Chapter 11: Lifeline
"To know what is right and choose to
ignore it is the act of a coward."
- Masashi Kishimoto
Standing there in the middle of the Bureau's hallway listening to the ragged breaths of Caleb's panic attack from under his lab tested death serum proof suit, Tris was stuck to the floor in paralyzed realization. Suddenly the noises of her incapacitated brother and the sound of the pattering soft feet of those going the opposite way along the evacuation route mixing with the pounding of the boots of the guards coming down the hall faded as the reality of what she had to do hit her like a ton of bricks. Tobias wasn't going to like it but there was no time left. "Caleb!" She hissed her brother's name and he only pitifully fell to the ground whimpering in fear.
"I can't do this, I can't! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" He managed to pant through panicked exhalations and strangled inhalations. Tris shook her head ignoring his clearly meant words and started to pull the suit off of her terrified brother. "What are you doing?" Caleb wheezed out as the scrub like shirt was unzipped and the pants were pulled off of him like he was a child again unable to undress himself. It took her pulling on the too large pants and tying them up tightly with the drawstring around her stick thin waist and getting an arm through the sleeve of the jacket before his Erudite brain was finally able to process exactly what she was doing. "No. Tris! You can't, you'll die. It's my fault. My fault."
The Divergent girl ignored him as he continued to mumble something that could possibly have been "my fault" over and over again. After jerking on the gloves over her tinier hands and double checking that everything was all zipped up she finally made eye contact with her brother as he continued to lie on the hallway floor. "My fault? Your fault? Our fault? No one's? It makes no difference anymore. I forgive you Caleb. I'm sorry too. But this has to be done." He began to make little sounds of protest but she spoke over them, she was no longer the small voice of an Abnegation girl he could over rule, she was trained by Dauntless and was Divergent to the core, "Tell Tobias that I love him, okay?" After being spoken over by his former tiny but now fierce sibling, Caleb could do nothing but nod as she shoved the gun she was carrying into his hands and gave her final order for him. "Cover for me, shoot anyone that comes around that corner."
Before he could get a word in edgewise she was gone, running in that over sized suit and pulling on the hooded face shield with her, now, unarmed hands. She was too small for war; heck she was always too small in his eyes he thought too late as she rounded the bend out of sight. Staring down in fright at the gun that looked too large in his hands but fit perfectly in hers it finally hit Caleb fully, she was no longer the little girl he kept thinking she was and hadn't been for years. That girl had grown up without his knowing, even before she had defaulted from her faction, and now she was a trained soldier, a war hero by all accounts, and soldiers fulfilled their missions no matter the cost. "Please don't die in there, Tris. Please!" He squeaked out seconds before the first guards rounded the corner and he leveled the gun against his shoulder, aimed for the incapacitating but not fatal areas and fired at will.
Meanwhile, Tris was still running forwards yet fearing what she was about to do, what she had to do. There was no looking back for her, she was a trained soldier and the mission had to be completed; she had to save everyone, it was the right thing to do. She didn't want to die, not when she had so much to live for. At one point she would have welcomed the closure of the circle, the ending of the spinning gyre that was her life but she had come so close to that final end and had realized it then, she wasn't as ready for it to be over as she had thought. Yet here she was running into a room full of a serum made to kill her, to cause all her cells to burst into apoptosis ending her life right then and there in the doorway of the guarded lab.
With that final thought burdening the Erudite part of her brain, she skidded in front of the large black door and her muscles cried out in pain at the sudden halt. At that moment, the Divergent parts of her took over: the intelligent Erudite brain, the Dauntless training, and the sacrificial Abnegation nature. Tris knew the code, it was the only thing it could be knowing David the way she did, and she knew the way to get through the serum. It was the "aha" moment of "aha" moments for her and it was the only thing that was going to help her survive this. Punching in the password, her mother's name, Tris prepared herself mentally for the coming pain and damn did it hurt. It coursed through her veins and burned a path amongst her cells and she could feel them dying, exploding into nothingness in the wake of the flaming serum.
At that moment, she steeled herself to remember and to force her thoughts to become memories to tie her down, tie her to this life. Her mother's quiet smile as she cut her hair, Caleb's laugh when they played as children, Christina giggling with her during Initiation, Will's green eyes and furrowed brow as he puzzled his way through one of the Initiation tests, Zeke pushing Shauna around the compound earning bursts of laughter from his girlfriend, Uriah comforting her when no one else could, Lynn being her friend when no else would, Matthew grinning at her and Cara as they helped him finish his science labs, and finally Tobias. Her Tobias catching her in the net, on the Ferris Wheel, saving her life from Peter and Al, their first kiss, forgiving him and being forgiven, their first actual date after Evelyn took over, and finally that night in the hotel room, that last night when she promised to never leave him. This time though she meant the words that she said and she wasn't breaking that promise. She wasn't leaving him, she was going to live.
