening.
"You said you weren't going to turn yourself in, Tris."
She shivers from his words and tries to wrestle out of his grasp but for once, he's stronger.
"I can't let them kill Caleb. I have to go."
"No, you don't. Erudite doesn't want you. They just want a Divergent."
She stops struggling at his words.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying it shouldn't be you. You have your family. You're a Dauntless leader. You matter. I should be the one to go. I don't have anyone."
"You have me! You matter to me."
"I know. I love you, Tris. And I'm so sorry."
In one swift motion, he sits up and injects the syringe to her neck vein. She violently wriggles against him, but soon her body goes slack. He gets out of bed, gets dressed, and places one last kiss on her forehead before walking out the door and locking it behind him. As he sneaks out of Dauntless headquarters in the dead of night and begins his walk to Erudite, he hopes they really do kill him after the serum experiments because if he somehow makes it out of this alive, Tris will certainly murder him herself.
/
Eric is the one who comes down to the Erudite lobby to fetch him and when he sees that the Divergent volunteer is Four, his face lights up like the day of their first fight during initiation. Who would have thought that in the end, Eric wins?
/
In the cell, waiting is torture. He has no idea how much time passes but he plays a game of guessing what's happening back at Dauntless. Now, Tris wakes up to an empty bed. Now, everyone realizes what he's done. Now, he proves himself to Natalie Prior. Now, the Dauntless leaders discuss what to do. He can only pray to every god he doesn't believe in that Tori and Harrison will overrule whatever crazy rescue mission Tris wants to put together.
Finally, Eric opens the cell door and leads him to an interrogation room with Jeanine Matthews.
"Hello again, Tobias. I must say I am surprised to see you instead of Beatrice."
He has no patience for her bullshit formalities.
"Promise you will free Caleb Prior. You wanted a Divergent and now you have one. Hold up your end of the deal."
"First of all, there was never any deal. Second, I never agreed to free him; now that you're here, I simply won't kill him. Third, how do you know he isn't here on his own free will in the first place? And fourth, I recall asking for Ms. Prior."
"You're bluffing. And as for Tris, who needs her? I got all five test results remember? I'm as Divergent as you can get."
"I can see that. You speak like a Candor."
Jeanine mulls it over and he can practically see the clean-cut cogs turning in her head. She motions for Eric.
"Alright, take him to the MRI."
/
He's on the train with his mother. Edward is standing a few feet away and the other factionless are spread out in the train car. Evelyn smiles at him.
"I'm sorry I left, Tobias. I was going to take you with me, but I realized you would be safer in Abnegation. But now you're in Dauntless and so strong. I'm so proud of you, honey."
"I don't know if I belong there. Ever since the Erudite—"
"Listen to the Erudite. They're here to help."
He blinks a few times. Evelyn saying something good about Erudite? This can't be real. He peers closer at his mother's face and then it hits him.
"You died, Mother. And this isn't real."
/
Days pass like this. He gets poked and prodded and Eric walks him back and forth between the rooms like a personal escort. After the first day, Eric stops grinning because he discovers his job isn't as fun as he thought it would be. By the third day, Tobias is almost convinced Eric feels bad for him.
"Your execution is scheduled in two weeks."
"Why are you telling me this?"
Eric just shrugs. After he drops Tobias off at the cell and locks the door, Tobias realizes that Eric is the closest thing to a friend he has here. And if Eric is the least of all evils, then that must really say something about the place.
/
When he next enters the experiment room, Jeanine is accompanied by none other than Caleb. Four blanches when he sees him. Jeanine smirks.
"Ah, didn't I tell you Caleb was here willingly?"
He stares at Caleb with his stupid glasses on his face and the clean blue of his outfit.
"You're a traitor?!"
"Now, now, I needed someone to keep an eye on the Abnegation and factionless, didn't I? Who do you think informed me of the date and time of the rendezvous with Dauntless? Now excuse me for a second, I seemed to have left the serum samples behind. Caleb, get him prepped."
As Jeanine left the room, Four stared up at Caleb in sheer menace.
"You betrayed your own family again? What if we didn't get to the safehouse in time to save everyone? You would have aided in the execution of your own sister and mother."
"I did what I had to do! Jeanine sent me to be a spy. And you don't know the truth. Tris doesn't even know. Our father used to be Erudite and used to be friends with Jeanine. Jeanine sees my potential and she cares about me."
"You can't be serious. You do realize that Jeanine threatened to kill you to get Tris to come here. You do realize that your mother was willing to do anything to keep Tris from coming here, even if it meant losing you. Do you see how expendable and unimportant you are?"
