Disclaimer: I don't own Divergent or any of the characters.

Thanks to all the encouragement you've given me from Chapter 1. This follows right after day one of Tris Stage Two training. Four begins to investigate when Tris's test performance surpasses all 'Resolution' I covered the incident when Tris encounters a drunk Four, so I've just skimmed over it here.

Light seared my eyes and I quickly closed them. The dull throbbing in my head became an insistent hammering. I felt like I'd just done two straight shifts in the training ring. I groaned. How much did I drink last night? I couldn't remember ever feeling this hung over. Not that I was a big drinker – there hadn't been much opportunity in Abnegation.

I pulled myself into a sitting position. I had a crick in my neck and I felt my stomach rebel, and waited a few moments for it to settle. I needed to pull myself together – another long day today, and I really needed to focus – starting with deciding what to do about Tris.

After I'd taken her back to her dorm following her first fear scenario, I'd returned to the Testing Room to complete the first day's testing. I quickly finished up with Drew and Uriah – or as quickly as their performance allowed - Uriah getting through the scenario twice as fast as the transfer, but still nowhere near Tris's time. I went through the motions with them as they experienced their first fear scenarios, but my mind was full of Tris and her remarkable performance. Pride and anxiety welled up in me - maybe she was too remarkable.

I felt a little guilty – I knew Zeke was worried about his brother, and I had barely registered Uriah's performance. These days the trainers didn't really need to monitor the individual experience of initiates in their fear landscapes – the time logged was all that was considered for entry to the final stage. It hadn't always been like that though, and where two candidates had a comparable time, other factors were considered – had they defeated their fear, or controlled their reactions? How had they been affected afterwards, and for how long? I'd already had some conversations with Max last year about restoring some of the subtlety of the testing process. A real test would have been to take them from the simulation, and then back into combat or target practice, and see how they performed with adrenalin still flooding their systems. But for now, all that mattered to the Dauntless leadership was the time, and so I'd paid little attention to the details of the last two initiates' scenarios.

I was more concerned with Tris – and my suspicions about how she'd handled the simulation. Actually, that was at the core of my anxiety – that she'd handled the simulation, rather than just reacted to it. I felt a pang of concern when I remembered her distress through yesterday's scenario. She had looked so tiny in the chair. Part of me wanted to keep her from hurt – make sure she never had to face fear like that in the real world. For the most part though I felt proud of her. Her seemingly fragile frame housed a resilience absent in many of her more powerful peers. She was strong, and I was glad. It didn't stop me from brushing her hair from her face though, as she twisted and strained in the grip of the serum, or giving her my hand to grip as she screamed in terror.

From the moment I'd left her all I could think about was pulling up the results of her aptitude tests. I checked the time – it was still early – I could make a start before breakfast – not that I could face food at the moment anyway.

I'd fallen into bed without closing the blinds in my apartment, and now the early morning sunlight poured relentlessly through the windows. I cautiously stood up and after the nausea had abated I pulled the blinds part-way down. There was enough light to see by, but the pounding in my head subsided to a tolerable level. I began to strip off the clothes I had slept in, folding them neatly into a laundry hamper. Dauntless I may be, but the Stiff in me wasn't entirely gone either. I gratefully stepped into the shower, and the warm water and citrus scent of soap began to revive me. I was stiff from sleeping in an awkward position, and I bent my head forward, feeling the muscles relax as the powerful jet of water massaged my neck and shoulders. Finally, as the hot water ran out I turned my face upward into the chilly spray for at least a minute hoping it would be enough to finish the job of waking me up. I wrapped a towel around me while I slowly drank a glass of water. I was feeling better, but not enough to trust that my stomach still wouldn't rebel.

I threw on clean clothes, almost identical to the ones I had removed a few minutes earlier, and headed for the Control Room. I could review Tris's footage from yesterday in the Testing Room, but I could only check her aptitude results from there. I had been trying to do that last night when I'd been disturbed. Thankfully, it had been Zeke, not Eric, who had been looking for me, but it brought home the need for caution. If Tris managed to avoid drawing attention to herself during this stage of training, I didn't want to be the one that blew it by being caught scrutinising her performance.

I'd had the Control Room to myself last night. They were short-staffed while I was involved in training the initiates. It had been meal time, so the operator would be grabbing dinner and the surveillance feeds were all recorded anyway, so he could review them later. I'd reckoned on having about a half hour before the operator came back. Before checking Tris's tests, I couldn't resist taking advantage of the privacy, and selected the camera feed from the dorms – I'd needed to know how she was doing. I'd just pulled up the image onto the central screen when Zeke came in and flopped onto the seat beside me.

'So this is where you're hiding. Didn't know you were on the roster for a shift tonight,' he said cheerfully. 'I though the trainers had someone covering their work during initiation – or has Eric changed that as well?'

'No – I'm not pulling a shift.' I replied, I'm just checking in on the newbies – some of them were pretty freaked out.' I glanced at the screen, thankful that the footage backed me up. Al was curled in a ball, and eyeliner smudged Molly's face. Tris had just moved out of shot.

'Oh yeah – it's the start of Stage Two. No wonder Uriah's been hyper – well more than usual. I didn't have you down for the mother hen type, Four.'

I smiled grimly at him. 'I'm not – but maybe you should be. Uriah found it just as rough as the rest of them.'