Just like that the pain dispersed, and she was able to move forward one tiny step at a time, one foot in front of the other. She kept thinking of Tobias as a lifeline, a tether to this world and that made it easier to keep moving through the gas, to move faster. Finally the pain disappeared for good and she knew that she had made it through it despite the odds of it all. Without any fear she lifted off her facemask and breathed in deeply the oxygen on the other side of the door, she had beaten it. "Well, well." A familiar voice came from the darkness, "Don't you think that we didn't know it all along Miss Prior? What you were planning? You are already too much of a sympathizer of the genetically damaged, just like your mother."
"My mother was a thousand times better than you will ever be, because she believed that the "genetically damaged" are just as worthy of having a chance as you genetically pure folks." David smirked at that idea, like he couldn't help himself, even as his eyes, those magnified orbs behind his glasses, revealed the pain be felt at failing in Natalie Prior's eyes. "Regardless of your opinion on the matter, it is I who will have the last say, because it is I who have the gun." He gestured to the armed revolver clutched in his hands but she merely grinned at him, the knowing grin that an Erudite had when right, that an Abnegation would never wear, and a Dauntless only wore on certain occasions. Only occasions like these when Tris was able to point the knives that she had at the man who was threatening to kill her, "Dauntless are never caught outgunned."
With that warning she knocked the gun out of his hand with a well aimed throw just like Tobias had taught her and she grinned as David's face grew pale and his eyes widened in shock at his defenseless state. Even as the echo of the knife clattering beside him still resounded throughout the room, Tris spoke over it and continued "You were saying?" Then she grinned at him, a smile that quickly faded as he lunged forward trying to catch her unawares from his wheelchair, "Please, like you would hurt me! You were too traumatized by Will to even think about…OWWW!" His yelp of pain followed seconds after the point of her second knife imbedding itself straight through his shoulder, the same spot she was permanently scarred from.
"Hurts like a bitch doesn't it? Good thing you'll forget soon." The petite blond taunted as she turned around and pressed the button releasing the forgetting serum. Simultaneously the first dagger she had thrown imbedded itself in her side and she cried out in pain, "I've got to hand it to you; no one can say that you're not resilient." With the last word she pulled the knife out with a terrible sucking sound and flung it with the last of her strength into his other shoulder pinning him in place completely. His groans of pain were all she heard as everything grew dark and her eyes fluttered closed and she unwittingly fell into unconsciousness.
·
She awoke to beeping machines that sounded far too similar to the ones that surrounded Uriah's dying body. With that thought, poisoning her mind, she tried to push herself up with her left arm and fell back on the scratchy pillow under her as her body trembled at the pain. "Easy now Tris, the doctor said not to move." A familiar female voice greeted her and Tris turned her head to the side to see Cara sitting there, the concentrated crease appearing between her eyes in her worry making her look incredibly more like Will than ever. "Tobias." Tris rasped and Cara smiled sadly making Tris' heart skip a beat in fear, had she lost him?
"No he's fine Tris, just asleep. He's been worried sick, wouldn't even allow the doctor's to take care of his own wounds." With that she gave her a pointed older sister look, "You put him through hell Tris, you ought to be more careful." A hoarse chuckle startled both girls as Tobias sat up from where he'd been lying stretched across three chairs on the other side of her hospital bed. "That's like telling a Candor to lie or an Erudite not to think, Tris doesn't know how to be careful." He paused as he smoothed out his bed head and rubbed at the dark circles under his eyes in pure exhaustion. "She just knows how to be brave; even when it ages me about ten years every time."
Sitting all the way up with a wince and a groan at his stiff muscles, Tobias glanced at Cara and smiled sadly, "Can we have a moment?" She nodded still in sheepish embarrassment for chastising Tris and managed to squeak out an apology as she walked out the door at the quickest pace she could while still appearing in control. After the door closed behind her, Tobias glanced back at Tris the pain evident in his eyes and she glanced down at her lap as she realized how badly she had hurt him. "You promised." He spoke slowly as his voice dropped into a hoarse whisper and she blushed bright red in shame at his two word accusation. "I knew I wasn't going to leave you, I couldn't ever, but I had to do what was right. You taught us in Initiation that to know what is right and choose to ignore it is the act of a coward." Her blue eyes stood out hard as ice as she continued, "I'm not a coward."
Tobias sighed in resignation as he looked at her and leaned down to press his forehead to hers, "You could never be a coward. You're a damn selfless hero." Kissing her lightly on the forehead he allowed himself a smile despite his worry and annoyance and fear of losing her, "Just don't cut it so close next time. You've taken too many years off my life as is."
This is my take on how the story could have been tweaked just a bit in order for Tris to survive and I hope that for all those Tris lovers it is acceptable in your eyes. Maybe will turn this one into it's own story if enough people enjoy it and review. Either way, I will attempt to update fairly regularly and in the meantime, read, enjoy and review!