It's evident Caleb didn't know these things because his face is red with anger. But then he's stabbing Tobias with a syringe and everything goes to black.
/
He awakes to a loud explosion. He's still lying in the experiment room but Caleb is gone. The door lock gets shot off by a machine gun and Tris bursts into the room. His saving grace rescuing him one more time. She hastily removes the straps around his wrists and yanks him down to the floor and it's like being pulled off the net the day of the Choosing Ceremony all over again.
"Hurry!"
They race through the corridors hand in hand. Soon, traitor Dauntless are chasing after them and Tris presses him against a wall while she shoots at the guards around the corner. They run and run and run and only until they reach the exit does it register in his brain. Tris beckons him to follow her outside, but he stands still.
"You haven't been able to hold a gun since you killed Christina, Tris. This isn't real."
/
The next time Eric opens the cell, something is notably off. Eric is quieter and more furtive. As they round a corner, he turns his head to mutter to Tobias.
"They're going to execute you today."
"I thought I still had a week."
"They moved it up. The Dauntless and factionless are storming Erudite today."
Up until this point, Tobias had been willing to die. He had come to terms with his life and was ready to die for a noble cause. Except, was there even a noble cause in the first place? There is a war before his death and there will still be a war after. Innocent lives are still going to be lost. So then, wasn't this all for nothing?
Jeanine is waiting for him inside the execution room along with several other Erudite milling around. The vial of death serum awaits on a silver tray. They force him to lay down on a cold metal table because he doesn't even get the luxury of a cot or a chair—they're killing him directly on the autopsy table. That's Erudite for you. Quick, methodical, efficient.
"Any last words, Tobias Eaton?"
"You've accomplished nothing this whole week I was here and you will never be able to control the Divergent and that terrifies you."
Jeanine glares at him, outraged, her neck vein threatening to burst. Tobias simply laughs.
"So Jeanine, does that mean I win?"
She turns away in a huff and signals for an Erudite to administer the death serum. The liquid is like lead inside him, ten times heavier than the truth serum. He can't move, every limb goes numb and he feels his heart slow until…nothing.
And yet—
He can fight it.
He is still alive.
His heart stopped beating and his lungs stopped breathing yet he is still alive. He can feel the death serum pulling at him from the inside, oozing over his bones like molasses, but he's not ready to die damn it! He concentrates on staying alive and focuses on the bright light on the ceiling and racks his brain for a way out.
Jeanine peers at his unmoving body and waves a finger beckoning Eric over.
"Take him to the examiner's room. I want an autopsy on his brain."
As Eric comes to the head of the table and starts wheeling Tobias out of the room, Tobias starts to regain control of his muscles. Just make it out of the room, he thinks. He holds his breath and dares not move. Luckily, Jeanine doesn't look at him again and why would she? Why would anyone ever expect someone to unprecedentedly resist the death serum?
He waits until Eric has wheeled him out of the room and down the next hall before he finally gasps for breath. Eric immediately stops and jumps back in shock.
"What the fuck?!"
Tobias's arms and legs still feel heavy and impossible to move. It takes all the energy he has to breathe and keep the oxygen flowing to restart his heart.
"How are you still alive?!"
"Please, Eric…please help me."
Tobias is begging with a raspy voice, trying to reach his hand out to Eric but only managing to toss his lifeless limb over across his body. He witnesses the struggle on Eric's face. The traitor Dauntless looks back towards the execution room where Jeanine is and then looks down at Tobias. And there's literally nothing Tobias can do at this point; he can't even get his arm back to his side. His life is completely in the hands of the boy who once tried to throw him into the Chasm. Surely somewhere, under those piercings and tattoos, must be at least an ounce of mercy.
Then, the doors at the end of the hallway get kicked open by an entourage of rebels. Tris stands front and center and she cries out in anguish the second she sees Tobias. Behind her, Zeke, Will, Cara, and Natalie all raise their guns straight at Eric, who quickly raises his hands in alarm.
"No, don't shoot! He's alive! Four's still alive!"
He still can't move properly, so he can only call out Tris's name in a weak whisper. Natalie steps forward and opens a door to an empty room.
"We're not safe out here. Quick, everyone inside."
Eric accidentally pushes the table too fast so that it collides with a wall inside the room and Tobias unceremoniously falls onto the floor. Zeke and Will help pull him up and sits him down on the autopsy table. Before Tobias can lose his balance and fall backwards, Zeke holds him in a tight hug.
"Shit man, you really had us scared."
