Tris

After my mother had welcomed me home, I found that I couldn't leave everything behind so easily. Now I gaze sadly at Tobias, who hasn't left the infirmary since they proclaimed me dead. I reach toward him, but I have tried this already. Spirits really do pass through mortal things.

With a sob clawing the back of my throat, I swallow hard. I chose this, didn't I? Volunteering to save Caleb, I'd known what it could cost me.

And while I was ready then to say goodbye, I still can't bring myself to leave now.

With a jerk, I wake up, my heart slamming against my chest. Only an hour has passed since Tobias and the others came home, yet it feels like days. I touch the needles sticking out of my arm, connecting me to an IV and some vital monitors. Half tempted to rip them out, I close my eyes once more. I am exhausted after what happened. Even if I have the strength to unhook myself, where can I go without collapsing on the way there?

In my mind, I see the dark angel rushing forward; hear the gunshot ring out around me. David is alive, somehow, though I knew even in my NDE haze that my guardian wanted to kill him. Now David can hardly remember anything. As for Bryn, she's more volatile than anyone I know, but seeing her with Tobias… It doesn't make sense to me.

"Tris?" My eyes snap open; I roll them in the direction of the door. Christina walks groggily, as if she guessed something is wrong. "You okay?"

I shake my head only slightly, aching everywhere. "I don't really want to talk, either," I admit softly.

Though she knows I mean it, she pulls up a chair beside me. "Maybe it'd be better for you to." I stare hard at her. She shrugs. "Four is out with Bryn. It's not like either of them will bother us." She sees my discomfort before I can hide it.

Bryn had – has – the look of a killer. She's gotten experience in her life, more than even Dauntless have. For some reason, she had known to save me. She might have been inoculated to the death serum or have a similar Divergence to mine, but whatever happened in there, that murderous expression had turned on her boss.

"Hey." Christina shakes my knee a little to get my attention. "You sure you don't want to talk? You were zoning there."

I don't want to lie to her. It comes out anyway. "Just tired." I can say I was just thinking, but that would be open to questions. I feel bad about avoiding her when she is sitting right there next to me, worried.

"Caleb wanted to stay here with you," she informs me quietly. "Bryn wouldn't let him. He misses having you as a sister, you know."

Grief pierces my heart. "I miss him, too," I admit under my breath. "But it's going to take a lot more than missing each other for me to ever trust him again." That much, at least, is true.

Christina shakes her head sadly at me. "Still, I figured you should know that much. I don't know what else to do for you, to help."

"There isn't much to be done," I remind her.

She stands and puts the chair back. "I guess I'll see what's taking Tobias so long. Maybe with him sitting here, you'll be able to sleep more." Before I can assuage her fears, she is gone.

Settling back against my pillows, I close my burning eyes. It seems like years since initiation. All of us have grown older in so little time. The reconstruction of Chicago and even the Bureau will take so much more out of us.

I wonder if Caleb wants to help Abnegation or Erudite. Abnegation has been utterly destroyed, but so has Erudite, who took the brunt of the war they'd created. There are so many questions to be answered for what's left of those two factions. Dauntless, too, now that I think about it.

Not too long ago, I might have gone with Caleb, so that we could work as a team. Having divided loyalties is an understatement at this point. I was once Abnegation, yet I swore allegiance to Dauntless. More than that, the Bureau needs me as well.

With a sigh, I throw the arm not stabbed through with needles over my eyes. Dying in the Weapons Lab would have meant losing so many responsibilities to people I barely knew anymore.

Maybe I did know what I was doing when I sacrificed myself.