'Well, I gave him all the help I could for Stage One, but I warned him – you can't prepare for Stage Two. I don't like it, but he'll learn. He'll have to.' Some of the bravado left his voice. 'Is he doing alright though? I mean, will he get through?

I shrugged. 'He's making the cut so far, but there's no telling what the fear landscapes will throw up. I don't think he needs to worry though – today was just the start, but already I've got a good idea of who's struggling, and it's not your brother.'

Relief had washed over Zeke's face. 'So you really are watching over them. And here I was thinking you just had the hots for the little Stiff girl,' Zeke laughed. I flinched inwardly at his words. I knew he was kidding, but I was bothered at how near the mark he was. 'So, do you want company, or do you fancy getting a couple of beers?'

I couldn't check up on Tris with Zeke watching my every move. I was pretty sure that I could trust him, but I hadn't needed to put it to the test yet, and I was reluctant to do so until there was no choice. I didn't think he would rat me out, but I couldn't shake off the sense that there was something going on – something dangerous - and I didn't want to expose the people I cared about – not Zeke and, I could admit this to myself now, not Tris either.

Suddenly I'd felt the need for simple friendship. It was something I had only found since becoming Dauntless – in Abnegation I'd carried too many secrets to ever have an open relationship. I realised that with my decision to leave the Faction, I'd already begun to leave my friends - drawing back from them, creating distance. But it had been a long day – a very long day - I was tired, and the thought of blowing off some steam with the guys was very appealing.

'Trust me, there's a lot I would rather be looking at in my spare time than this sorry lot.' I jerked my thumb at the screens. 'Were we ever this dismal during our initiation?' Zeke laughed.

'God, I hope not'

'Couple of beers it is,' I decided.

Zeke grinned. 'I knew you wouldn't be able to resist my charm. Come on, the rest of the guys are waiting for us.'

So I'd headed to the bar, and was well into my third bottle of beer before I realised I'd not eaten since breakfast. Which would explain why I'd already had a buzz going on. I'd just about managed to put Tris out of my mind, genuinely enjoying the banter and the company, when I saw her.

Images from the night before flashed into my mind – Tris, the tattoo, telling her how good she looked - and I cringed. I remember how blasé I'd felt at the time, but the flashbacks were telling me that I wasn't so much witty and urbane as lecherous and unbearable. She must think I'm a total jerk – and right then I realised how important her opinion was. I couldn't actively chase her, couldn't even let her know I liked her, but I didn't need to go out of my way to repel her either. We had no future, not if I was leaving, but there was a growing part of me that wanted her to think well of me – maybe even miss me when I'd gone. The memory of her last night flashed into my mind, and once again I could feel her nearness – the heat and scent of her. In my mind's eye I traced again the birds tattooed on her collar, drawing my eyes to her breasts, reminding me that she wasn't a child, despite her small stature. My fingers twitched with the muscle memory of the need to trace the flight of those birds, and I could feel desire beginning to stir.

I gave myself a shake and with an effort brought my mind back to the present. One good thing from last night's encounter - I'd seen for myself how she'd recovered and I was impressed at her recovery. I arrived at the Control Room just as Ted was heading out for breakfast. 'Hi Four. What's up – missing us?'

'Just can't keep away. Take your time, Ted. I'll cover things here until you get back. I've got an hour before testing starts again.'

'Thanks, Four. I won't be long.' Ted headed out, allowing the door to swing shut behind him.

I'd worked out a scheme to cover my tracks in case anyone was monitoring my movements on the systems. I waited until the door was fully closed, and then began to check the Aptitude Test results for all the transfers. If anyone asked I could say I was researching trends in how transfers from different Factions fared compared to the Dauntless born. I worked through them in alphabetical order – which was a reasonable enough approach if I was questioned about it. I worked quickly through the others and finally pulled up Tris's result – she was logged as Abnegation. I don't know what I expected – but that wasn't it. I searched for her test footage, but it hadn't been logged. I checked out the others and had no trouble accessing it. So, it was just Tris who didn't have any footage – my apprehension increased. I pulled up the test records again. Tori had logged the result, but not the footage. I examined the files of the other tests Tori had administered – all of them had footage logged. So, the problem wasn't with the tester, just Tris. Dread settled in the pit of my stomach. There was something wrong with her Test, and that could only be one thing - Divergent. Nothing I had expected to find could have chilled me more than the disturbing absence of data. Or the fact that at least one other person suspected enough to cover Tris's tracks. At least Tori had erased the evidence, and not reported it. But why? Divergence wasn't easy to recognise though, and I wondered what Tori had seen in Tris's test. There was something about Tori, some story that I had heard that was tugging at my memory, but I couldn't bring it to mind. It would come to me.

I glanced at the time. Ted was due to return. I carefully shut down the archived files, and returned the screens to the feed that had been displayed when I arrived.

I left the Control Room and swung by the dining hall to grab a muffin and a coffee, and headed for the Testing Room. I powered up the computer, and prepared the serum for today's tests. I couldn't afford to just go through the motions today; the tests needed my full attention. I had to know for sure whether Tris really was different from the others, and a part of me hoped she would log a slower time today. With my stomach churning I opened the door into the corridor, and a crowd of haggard faced turned to look at me. Not one of the initiates looked as they had slept. I took a breath and as calmly as I could called, 'Tris, you're first up.'