A microsecond later, Zeke is forcefully shoved away and he is replaced by a smaller body who launches herself at Tobias, knocking the little air he has out of him.
"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you."
She's sobbing into his shirt. He smiles and sloppily wraps his leaden arms around her waist.
"I know."
She leans back and punches him hard in the arm. And he can't help but laugh because now he knows for sure this is real.
/
"Dauntless and factionless forces are storming Erudite headquarters as we speak. The few Abnegation and Amity who Andrew got to come are doing their best to help. If nothing else, at least they can get in the Erudite's way."
Natalie is explaining the current situation, but Tobias balks at her words. He awkwardly shuffles to the window of the room (still trying to get feeling back in his legs) and peers down at the street. Rows of Candor under simulation stand guard, ready to shoot the oncoming Dauntless and factionless army, but the colorful Amity and grey Abnegation stand between the two like a human barrier. This war really is something. He turns back to Natalie.
"So are you finally going to tell us your secret? What did the Erudite steal that is so important, so much bigger than all of us?"
"It's a video. I can't say much else, but Abnegation was entrusted with the file and we were supposed to release it to the city when it was time, but Jeanine doesn't want anyone to see it. We need to get that video back, before the war destroys everything."
Abnegation was entrusted with the file, she said. It doesn't go unnoticed by Tobias. Entrusted by whom? It's starting to seem like the city is but a microcosm of a greater realm where mightier beings intervene.
Cara perks up, adjusting her glasses.
"Erudite uses a data network, so we could probably access the video on any computer as long as we can get through security. There's a control room one floor down, let's go."
They file out of the room. Tobias and Eric are the last to leave and Tobias turns to his former fellow initiate with raised eyebrows.
"Why did you help me?"
"I don't know."
"Finally figured out you were on the wrong side?"
Eric shrugged, then looked at him with something that almost resembled fear.
"They're gonna execute all the Erudite and allied Dauntless after the war, aren't they?"
Tobias nods. Suddenly, Eric is grabbing him by the front of his shirt and slamming his back against the war. All fear is gone from his face and replaced with the usual threatening malice.
"I save your sorry ass now, so you save my ass later. Got it, Four?"
Eric releases him and opens the door, dashing away down the hall in the opposite direction. Tobias watches his go and quickly joins the rest of the group down the stairs.
/
Will and Cara have barely sat down at the chairs before the control room computers before Caleb bursts into the room, wielding a gun he obviously doesn't know how to hold correctly. Tris and Natalie both step forward, as if ready to embrace him, but Tobias holds mother and daughter back.
"He's a traitor. He was Jeanine's spy the whole time."
Natalie gasps, covering her mouth with her hand. Tris takes a second to take in the fact that her brother had betrayed her yet again, and then charges at him again, as if ready to beat him to a pulp. This second time, Tobias doesn't hold her back. She punches him square in the jaw, just like last time, and he falls to the floor. She picks up his gun and presses the barrel at his chest, so hard he winces.
"You are nothing to me anymore."
She turns away, tossing the gun onto a table. She still hasn't gotten over her aversion of guns, but for a split second there, Tobias swears her hand didn't even shake. Zeke moves over to stand guard over Caleb. The tense moment is broken by Cara.
"I can't get past security!"
"You won't find it here."
The words come from Caleb, on the floor. He wipes some blood from his mouth and sits up, raising his hands in surrender when Zeke points his gun at him.
"Whatever you're looking for, Jeanine won't keep it on the common computers."
Tobias thinks back to the experiment room and the large computer desktop Jeanine kept in the laboratory. He turns to the group.
"Of course. It's on her personal computer and I know where it is."
/
Cara stays behind in the control room to disable Erudite's monitoring of the other factions. Zeke also stays behind with Caleb to make sure he doesn't tattle on them again. Tobias, Tris, Will, and Natalie climb the stairs back up to the floor of the laboratory. There are only a few guards around and they shoot them down easily; it seems most of the traitor Dauntless forces are downstairs in combat. They don't run into any trouble until they go up the final flight of stairs and run into Edward alongside two factionless soldiers, causing them to all freeze in their tracks. If Edward is here, that means the rebels have already taken command of the building and are taking over the floors one by one. That means they don't have much time.
Edward gives them a one-eyed smirk.
"What do we have here? It looks like an unauthorized mission to me."
Tobias tentatively steps forward.
"Edward. We need to get to Jeanine's computer."
"No one is going anywhere. Jeanine will be killed and then this whole building will be burned down."
"You have to let us get a file from her computer first."
"You're either with us or against us. Which will it be?"
