Year 2
Rae is 18

I jump out of the couch the second I hear Jake knock on the front door. Alex and Anna went to bed hours ago and I've been dying for some company. Four and Tris went out for the night to have some much needed alone time and won't be back until morning, so I'm on babysitting duty.

"I brought popcorn," Jake says with a humble grin when I open the door, flaunting a thoroughly filled wooden bowl.

"How generous," I deadpan.

"You sure the little twerp's asleep?" he asks, looking around the living room as he invites himself inside. Jake has been wary around Alex ever since he peed on him the first time I brought him over. I keep inviting him for dinner and he keeps refusing. I guess he's still traumatized.

"Yeah, I'm sure," I say, shushing him and closing the door behind him. "And don't call him that," I whine, quickly walking into the kitchen to fetch us both a glass of water. "He was just looking out for me. That's what brothers are supposed to do. And I'm sure he doesn't even remember that."

Jake scoffs. "Well, I will never forget." He sits himself gingerly in the couch and returning from the kitchen I sit down with my legs folded and facing him.

"I can't believe you're scared of a little boy," I say, teasing him.

"He's not just a little boy. He's the son of Four, Dauntless legend. He should be feared. He should be feared by all." Jake tries to keep a straight face but then he folds, and we both snicker like idiots.

"Yeah, whatever," I say. "You are so ridiculous."

I love it when he's like this; funny and playful. Nothing like the cryptic, unpleasant boy I met two years ago. Dauntless sees the harder parts of him, but when we're alone he can be so open and vulnerable. I find it satisfying knowing that there are sides of him that are my secret to keep. At least until he decides to share himself with someone else. But I'd rather not think about that, so I divert my attention to the bowl of popcorn, and digging my hand in there I stuff my face with the salted goodies.

Jake laughs at me. "You know, before the war, people would eat these and watch movies," he says. "It's kinda like watching the occasionally entertaining camera footage in the control room, but with rehearsed storylines and trained actors."

"I know what a movie is, Idiot."

"My apologies," he says, sarcastically. Then he smiles. "There are a couple of them on the database at Erudite, but they keep them strictly for historical and educational purposes, not entertainment. My mom used to pick the lock and sneak me in there when I was a kid. There was this one about a badass superhero dog. I liked it."

I smile, imagining Jake as a little blond boy, sitting on his mother's lap, immersed in a children's movie.

"I wish we could still make them," I say, leaning sideways into the large couch. "Dauntless movies would be the best."

"You think so?"

"Hell, yeah," I cheer. "A movie about drunk, crazy daredevils? What's not to love? Besides, could you imagine how boring a Candor movie would be?"

"Or an Abnegation movie," Jake says.

"An Erudite movie would be purely educational." I fake vomit.

"I believe those were called documentaries," he says matter-of-factly.

I screw up my face. "Even the name of it sounds boring."

Jake laughs quietly. "I think Amity movies would be nice," he then says.

"Why?"

"They'd be about love. I think I'd like romantic movies. I like love stories."

Such a common misconception, that the Amity exude love. But that's all it is; a misconception, a façade. Many days I had wanted to steal all their peace serum so I could see how miserable they really were.

I raise an eyebrow at Jake and say, "That's because you have a cherry where your penis should be."

He laughs again, louder this time. "I guarantee you. I have a penis and it's right where it's supposed to be. It works and everything."

"Yeah? Be sure to give it an early morning test run when you take a shower tomorrow. If you take a shower tomorrow," I correct myself.

"I will," he winks, and he throws a kernel of popcorn at me. I smile at him and I find myself hoping that he'll stay late to keep my company and then crash on the couch. I love talking to Jake. It's easy. We could talk about nothing and talk about everything and we could do it for hours.

"That must've been cool, watching movies with your mom," I say. Jake's mother died the same day my father did. I don't know much about her, but from the way Jake talks about her I know that there's no way she was a part of Jeanine's tyranny. Possibly, that's what got her killed. He had asked me once if my dad died in the storm too. I told him no, but that he did die that day. I will have no part in that lie.

Jake smiles the way he always does when he thinks about his mother. Her name was Amber. "Yeah. It was," he says. "Don't you think it's ironic that both our mothers were from here and we ended up coming back?" he asks me after a while.

Sometimes I do think about it, my mother and grandmother, in a different time, walking these very halls as Annabelle and Isabela Rodriguez. But I often don't. My thoughts hang in abeyance and without direction because I never knew them. I only know that they existed. Thinking about them is as wholly frustrating as grabbing onto open air, reaching for something that's just not there.

"Only a little," I say.

"Sometimes I wonder why she left, or what my life would have been like if she hadn't transferred out of Dauntless… or hadn't died. I wonder what it would have been like to grow up here instead of Erudite." He stares into the now almost empty bowl of popcorn.

Jake is far more pensive than any other human being I've ever met. But maybe that's because there were so many different directions his life could have taken. I'm not that complex. Even if my mother hadn't transferred, or she and my father didn't die, I can't imagine myself being anyone other than who I am right now. It's who I've always been. I was born for Dauntless and I knew it ever since I was four years old. I would've ended up here one day or the other. Though as a little girl I wondered if I would've had the strength to leave my father when the time came.

"Trust me you didn't miss much. There aren't too many safe things to do with your children in Dauntless. Hopefully that changes by the time I'm ready to procreate."

"You want kids?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at me.

"Of course I do." I love my family more than anything, but there's something undeniably depressing in knowing that there is absolutely no one else in the entire world that shares my blood. "I want two. And I want to give them a nice, big yard and watch them run around in it."

Nobody in Dauntless has a yard. But Jake doesn't point out how ridiculous my dreams are. He's staring at his fingers, lost inside his head again.

"You don't?" I ask him. I imagine that's where his head is.

