Once we all jump, and I feel calmer about Tris's new reaction to guns-which apparently is staying completely still, waiting for the bullet to dig through her skull-I stand by her side.

I have no doubt in my mind that Tris will be upset that I hadn't told her about Evelyn, or how the factionless really are. I think she has an idea of how I am against the idea of factions. I gave her a small glimpse of it when I told her I didn't want to be in line with one particular way in life. I remember I explained that to her when I showed her the tattoos on my back. The last time I had her to myself, before the banquet, before the simulation attack, and before she changed herself. I don't know why, but something in my chest is telling me that this isn't Tris, that Tris would not take a bullet. Tris is a fighter, rather she was one.

I touch her shoulder lightly. "It's been a while since I checked that shoulder. How is it?" I ask.

"Okay." She replies, happy to talk about something. "I brought the pain medicine, luckily." She breathes deeply, and when she lets it out, she says, "I don't think I'm letting it heal very well. I keep using my arm or landing on it."

"There will be plenty of time for healing once all of this is over." I say, when really it is me testing her, like I would during initiation. There will be time for healing once this is over, if she fights to live through the war.

"Yeah." She replies quietly, her body limp. Her voice lacks her usual sureness, her confidence. I didn't think I would hear her without it, but now that I do, it scares me, which is a big thing considering I only have Four fears.

I wonder if they are still there, but I am not in the Dauntless compound. I am walking to Evelyn. Toward the factionless, and there beady eyes, lingering on people in an inappropriate way. I press my lips. I can't give Tris a gun to defend herself, but I can't let her walk around with larger, stronger, experienced factionless bums. I remember the cool knife I put in my pocket before we left. "Here." I say handing the thing to her. "Just in case."

She takes it without looking at me.

She won't be able to do much with a knife. She can throw it, but that would do no good. I remember saying that knife throwing is useless. It is true, but knives themselves are handy. "You can throw a knife, but that won't even take down a cat." I remember Amar say. Then Max interrupted, saying, "You can, however, use a knife to stab someone. That has a better effect then throwing, and is deadlier, and has a more fatal effect." Amar pinched his nose at Max and made faces while he wasn't looking, making all the transfers laugh, while a confused Max looked at all of us like we were crazy.

Amar was something. Hilarious when things were too rough, making us feel more at ease, but in a matter of seconds, he could be so serious, it would be like he was training a bunch of soldiers for war. In a sense, he was.

My chest aches remembering Amar. My first friend.

Dead.

Once we reach the inside of a safe house, I recoil inside, though i stay placid outside. I watch Tris's reaction-it is a habit of mine to watch her-and see the shock plastered on her eyes. They are strange, really. It is an even mix on blue and grey. Like the sky. It is gray as a the sky when it is in a light snow storm, but can be blue as well, like a summer sky. They are bright, and always claim attention. Looking at her is so refreshing, it's like waking up from a bad dream. I remember looking at her when I broke free from the simulation that controlled my senses. I had woken up from a nightmare.

"Come on." Edward says. "She's back here. I don't look at the factionless around me. I am too lost in thought, though I feel the curious eyes of the people not suited for the virtue they chose.

"What's going o?" Tris says, her low voice breaking the silence. "Why are you all like this?"

I open my mouth to answer her, but Edward beats me to it. "You thought they -we- were all split up/ Well, they were, for a while." Before Evelyn decided she found a kingdom she had to fix. "Too hungry to do much of anything except look for food. But then the Stiffs started giving them food, clothes, tools, everything. And they got stronger and waited. They were like that when I found them, and they welcomed me." He says it like he should be proud of where he is now. However, i got the part where he calls the factionless "they" instead of "we." If he could, he would go back to a faction.

The more steps we take, is like taking a few more steps to hell. I wind a loose peirce of string on my shirt, which is red. I look from side to side, expecting someone or something to jump out, when really I'm head straight for it. I'm not afraid of Evelyn, but I would avoid her at all costs, but now I can't. Not now. Tris looks at me in wonder. It is how she looked at me when she found out I had only four fears. When I was no longer Four, but Tobias. Now she will find out that Four's dead mother is really alive.

Edward stops at the metal door, and pounds on it so hard, it's like he's trying to separate the door from it's hinges, though it could easily be my eardrums pounding, urging, begging, for me to turn away.

"Wait, you said they were waiting? What were they waiting for, exactly?" Caleb's annoying voice says.