It's so dangerous thinking in black and white like that, for people are not either good or evil, either friend or foe. Between the two extremes lies an infinity.
Tris steps before Tobias and swiftly kicks the gun out of Edward's hands. Immediately, a fight breaks out. Both sides open fire on short range. Edward still nurses a bullet wound from the day of the attack on Abnegation when they stormed Dauntless, so he doesn't put up much of a fight, but the other two are strong and relentless. Tobias, who can now at least walk right but who still can't form a fist with his hands, feels rather useless since his almost-dead body can't help the fight. Will shoots Edward, killing him, before a hit from one of the factionless sends him to the ground. Soon, everyone is disarmed and Tris, Will, and the two factionless brawl in hand-to-hand combat.
Taking this as an opportunity to break into the lab, Natalie pulls Tobias's arm, leading him up the stairs. He doesn't want to leave Tris behind, but time is desperately of the essence here, so he follows Natalie up and shows her the way to the experiment room.
However, there's two doors when they arrive and he doesn't remember which the correct one is. Natalie goes up to inspect the two doors.
"According to Cara, Jeanine installed a special security simulation so only a Divergent can get past."
"Good thing we're both Divergent then."
He opens the left and she opens the right and they enter. At first, it's only an empty room, but then the lights come on and an automated, feminine voice comes in through the speakers:
"Tobias Eaton, seventh generation. Faction of origin: Abnegation. Selected faction: Dauntless. Confirmed Divergent. Status: Intruder. You have five minutes to reach the blue door before the poison will kick in."
"Come again?"
But the disembodied voice offers no further explanation, so he sprints towards the door, wary of the poisonous mist that had settled in the room. Unexpectedly, a boy materializes out of thin air to block him, a boy that looks unbelievably like him. He skids to a halt as he studies his doppelganger. This must be Jeanine's security defense then.
He makes a break towards the right, but the other Tobias meets his move, punching him in the stomach and sending him stumbling back. Granted, it is offsetting having to fight yourself, pitting the same strengths against strengths. But it also means Tobias knows this simulation's weaknesses. Because he is used to seeing multiple versions of himself from his fear landscape, and he knows that somewhere inside that other Tobias is his Abnegation self, the weakest of the five personas, the one that didn't even make it into his name Four.
Yes, he's terrified of turning into Marcus, but here it just might come in handy. He dodges another swing from other Tobias and kicks, sending the other Tobias to the ground. He unfastens his belt and holds it up like a whip. The other Tobias stares at him from the floor and visibly cowers.
"This is for your own good."
(In the back of his mind, he realizes that this is a hundred shades of psychologically demented and if he didn't have a complex before he surely has a complex now. But he didn't have time to worry about that right now.)
For a few god awful seconds, he gets caught up in the repetitive action of lashing the leather belt across the other Tobias's back. After he snaps out of it, he drops the belt like it burned his hand. He hurries to the blue door and doesn't look back at the boy's body on the floor behind him, not because he's scared of the other Tobias but because he's scared of the monster he himself was all too capable of becoming.
He rushes through the door and takes in the scene in front of him.
Jeanine Matthews, hair disheveled and hysteria in her eyes, is backed against a wall with a gun pressed against her temple, the gun held by no other than Andrew Prior.
Our father used to be Erudite and used to be friends with Jeanine, Caleb had said. Gaging from the sight before them, it's certain Andrew and Jeanine knew each other, but "friends" was really pushing it, Tobias thought.
"Look at what you've become, Jeanine. Enslaving half the population, starting a civil war, pitting friends against friends, killing hundreds of innocent and for what? Just because you're scared of Divergence."
Andrew's words were harsh. It's the most un-Abnegation Tobias has ever seen him. But the fact that Andrew Prior is here in Jeanine's laboratory, the fact that he got past the security room, must mean that he is also Divergent, so perhaps there has always been more to the man than meets the eye. In any case, it's clear that Andrew's hatred for Jeanine is so personal and so deeply-rooted that it would make him despise all things remotely connected to Erudite, even the abused teenage boy who claimed Jeanine's libel against Abnegation contained a slice of truth.
Jeanine trembles under Andrew's tight hold.
"You know, Andrew, I never forgave you for abandoning me. I know your test result was Erudite, but you left me."
"I hated the person you were becoming. But if I had known the full extent of who you'd become, that you'd be capable of this, I would have stayed in Erudite just so I could kill you sooner."
Just before Andrew could pull the trigger, Tobias tackles him to the floor. The stray bullet hits the ceiling instead.
"Tobias? What are you doing, she's getting away!"