"I guess I do. I'm just not sure if I should."

"Why not?"

He shrugs. "My dad is an asshole. My grandfather was an asshole. And I'm pretty sure that his father was an asshole. I think I've been genetically programmed to be a dick dad."

"That's bullshit," I quickly blurt out.

"No, it's not," he says, defensively almost. "There were studies about these things from before the war. More than 40% of males that grow up the way I did turn out to be no better than their fathers. And considering the Shepherd track record, I don't like my odds. They don't call it a cycle for nothing."

"Fuck the statistics," I say to him. "Cycles can be broken. Even this one. I've seen it."

Jake looks at me, curious, but he doesn't ask who. A part of me is glad.

Most of the Dauntless know about Four's past. But they don't know everything. They haven't seen what I've seen. They haven't seen him lose his temper and then break down because he did. They haven't seen him battle his demons and won. Maybe if Jake knew it would help him. But it's not my secret to tell.

When he looks away I press my palm against his shoulder and firmly say, "Jake… it is humanly impossible for you to be a dick dad. You know why? Because you are one of the few awesome human beings left on this planet. Your kid's gonna fucking love you."

In the past two years I've come to see and know all the many ways that Jake's sad excuse for a sperm donor affected him. Many days I've wanted to slap the bastard silly. How could a man be so power-hungry that he felt the need to prey on his own son? It's left Jake with scars, visible and not. Jake is anything but weak, but most times he'd swear that he is. I wish he could see what I see when I look at him.

"And his mama too," I add, trying desperately to make him smile. And he does, but it's a peculiar smile. I recognize it. It's the way Tris smiles at Four when he's not looking. It's the way I smile when I lay alone in the dark privacy of my room, when just before I fall asleep I think about being with him.

Those were strange thoughts for me at first. I mean, I've liked plenty of guys before, but before Jake I'd never thought of being with someone that way; something permanent, lasting. He just seemed to fit and it went beyond anything that he did or said. It was more like an innate attraction, an appetence.

I remember one time when we were supposed to go out and I arrived at his apartment only to find him spiking a fever and looking as brittle as a biscuit. All my plans got thrown out the window and all I wanted to do was to stay in and take care of him.

You don't have to do this, Rae. Go. Have fun, he urged me.

But I ignored him as I forced a pill down his throat, and after condemning him to his bed I left for a short while and returned with condiments and I made him soup. He was rather impressed. Dauntless raised girls aren't known for being domesticated like the Abnegation or the Amity. That was the day I decided to tell him where I really came from.

I'm not surprised, he had said to me.

Why not? I asked. Most people would be.

Looking into my eyes he said, Most people don't know you. You're a lot kinder than you seem. His tone brooked no argument.

I often wondered where that hint of kindness came from, since I had zero aptitude for my birth faction. But I didn't have to wonder for too long. It is easy being kind to him because I love him. And loving him, I want nothing more than for him to be happy… even if it's not with me.

"You should tell her," I say, hesitant and with only half of my heart. "Whoever you're thinking about right now. You should tell her."

"If I do it changes everything," he says softly, his voice deep.

"You're telling me?" I say, and then I scoff. "It'll change my life forever. I'm sure she won't be in favour of our drunken sleepovers. Where am I supposed to get another best friend who will put me up for the night without trying to sleep with me? Then again… There was that one morning when I woke up feeling rather sore."

He laughs a little. "And what if she doesn't feel the same way?" he asks.

"What is it with you?" I scold him and I sit up straight. "Stop doubting yourself, Jake. Any girl with proper sense would be madly in love with you. You're amazing."

"Do you really believe that though?" he asks, and he bites his bottom lip. He really is beautiful in many more ways than one.

"Without a doubt," I say firmly.

Jake's hand reaches out and I think he's gonna push my hair behind my ear the way he always does, but instead his palm rests on my cheek and on my jaw, tenderly skimming the skin there. Then leaning into me and gently pulling me to him he closes the gap between us and presses his lips to mine, kissing me. For a split second I wonder if I'm dreaming, but when the slick slide of his lips against mine fills my arms and legs and toes with goose bumps and makes every hair on my body stand at attention, I know that I'm very much awake.

His lips are slow as they mold mine but they are firm and demanding, and in less than a second mine follow suit. It's a natural kiss, as if we had kissed a thousand times before, and the feel of his lips on mine fills me with emotions that I can't even begin to identify.

I'm left wanting more when his lips break away. But I savour the feel of his breaths caressing my skin as his face hovers over mine, his palm still pressed into my cheek.

"You kissed me back," he says softly. And then he smiles.

"You can't imagine how long I've wanted to do that," I whisper against his lips.

"I know I've wanted to do that for two years," he says. "That's how long I've been in love with you."

I pull away and I'm almost sure I gasp. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Why didn't you?" he asks, searching my eyes. I was afraid that if I admitted that I wanted more that I'd scare him off and ultimately end up with nothing. It never occurred to me that he felt the same way all this time.

"I just don't want to ruin it. I don't ever want to lose you," I admit softly.

Stroking my cheek with his thumb he says, "You never will," and he kisses me again. This time the kiss is deeper, stronger, hungrier. I become bold, pushing him down so that his back is pressed against the flat seat of the couch and I'm on top of him. His hands grab at my waist and creep gently up against my sides, and the sensation of his skin on my skin is exhilarating.

I become lost in the kiss, but I don't miss his gentle hardness as it grows underneath me, pressing into my thigh. I pull back and I laugh nervously.

"Whoa there, cowboy," I grin.

He smirks handsomely. "I told you I had a penis."


A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who has favourited and is following this story! :) And Damn You Kylie, Paula'08, Guest, HI, Bamberlee and Divergent Rebel 4664 for your reviews on the first two chapters. You guys are amazing. Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well :)