A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed this story! I'm glad you guys are liking it. This is the last chapter of the previously posted stuff. After this, everything is new. Special thanks to my beta, Kate of Carlay. Thanks to her, you have story names. We came up with four in one night. That was all her. So thanks, Kate :D

Chapter 4

The next morning, Tris let herself out of the house and left before anyone noticed. Briar and Daja knew how to reach her when they figured out she was gone, and Talia and Glaki would be sure to tell them if they found out first.

She walked through the streets, wondering if she'd truly gone insane this time. Was this really smart, even if it was Hunter? After pausing in the road, she started moving again, deciding that she had to know just what was going on.

She found his forge easily, knowing what one looked like, and stepped inside.

It was hot, but then, all forges were, since there were fires running. Tris didn't notice the heat, though, because the second she'd walked in, she saw Hunter. He was standing with his back to her as he reached into the fire to pull glowing metal out of one of the furnaces.

She watched in silence as he carefully shaped it until it looked like a stem of some sort. Curiously, she shifted her gaze so she could see his magic, and saw it flowing through his hands into the piece of metal he was holding.

The stem grew, sprouting leaves and a tiny bud at the top, along with a couple of other branches that quickly grew leaves and buds of their own. Tris watched in amazement as the bush grew in size, and sighed in disappointment when it fell into itself.

She was surprised and a bit awed to see the bush rise up again, bigger this time than it had been before, and watched as it fell into itself again. It rose one more time, shooting out flowers and leaves all over the place, before folding inward to just the stem Hunter had started with.

"That was beautiful," Tris murmured.

Hunter jumped, startled, and turned around. "Tris. What are you doing here?" His dark green eyes were on her gray ones, and Tris could see his curiosity. It reminded her that she had no idea what she was doing here.

"What was that?" she asked instead, trying to change the subject.

Hunter raised a dark eyebrow, but then held out the stem. "It'll end up being a small pear blossom tree. It grows and shrinks three times, growing bigger each time. The third time it grows, it doesn't shrink back." Then he smiled. "At least, that's the plan. I'm not really sure how it'll go over."

Tris felt her lips twitch. Hunter kept smiling at her. His hand reached toward her, holding out the stem to her. "Take it."

"What?"

"It's for you. Let me know how it goes, okay? You're welcome in here any time."

Tris took the stem, looking at it for a minute. She barely noticed the warmth of it, though to anyone who didn't have magic like they did, it would probably have burned. When she looked up at him, he was busy pulling something else out of the fire, and didn't seem to be paying attention to her anymore.

She turned to leave, appalled by the fact that she'd gone there in the first place, when Hunter spoke. "Tris?"

"Yes?"

"Why did you come here?" He turned all the way around to face her.

Tris stared at him for a few seconds and tried to keep her emotions from showing on her face. She expected Hunter to say something else, but he just kept looking at her, waiting her out.

Normally, Tris was able to wait things out longer than anyone she knew, but with Hunter, she never knew what to expect. He seemed so different than anyone else she'd ever met, and she wasn't sure that she liked that.

Not to say that she didn't like him. It was just the way he was. Most people she knew would have run screaming the first time Tris sparked lightning, but he didn't. He'd been touched by the lightning, and it hadn't seemed to affect him at all.

He amazed her, put simply. She never knew what he was going to do next. She was used to the predictability of the human species, even her brother and sisters, but Hunter baffled her.

They kept staring at each other, and Tris finally felt herself give in. "Didn't my lightning hurt you?" she asked.

Hunter frowned. "What do you mean?"

"You're not burned?" Tris asked, tilting her head.

"What are you talking about?" Hunter asked again.

"Yesterday. I got upset and started…throwing off sparks. You touched them."

Hunter stared at her for a second, and then lifted his hands, showing her both sides. She caught sight of a nasty red welt on the knuckles of one of his hands just before he did. "Well, look at that," he said, and a smile broke out on his face. Then he glanced up at Tris, who looked completely shocked. "Doesn't hurt," he told her, shrugging.

"But…" She trailed off, and then lowered her head slightly and turned to walk out the door without another word, but then she stopped. "What does the pear blossom mean?" she asked without turning. Her voice was almost too quiet, but Hunter heard her.

"Hope," he said simply, and watched her leave.

xXx

Tris walked back to the house on Cheeseman Street. Talia and Briar were in the front part of the garden, and they spotted her walking up the street. "Where've you been, Tris?" Briar asked, and then saw the copper in her hand. "Ah."

