A/N: Wow... thanks you guys for all the reviews and alerts and favourites! It was great motivation to finish this chapter up!

Thoughts about Tris were like a constant white noise in my head. No matter what I was doing they were always there, and if I didn't have something in front of me demanding my attention they took over. I ended up spending a lot of time alone because I couldn't control the way my face reflected what I was thinking about; smiles and scowls and lip chewing that would have invited questions I would rather not answer.

I thought of all the ways we could hide being together because while patience was a virtue, it was never one I'd possessed in abundance. It was excruciating, having to see her and keep up the facade of being her impassive instructor as the days ticked by when all I wanted to do was touch her and kiss her and talk to her; when all I wanted to do was get us back to that place we'd sometimes inhabited, of just being a boy and a girl who liked each other.

I wanted to revel in the way she made me feel nervous and excited and alive; the way she made me feel like I really was eighteen instead of some old man bent double and broken under the sorrow of decades resting heavy on my shoulders. I even liked how her presence was enough to throw me off balance, how it made me say and do things without thinking, even if I did cringe over them later.

I knew I couldn't avoid telling her the truth about me - who I was, where I came from - forever, but I didn't know how to even begin that conversation because the one thing no one ever tells you about falling in love is how selfish it makes you; the lengths a person will go to, to keep feeling the way I did around her.

I still wanted her to know me, but there was a part of me - a part that I didn't want to acknowledge - that felt the only love I was deserving of was the kind that expressed in the sting of a leather belt. There was a part of me that felt that if I had been lovable I wouldn't have had parents who beat and abandoned me. And it was that part that kept me from telling her everything because then she'd see how unlovable I was, and she'd be gone. Permanently.

Before either of us got any deeper into this I needed her to know who I was, who I really was, and I needed her to believe me. The only way I knew how to accomplish that - to prove to her that the 'lies' her parents had probably been decrying were the truth - was so deeply unappealing I could barely bring myself to think about it.

It took the simulation almost a week to push her past the more arbitrary fears that opened Tris up, that drug her through the fire and showed her just how strong she was when she emerged from the other side. Today was different. Today she had to kill her family for the second day in a row, and it wasn't a fear that was waking her up; this one was shutting her down.

The silence was deafening, melancholy when she finally pulled herself out the hallucination, and I knew the image of her family, bloody and crumpled like rag dolls at her feet, was burned into the backs of her eyelids. I wanted to say something reassuring, but I knew her day wasn't going to get any better, and no empty platitudes were going to fix that.

I watched quietly as she sat with her head in her hands, taking deep breathes like she's trying to fight off tears. Her eyes were pained when she finally looked at me. "I know the simulation isn't real."

"You don't have to explain it to me. You love your family. You don't want to shoot them. Not the most unreasonable thing in the world."

"In the simulation is the only time I get to see them. I miss them. You ever just... miss your family?"

I let the silence stretched between us before she pushed herself up towards the door. I debated lying to her, or not answering the question at all, but it was an innocent question, and in the grand scheme of things would help me more than hurt me.

"No, I don't. But that's unusual." I answered honestly, laying the first stone that would someday pave the way for me telling her the whole truth about me and my family and why I was Dauntless instead of Abnegation.

I could see the questions in her eyes when she stopped with a hand on the doorknob, but she didn't say anything.

Slowly, the curiosity was replaced by something else, something tender and intimate. And just as slowly it filled me with the same sense of calm that I felt with her hand in mine at the bottom of the Ferris wheel; the same calm I'd been chasing every time I've touched her since. I could feel the walls breaking down, all the things I wrapped around myself to protect me shattering under her gaze.

xxxx

I was unsurprised to find that Tris wasn't in the cafeteria for lunch. If her initiation was anything like mine - and judging from her absence it was - she was met by varying degrees of jealousy, hostility, and outright hate when she made it back to the dorm to find that she was ranked first among the transfers.

Predictably Peter, Molly, and Drew were hunched over the table they were eating at, plotting. I wasn't surprised by that either. It was a rueful thought that if Peter was Divergent it would have served him better; if he had a little Erudite cunning to temper his Dauntless brutality he might have been truly dangerous. All he was now was a thug emboldened by disposing of Edward without facing any consequences.

"Hey," Shauna greeted me as she and Zeke sat down. I barely noticed her, too engrossed in trying to figure out whatever it was Al, Christina, and Will were saying that left Uriah clenching his teeth.

"Hey!" Shauna said again, punctuating it by slapping her hand on the table in front of me and forcing my eyes to meet her. "I'm going to get another tattoo. Why don't you tag along?"

I huffed in irritation. I was planning on going to the hidden spot at the bottom of the Chasm to have some solitude so that I could live with the Tris in my head for a little while since I still couldn't be with the Tris that walked Dauntless' halls.

