My last three months of school were pretty hectic, and I got sick after. I'm sorry for how late this is.
I do not own Divergent or any of the characters, but I do own this fanfic.
Caleb and Jeanine join them as soon as he and Peter end their conversation. No matter what change Jeanine has gone through, he still will never find it in himself to trust her as much as he seems to trust Peter. He didn't even know what got into him, why he said anything to Peter.
But the damage has been done and there is nothing he can do about that now.
Peter stands on his right and Jeanine takes her place on his left. Caleb stays on Jeanine's other side, and their eyes are all trained to the hologram of Tris, there where she is walking down a narrow and dark hall, both walls lined with doors to one place or the other. Tris' footsteps echo in the hall, the only other sound present other than the crackling of the flame of the torch and her nearly inaudible breathing.
Just like he taught her. And yet, just like she taught herself altogether.
Tobias doesn't need to know all four of them are wondering many different things in those moments. To say they're wondering what could be behind those doors would be a lie. Still, their eyes are all trained to the hologram, watching Tris, wondering what will happen next.
If the serum will work or not.
While he watches Tris look from left to right, calculating, analytic, deep in thought, he thinks back to what happened after Caleb and Jeanine disappeared through the door.
"You've been wondering what happened to Jeanine for a while, haven't you?"
As always, Peter is a creep. The type of creep that just randomly pops up or speaks up, whenever he feels like it with his own intentions that he will never admit.
"Who hasn't?"
"You didn't answer my question." Tobias adjusts himself to face Peter a bit more, just enough for him to see Peter's face entirely.
His shoulders square, Tobias replies. "I've been wondering. What do you want, Peter?"
"Nothing." Peter looks away from Tobias, fully to Tris' hologram now. "Just want to let you have your fill of secrets. I mean, everyone has a little bit of Erudite in them, don't they?"
It unnerves Tobias unexplainably, the way Peter just acts. It's like the guy's got a built in sense that just annoys people on end. Still, Tobias keeps it to himself, because as Peter said, everyone has a little bit of Erudite in them. And Tobias will not pass as ignorant to his own self, to ignore that he is curious.
"What do you know?"
"Ah, nothing. Just that," Tobias feels the atmosphere get a little heavier, though it has been light since Peter began to talk. "Just that what happened to Jeanine is a little less sudden than what everyone thinks."
This takes Tobias by surprise. "What?" Now, he can't help but look Peter in the eye.
"I was on patrol one night, the first night after Tris..." Peter seems more unsure what to call it than unsure if he should mention it. Typical.
"Go on."
"Well yeah, the first night. The first night after your mother took over too.
"So that night, I passed by Jeanine's room and I heard crying. I thought, like everyone else, that it would be impossible for Jeanine to cry. I mean, sure, she's a person and all, but it's more likely for her to be made of metal than made of skin.
"So I decided to let it pass after a few seconds of slowly walking away from her door to keep listening, but the second time I passed, her door was open and the crying had stopped. Call me crazy or whatever you'd say, but I went in her room."
"You what?!" Tobias voice is well beneath a shout, and he whispers it, but his words still slightly echoes around the room.
"I was curious." The mischievous glint comes back in Peter's eyes. "Besides, everyone has a little bit of Erudite in them, right?"
Tobias nearly rolls his eyes from Peter's attempts to lighten the atmosphere, if that is what that idiot was going for.
"But anyway, so I went in her room—her flat, really, since it has a kitchen and all that—and took a peek inside her bedroom where I saw her curled up on her bed facing away from the door. So she was really crying, okay. Thankfully, when I opened the door it didn't creak, and there were no alarms or anything, so I got in her room undetected. She was still asleep when I saw her face.
"When I did see her face, I saw that she was hugging something close. It was a tablet, but she hugged it so tight that I didn't see a hint of light if it was even on. Anyway, other than the tablet, there was also a box of things that probably came from under Jeanine's bed. I never touched any of it, scared she might wake up, but I went near enough to see what it was."
Tobias had a rough guess of what he is about to hear, and it didn't seem possible at all; he couldn't believe the words he's guessing will come out of Peter's mouth.
"They were pictures, Four. Pictures of Tris. Even way back when Tris was still a baby."
Peter is thankfully sensible enough to give Tobias time to let it sink in. He is already stunned at what Peter was insinuating, but for it to be true is a different story. A few seconds pass, and Tobias meets Peter's eyes, letting him know to continue.