Tris didn't even seem to notice her brother speaking to her. She went inside and up the stairs without even sparing a glance for Briar and Talia.

"Did you see what she held?" Talia asked.

"It looked like a stick. Why did he give her a stick?" Briar shook his head. "Whatever." He went back to his weeding, though Talia noticed that he was pulling the weeds with more force than usual.

"I'm going to find out," she said, and dusted off her dress and hands before going inside. She climbed the stairs to Tris's room, but the redhead wasn't there, so she peeked out onto the roof.

Tris was sitting on the ledge, and the stick was in her lap. Her head jerked up when she heard Talia come out onto the roof. "Oh. Hi."

"You passed right by me and Briar downstairs," Talia said, sitting down next to Tris. "Got a lot on your mind?"

Tris looked over and nodded slightly. "Yes, actually. I went by Hunter's forge today."

Talia's eyebrows raised. "Oh? What for?"

Tris pursed her lips and stood up, placing the stick in her pocket. "I had intended to talk to him about…I don't know. I really don't know why I went. And then he hands me this thing," she pulled the stick out of her pocket, "and completely confuses me."

"In the time I've known you, I've never heard you admit to being confused," Talia said, tucking her smile away from later. "And why did he give you a stick?"

"It's supposed to grow into a pear blossom tree. A mini one."

"Pear blossom?" Talia repeated quietly, and then smiled. "Hope. That's sweet."

Tris glared at her sister-in-law. "Sweet," she said, and rolled her eyes. "Every time I think I have him figured out, he does something unexpected."

"Men are usually that way," Talia agreed, nodding.

Tris grumbled under her breath for a while, and then turned to Talia. "Was Briar this complicated?" she asked.

"Briar told me what he wanted straight off," Talia replied with a shrug. "We didn't have much of a courtship." This last was said with a smile.

"Well, Hunter isn't courting me!" Tris exclaimed.

Before she could help it, a laugh slipped out of Talia's throat. "Sure, Tris," she said, grinning.

Tris glared at Talia and stormed off the roof, forgetting that this was part of her space, not Talia's.

xXx

Tris went downstairs and passed Glaki on the way down. "Tris, where were you this morning?" the girl asked.

"I went to see Hunter for a few minutes," Tris replied sourly.

"He gave you a stick?" Glaki asked, pulling the branch out of Tris's hold.

Tris snatched it back. "It's a pear blossom tree," she muttered, and kept walking.

Daja was in the kitchen when Tris went to find something to eat. "Did you speak with Hunter yet?" Daja asked. "About the lightning, I mean."

Tris nodded her head. "Yes. It burned him, but he didn't feel it, apparently. According to him, it doesn't hurt. I didn't get to ask him much more than that. I was a bit preoccupied."

Daja took a quick peek inside Tris's mind. "A stick?" she said first, stiffening, and then relaxed. "Oh. Pear blossom tree. Very nice. Tell me how it goes, will you?"

"Mages," Tris muttered.

Daja laughed. "He gave Frostpine a Lucerne, to see if it would grow like a regular flower. Frostpine sent it to me. It's one of the prettiest specimens I've seen not made with my living metal. It's like he creates his own living metal. I've seen metal and smith mages do great things, but I've never seen things like this before. It's really pretty brilliant."

Tris glowered, not wanting to hear her sister singing Hunter's praises. She sat down at the table and set the pear blossom branch in front of her on the table. She stayed there for a while, forgetting about the food, just concentrating on the branch.

Briar came in and saw Tris sitting at the table with her cheek cradled in her hand, elbow propped on the table, and smiled. She didn't look like his sister did. His smile dropped when he saw what was in front of her.

"He gave you a stick?" he exclaimed. "A stick, really? That's the best he can do? A stick?"

Tris sighed. "Be quiet Briar. I'm trying to watch it grow."

Briar snorted out a laugh. "Watch it grow? Tris, metal doesn't grow. Not unless it came off Daja's arm, anyway."

"This one's supposed to," Tris replied, not letting Briar's bad mood affect her already black one.

Briar sat down across the table at her and mimicked her posture, staring at the branch on the table. "Well, Coppercurls, this is boring," he said after a while, and stood up.

Tris reached over and grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back down. "Wait!" she said suddenly. "Look at that!"

Briar leaned in to the branch and saw that a tiny stem was growing slowly out of one side, unfurling a tiny leaf. His brow furrowed as he sat down and continued to watch.

A/N: Hope you enjoyed! Please review and let me know what you thought!! Any questions, please please please ask them! :D --Sarah