"For the world to fall apart. And now it has," Edward says.

True, the world has fallen apart. We have a choice though. Rebuild it to how it was before, or start a new puzzle, a new era, where human beings can live life without barriers, or serums that make you feel emotions you don't want. No factions. The latter choice makes me wonder how such a world would look. For the worse or for the better?

A woman appears from the door way, one eye not working at all. Her good eye scans each of us, much like an Erudite would.

"Strays?" She asks.

"Not hardly, Therese."Edward says pointing a thumb at me. I want to twist it off. "This one's Tobias Eaton." He says again with that mocking tone. Though, I could just be imagining it.

The woman looks at me with thoroughly before nodding, carefully looking at my features. "He certainly is. Hold on."

I will. I'll hold on to my temper. I really just want to snap back and say that I want nothing to do with this :I never asked for this.

No one ever would.

"You know who he's going to get, don't you." Caleb asks me.

I gulp down the urge to snap back, or say something cold, but the most I can muster up is, "Caleb. Please shut up."

I said please since he's Tris's brother.

The girl -Therese- Comes back, steps back, and gestures for us to come in. The door is a boiler room, a jungle of metal pipes, to a section, the back probably, where old fashioned light bulbs sway from an old wire. And behind the table is the one who could have saved me from seven years of belt lashes, and seven years of being trapped in a closet full of jackets, unable to breathe. I can't help it any more, and I need support to help me from breaking down. I clasp Tris's cold hands. I always considered Tris to be the one to be strong, so strong that some of it might radiate on to me, and I still believe it, because it seems to work. After a few seconds of touching her, my hands are cold as well, but I feel stronger, not like the nine year old who felt a loss after his mothers so called death.

"Evelyn." I say as even as possible. The second the name is said Tris's hand goes limp in my own, but I stll cling to it, as it is the only thing keeping me from thinking of her departure. Instead I try to think of all the moment I've had with Tris, but memories of a coffin just keep coming back, flooding in, and I can't stop it.

"Hello." She says. She goes around the table, looking at me, a motherly smile playing on her eyes. I want to smack it off. "You look older."

Well, he's not going to look like a nine year old. conscience/Amar says. I was wondering where he went. I feel like he will always defend me, even now, when he is dead. Maybe one day I will not need his voice to guide me. Maybe one day, I will only hear is voice in my mind as a memory, rather then him reminding me never to quit, to always keep fighting, that there is always a reason to fight. I just need to find it.

"Yes, well. The passage of time tends to do that to a person." I say coldly.

She smiles, and it reaches her eyes."So you've finally come-" I know what she is about to say next. 'to join us in our battle for a new era.' I do believe in having a new era. Just not one where Evelyn is queen.

I cut her off menacingly. "Not for the reason you think. We were running from Erudite and the only chance of escape we had required me to tell your poorly armed lackeys my name." I snap, remembering how the factionless women on the train was about to attack us with a butter knife.

Then again, I hear those things can really stab you in the eye.

Shut up Conscience.

"I see." Evelyn says, still smiling. Now that she has me in her trap, she won't let me go without a compromise. "Introduce me to your fellow refugees, then." Her eyes drift down to Tris hand being crushed with my own. I don't know why, but it I think it would be a bad idea for Evelyn to know Tris's relationship with me.

"This is Tris Prior. Her brother, Caleb. And their friend Susan Black." I make sure to give surnames, because it is the only thing she is interested in.

"Prior." Evelyn says. "I know of several living Prior, but none of them are names Tris. Beatrice however..."

"Well. I know of several living Eaton's, but none of them are named Evelyn."

"Evelyn Johnson is the name I prefer. Particularly among a pack of Abnegation"

"Tris is the name I prefer. And we're not Abnegation. Not all of us, anyway."

Tris does not seem to like Evelyn. Good. I don't want her too. This one's a keeper, Four. She has a temper problem too!

I am starting to wonder if having conversations with a dead instructor makes me crazy.

Yes. It does.

Evelyn look at me, and eybrow raised. "Interesting friends you've made." I know, I think to my self as I look at Tris's shoulder wound.

"Those are population counts?" Caleb asks. "And...what? Factionless safe houses? I mean these places, on the map? They're safe houses, like this one, right?"

"That's alot of questions. For security puposes, I will not answer any of them. Anyway, it is time for dinner." The way she says it tells everyone that we are not going anywhere any time soon.