"Don't give me that," Shauna said good-naturedly as she grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, "you've been one morose bastard lately, and I'm not going to let you mope around for another day."

"You're kinda disappointing you know that?" She said once we gained the hallway. "I thought watching you woo your girl would be more interesting, but mostly it's just boring."

"He's Abnegation, he can't help it," Zeke smirked. "It's all pointed glances, and hidden smiles until they get married, and then maybe after that a little hand holding."

I barked out a laugh. "You're one to talk."

We were just walking past the training rooms when we heard laughter and voices behind the door. It should have been empty, so I slipped into 'intimidating' instructor mode and opened the door, prepared to chew out whoever was screwing around in there only to find Tris, Uriah, Lynn, and Marlene goofing off.

"I thought I heard someone in here," I said, my mood slipping from annoyed to bemused. Just like Zeke and Shauna had adopted me when I was shunned by the transfers, so too had Uriah and his friends accepted Tris.

"Turns out it's my idiot brother." Zeke quipped. "You're not supposed to be in here after hours. Careful, or Four will tell Eric, and then you'll be as good as scalped."

I stood to the side as they filed past me, out the door. My fingers twitched in an anticipation as Tris drew closer, my mind working feverishly to come up with something to say to her that might take away the sting of rejection I knew she was feeling despite her camaraderie with Uriah and his friends.

Lynn eyed me suspiciously. "You wouldn't tell Eric." I couldn't help wondering if it was a thinly veiled threat. That if I planned on ratting her out she'd tell everyone what I had stupidly told her about growing up like Tris had. I couldn't think about it without berating myself at the thoughtlessness of it.

"No, I wouldn't." I said flatly.

As Tris filed out I pressed a hand between her shoulders, hyper-aware of the way my hand spanned the gap between her narrow shoulders, the way she shivered slightly under it. "Wait a second."

She turned, looking up at me with those pale blue eyes, looking right through me as she had in the simulation room earlier.

I let my hand drop. "You belong here, you know that? It'll be over soon, so just hold on, okay?" I said nervously, feeling the familiar thrill roll through me that I always felt when I said something real to her; when I let myself be honest and vulnerable with her.

She didn't say anything, just kept looking up at me, the small movements of her eyes flicking between both of mine belying the nervous under the cool facade. She was still looking at me when I felt her hand - soft and warm - slip into mine. Our fingers laced together like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we'd we'd done it a hundred times instead of just this once.

I couldn't keep the beatific smile off my face despite the sense of loss when she finally pulled her hand away and ran off down the hall. For the first time she touched me, and whatever niggling doubts I might have had were obliterated with that small gesture.

Harrison's eyes never waved from the screen he was looking at as I slipped into the Dauntless control room. "What are you doing here?"

He was never a man of many words, preferring to spend his time cloistered away here, eyes bloodshot from looking at lines of code scrolling across the screen, skin pale from the lack of sunlight.

"Thought I'd keep an eye on the surveillance cameras for a while; make sure I don't lose another initiate to a butter knife in the eye." I said as I settled into a spare chair. Peter was brutal, but he wasn't cunning. I had no doubt he'd try to eliminate Tris by the time the sun came up.

"Good idea." He muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard, his tapping a constant soundtrack as I watched and waited.

I toyed with the idea of seeing if I could hack into Max's files again, see if the Erudite had sent him anymore orders, but committing an act of treason in front of witnesses wasn't the smartest idea I'd ever had.

It was an hour after the lights went out in the dorms and the night vision in the cameras automatically kicked on that I saw Tris get up and walk out. I flipped between camera's keeping her in view as she made her way to the water fountain.

But she didn't stop. She kept walking. "What are you doing, Tris?" I said to myself as she slipped out of the view of the camera, walking towards the Pit. A minute later Peter, Drew, and Al crept along the hall after her, and I was out of the chair like a shot.

The scene that met me when I made it to the Chasm didn't make me fearful, it made me furious, and when Drew stupidly put himself between me and Peter as he held Tris over the railing, I didn't think about it. He got in one good hit, but all it did was make me smile red and wet as I laid into him.

And I didn't stop when he screamed. Or when he tried to curl in on himself protectively, or even when he looked at me with the same fearful look I used to give Marcus when I was kid and I knew I was in for a beating.

And I felt like God, raining down fire and destroying worlds, wiping whole civilizations off the map. In my mind I was screaming at him with hurricane fury, unstoppable.

But I did stop, finally, when I heard Tris croak out my name, her grasp on consciousness as tenuous as the grasp she had on the mist slicked railing as she dangled over the Chasm. I didn't spare Drew a second glance as I pushed myself up from where I was straddling him on the Pit floor and lifted her into my arms, and she finally gave up the fight to keep her eyes open.