"I went back into her room. Out of her bedroom, into her living room. Then I saw a shelf there. When I pulled at one of the drawers, there was a notebook inside. I got it out then read it. It was a notebook filled with 'observations' about Tris. But it was more like a journal to me."
Peter's eyes look even more direct into Tobias' now, Peter's jaw set.
"Four, Jeanine has always loved Tris. She was just too blind to realize that."
Even now, Tobias couldn't comprehend all of what Peter told him. He knows that the tablet is probably where all of the files are in, where clips and pictures and documents of Tris is in. He knows that without Peter telling him, because what else would the tablet be for? Why else would it be so important? Why else would Jeanine hold it so close?
Though, the fact that Jeanine may have been watching Tris her entire life is creepy. But seeing how highly Jeanine views Tris, it seems to make a little more sense, with the observation part. And maybe Jeanine couldn't help herself from caring for Tris, and only figured everything out too late. Maybe Jeanine didn't even accept it when she figured it out, and only finally realized what it is when Tris was gone.
Now, Tris is alive, and only maybe if the serum works.
On the hologram, Tris is shown to stop in her tracks, closing her eyes and seemingly sniffing the air.
Long after she separated from the main hall of this underground maze, all she could smell is the burning wood from the torch in her hand and, faintly, the scent of old water. It didn't do much that the entire place reeked in a way, since it's many centuries old and underground. Suddenly, she wishes to be back up on the ground surrounded by the scents of flowers and dew.
But no, she couldn't be swayed to leave. She has to find what she came here for no matter what it is she'll see.
So she keeps walking. But nothing seems to be out of place, nothing seems to be different.
Just as her thoughts give her an idea that she has to behind all these doors, that what she's looking for doesn't have a distinction, she catches a scent that wasn't present before.
She stops in her tracks, and closes her eyes. She lifts her chin and sniffs the air, as if to prove to herself what she smells is real.
Real, that is, in the sim. Because nothing in the sims are real.
The scent is coming from the second door on her right, which she confirms when the scent grows stronger just from her moving closer to the door. Without a doubt, she knows this scent, she knows it all too well. She doubts anything can ever make her forget it.
It is the scent that is distinctly and distinguishably Tobias.
She pushes the door open, anxious and excited to what she'll find, missing the real Tobias already.
Tris pushes the door open, and whatever she's expecting to be beyond that door, Tobias knows Tris has been anticipating for a while now.
Tobias wishes it's him.
They've been in unbreakable silence for a while now. Peter and him.
"There was also something else I found there." Peter speaks again.
"What?"
"Between two random books on her shelf, Jeanine had a picture of a girl. She had long, brown braided hair, and she wore an Abnegation dress. She had bright blue eyes. And, for a Stiff, she had a really nice smile."
Could it be who he thinks it is?
"The girl was with your mother, too." Peter pauses, most likely for his own interests, but Tobias is glad about it. "Don't ask me how I know Evelyn's your mother. It's something that's circulated for quite a while now."
Peter and his way of getting information.
"So, do you know who she is?"
There's a silence that Tobias is lost in, like how that memory is lost in time somehow.
"She's my elder sister. Her name is Katrina Eaton."
Tobias can sense what Peter wants to say, but isn't saying. Tobias nearly prepares himself to tell the whole story, no matter what's going to happen to him, but Peter asks him something else.
"Why have you never told anyone?"
Because he's been trying to forget. Because he already did. Because-
"It's hard for me to talk about Trina even now."
The door to the observation room slides open, and in comes Caleb and Jeanine.
On the other side of the door Tris opens, there he is, Tobias Eaton, in all his glory.
Except he's in bed, on top of a girl that can't be seen from how his back hides her.
At the sight, Tris feels like she's going to explode. She knows it's a sim, but how dare he, how dare he do this to her, after all they've been through, after all the promises, after all the silences that they've shared and that they promised to keep between and for each other only.
She can't believe him, even if this is just a sim. She can't believe that he could do this to her.
As if to prove her point, or to show her he doesn't even care if she's in the room or not, he slides his body closer to the woman's beneath him, and finally, the woman's face is revealed. But her face is not familiar to Tris, so she doesn't care about the woman.
In fact, the woman doesn't matter. What matters is that Tobias Eaton had betrayed her. And the sheer thought made her blood boil on end.
For the next chapter, I will try to post it this week. If not this week, next week. :)
- SilverShortyyy