He turns his head to see Jeanine try to reach the door, so he wrestles the gun from Andrew and shoots Jeanine's leg. She falls to the floor with a pained cry.
"I can't let you kill her, Andrew. Not yet. We need her to show us where the video is, the file that she stole from Abnegation."
"That doesn't matter. Nothing matters more than all the crimes she's committed."
In response, Jeanine laughs dryly from across the room.
"You don't actually know what's on the video, do you? Your own wife did not even trust you enough to tell you!"
Andrew makes a grab for the gun in Tobias's hand. Somewhere in the struggle, the trigger is pulled and Tobias falls back, wincing at the bullet that lodged into his shoulder. Taking this as a distraction, Andrew leaps to his feet, aims the gun at Jeanine, and pulls the trigger.
By sheer luck (good or bad, Tobias can't decide,) the gun ran out of bullets.
Shakily, Jeanine stands up, leaning against the table for support.
"You can't get rid of me, Andrew. You can never get rid of me."
And in that moment, Tobias believes Jeanine is in love with the man. After all these years, she never got over her first love, who turned out to be Divergent and left her during the Choosing Ceremony. So why did Jeanine Matthews wage war against Abnegation? Maybe underneath all the logical explanations of control and dominion and power lies a personal vendetta caused by a broken heart.
He sees Andrew's eyes flicker to the windows behind Jeanine that span the entire wall from floor to ceiling.
Tobias is up on his feet in a flash, screaming at Andrew to stop, but the older man is already charging at Jeanine. He leaps and tackles her, both of them airborne for a second, and it's her back that slams against the window and shatters the glass. Tobias races after them and reaches out his uninjured arm, grabbing a fistful of grey fabric that rips much too easily from the back of Andrew's robe.
They're gone.
Tobias falls to his knees, ignoring the shards to glass that cut into his skin. He doesn't know when Natalie and Tris end up entering the room. It might have been five minutes, it might have been an hour. When they ask him what happened, he has no words to respond. Mother and daughter carefully peer out the broken window down at the concrete below where two bodies lay at broken angles.
"Who killed Jeanine?"
It's Tris who asks the question, even though it's clear that the other body is clad in grey. Natalie presses both hands over her mouth and nose, as if she already knows.
"Tobias, who was it?!"
There are tears in Tris's eyes and she shaking Tobias by the shoulders, sending shooting pain from his gun wound, but he doesn't have the heart to tell her. He also doesn't have the heart to tell her it's exactly who she's afraid it is down on the pavement beside Jeanine Matthews. Instead, he stands up with bloody knees, holds out his fist, and drops the square of grey cloth into her hand.
/
Afterwards, Tobias waits in the lobby with Will and the Pedrad brothers. Lynn is yet another casualty that they have to tally in chalk on the wall. ("We should bury her beside Marlene," Uriah said.)
The wounded from both sides sit as one in the lobby and waits. Finally, the leaders emerge and stand at the front of the room. Tori and Harrison for Dauntless; Natalie for Abnegation; Johanna Reyes for Amity; Therese for factionless; and a slightly bewildered Jack Kang for Candor. Tori steps forward to address the crowd, but the message was clear just from the representation alone—Erudite shall be no more.
Just as Tobias and the others wonder where Tris is, she appears from the stairwell entrance, running towards the front of the room with Cara in tow. Tris cuts Tori off mid-sentence:
"There's something important we have to show you."
A projector turns on and displays a video of a woman on the giant wall behind the leaders. While everyone resituates themselves to view the video, Tris makes her way to Tobias and sits beside him.
"So you were still able to find the video?"
"Yeah, Cara helped."
"Tris, I'm sorry I wasn't able to save your dad."
"It's not your fault."
But from the way she pulls back when he reaches for her hand, he knows she hasn't fully forgiven him. Hell, she probably hasn't forgiven him for running off to Erudite yet. Maybe not even for hitting her back at the Candor cafeteria. He's starting to think he'll never make it up to her.
Then the video plays and everything becomes irrelevant.
"Hello. My name is Amanda Ritter…"
hope you guys enjoyed that! so as of right now, i'm planning on two more chapters to this story. no, i'm not splitting allegiant into two parts, i'm planning for a fourth chapter that extends beyond the allegiant storyline. i know these two chapters so far have been pretty close to the divergent/insurgent plot, but i have a big plot twist coming up in allegiant. that's all i'll say for now :)
thanks for reading. expect the next chapter to be posted this summer, so definitely follow/favorite this story if you haven't already! in the meantime, i'm skinandfunnybones on tumblr #follow4follow.