Four. Remember who you are. Stand tall, stand proud. You're not who you were then. You are who you are now. Amar's voice says. I'm glad, that I do have a conscience that talks to me, because it gives me strength and confidence, and I can't seem to find that on my own.

I stay behind, heave a large intake of breath, and let it out. Tris walks in front of me.

"I'm not stupid. I know you want nothing to do with me -though I still don't quite understand why-"

I interrupt her, scoffing.

"But." She says glaring at me. "I will extend my invitation again. We could use your help here, and I know your like-minded about the faction system-"

I'm not like minded. I'm half in half about the idea, but I can't tell her that. That would mean that I half agree with er, and she would take that to mean I accept her as a mother.

I don't.

"Evelyn." I say instead of calling her 'mom.' "I chose Dauntless."

"Choices can be made again."

"What makes you think I'm interested in spending time anywhere near you?" I exclaim, stopping. I can't stand this, I just can't.

"Because I'm your mother. Because you're my son." Her voice trembles.

She stopped being my mother when she died. From then on, she was dead, and she is dead to me right now.

And I heaven't breathed in a whole entire minute, afraid that if I breathe, memories of a belt lashing my back the very day she disappeared. I had double the amount of pain.

"You really don't get it. You don't have the vaguest conception of what you've done to me. I don't want to join up with your little band of factionless. I want to get out of here as quickly as possible."

"My little band of factionless is twice the size of Dauntless." She snaps. "You would do well to take it seriously . Its actions may determine the future of this city." She says walking away.

And with that she has put a lot of pressure in me.

Yes the factionless are twice the size of dauntless, but they are all misfits, all of them were not capable for a faction. What could possibly make them capable for war?

I look ahead, and see Tris. I scowl. I have to deal with this now.

"How long have you known?" She asks accusingly.

"About a year." I say breathing again. My eyes close, and I lean on a wall. "She sent a coded message to me in Dauntless, telling me to meet her at the train yard. I did, because I was curious. " And stupid. "And there she was. Alive. It wasn't a happy reunion, as you can probably guess."

"Why did she leave Abnegation?"

"She had an affair." I say shaking my head. I don't blame her for that. "And no wonder, since my father..." I shake again. I have trusted Tris before, and she hasn't broken that trust. I have to tell her the truth. I have to give her another piece of me. "Well, let's just say Marcus wasn't any nicer to her than he was with me."

Countless nights of sleeping through Evelyn's cries. Sobs jolting me awake, but not of my own. Another lash of a whip meeting flesh, but not on my own body.

"Is..."Tris says her voice trailing off. She is trying to understand. She didn't grow up the way I did, and I am happy for that. "That why your angry with her?" She asks. "Because she was unfaithful to him?"

"No." I say fervently, my eyes popping open. She jerks a little. That was a little too harsh. "No, that's not why I'm angry."

She comes toward me slowly, carefully, like I might explode at any moment. I don't blame her. I feel like there is a timer in me, that there has been one in me since I was born, and if I get upset enough it will blow.

If that were the case, we'd all me blown to bits. I can't count how many times you've gotten mad in the past year alone.

"Then why?" Tris asks, softly, as if her voice alone would soothe me. It does.

"She had to leave my father, I get that." I say. "But did she ever think of taking me with her?" I would have rather grown up factionless then with Marcus.

I suppose that can't be fully true. Factionless kids don't get to choose. If I hadn't chosen Dauntless, then Tris and I would never cross paths.

Tris pinches her lips. "Oh. She let you with him."

"Yeah. She did." I say kicking the floor. What else is there to say?

Her fingers struggle to find mine, and I lace our hands together. We stay silent for a long time. It reminds me of when she took my hand in the hallway back in Dauntless, when Uriah was shooting a muffin off of Marlene. Tris held my hand then, when I told her to hold on. She left a few seconds later. It's comforting to know she won't leave me now.

"It seems to me that the factionless are better friends than enemies." I say considering the option of Evelyn's choice.

"Maybe" Tris replies shrugging. "But what would the cost of that friendship be?

"I don't know." I say shaking my head. "But we may not have any other option."

And that is the most fearful part of all.

Yeah...im procrastinating my break on divergent. I'll start on New years :3

THANKS TO ALL WHO REVIEWS! I WANNA THANK...

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