She was still passed out as I kicked open the door of my apartment and laid her gently on my bed, and quickly checked her over for any serious injuries. I wanted to stay with her until she woke up, but I needed to get back to Drew before he got any ideas about what happened tonight.

He was still moaning on the floor when I walked up and nudged him in the shoulder. "Get up, asshole." He pushed himself up slowly, and I grabbed him by the elbow impatiently. "I don't have all night," I snapped as I pulled him the rest of the way to his feet.

I had to keep him upright as he stumbled his way to the infirmary, but it did at least give me the chance to make sure that he understood what would happen if he told anyone anything other than the truth: that I had simply happened upon him on my way back from the control room and helped him to the infirmary.

Tris was still out when I got back. I crouched down next to the bed, brushing my fingers across the bruise forming on her cheek and only then realizing my hands were caked in dried blood; it wasn't all Drew's I realized as I washed it off - my knuckles had split open.

I was careful to avoid looking in the mirror over the sink, scared that if I did I would see Marcus staring back at me. Not because I was ashamed of what I'd done, but because I could have easily killed Drew and the only regret I had was that I hadn't been able to inflict the same on Al and Peter.

I caught Tris' eye as I pulled an ice pack out of the fridge.

"Your hands." She croaked, her voice as much evidence that she'd been choked as the bruises around her neck shaped like Peter's hand.

"My hands are none of your concern." She nearly died and her first reaction was an Abnegation one; always projecting outward and never worrying about herself.

I leaned over, putting the ice back behind her head, but before I could pull away she reached out, her hand hovering in mid-air for a moment before gently tracing the split in my lip where Drew hit me. "Tris, I'm all right." I mumbled against her fingers.

"Why were you there?"

"I was coming back from the control room. I heard you scream."

It was a literal truth and a literal lie at the same time. I would tell her one day, tell her everything, but not tonight. Tonight she didn't need me telling her that I was falling for her. She didn't need me to tell her who I was and where I came from. In this day that had she had to kill her family, be betrayed by her friends, and almost lose her life, she didn't need the weight of my baggage on her shoulders too.

"What did you do to them?"

"I deposited Drew at the infirmary a half hour ago. Peter and Al ran. Drew claimed they were just trying to scare you. At least I think that's what he was trying to say." I added.

"He's in bad shape?"

"He'll live." My voice was so cold it didn't sound much like my own, but Tris still squeezed my arm affectionately. "In what condition, I can't say."

"Good." Her voice was tight, but fierce. I watched silently as something like pleasure crossed her face, careful to keep the pity out of my eyes. I hated it when people looked at me like that, and I knew she'd hate it just as much.

I reached out, gently cradling her face in my hand, thumb brushing over her bruised cheek. "I could report this."

"No. I don't want them to think I'm scared."

"I figured you would say that," which is why I brought you here, I added silently.

"You think it would be a bad idea if I sat up?"

"I"ll help you."

I held her steady as she lifted herself up, a groan bleeding out between her lips.

"You can let yourself be in pain. It's just me here."

I let her breathing steady before I spoke again.

"I suggest you rely on your transfer friends to protect you from now on."

I couldn't follow her around like a guard dog morning, noon, and night. The best chance she'd have at staying safe was to mend fences and rely on Will and Christina.

"I thought I was," she choked out, "but Al..."

"He wanted you to be the small, quiet girl from Abnegation. He hurt you because your strength makes him feel weak. No other reason."

She nodded vaguely, but I knew she didn't believe me.

"The others won't be as jealous if you show some vulnerability." I pointed out. "Even if it isn't real."

"You think I have to pretend to be vulnerable?" She asked me disbelievingly.

"Yes, I do." I said as I took the ice pack out of her hand, and held it her head myself. "You're going to want to march into breakfast tomorrow and show your attackers they had no effect on you. But you should let that bruise on your cheek show, and keep your head down."

"I don't think I can do that." She said, her voice hollow.

"You have to."

"I don't think you get it. They touched me." Her cheeks burned in humiliation as her words sank in, the disgust in her voice mirroring the sick feeling in my stomach.

"Touched you." I could feel the rage that I felt earlier rising inside of me again. Dauntless had always been a dangerous faction, but using sexual assault as a means of intimidation...

"Not... in the way you're thinking," she stuttered, "but... almost." She couldn't even look at me as she said it, only looking back to me when the silence had gone moved from seconds to minutes. "What?"

"I don't want to say this, but I feel like I have to. It's is more important for you to be safe than right, for the time being. Understand?"

She nodded slowly, knowing I was right, but hating it all the same.

"But please, when you see an opportunity," I pressed my hand firmly against her face, forcing her to meet my eyes, "ruin them."

She laughed shakily. "You're a little scary, Four."

"Do me a favor, and don't call me that anymore."

"What should I call you then?"

"Nothing. Yet."