Sue, Dan, Shawn, Jan, Bob- (Mentioned) coworkers of Hana's in the control room.

Carly- (Mentioned) friend and coworker of Hana's

Jude- Eli's crazy ex-girlfriend, now engaged to Zane

Angie- friend and former roommate of Hana's, works in the Dauntless kitchen

Abilyn- (Mentioned) former Candor, roommate of Hana's

Bekah and Kelly- (Mentioned) roommates of Hana's

This chapter has been a long time in coming. (Like it was written in December or January!) I hope you enjoy reading it! If you have a chance leave me a review. I'd love to know what you think of this one!

Thank you Bahrfamily for your help with this and every chapter! And for agreeing to our little something extra at the end…

54 Extra Shifts

I prop my hands up on my chin and watch the screen. When Sue went out on maternity leave, we knew there would be extra shifts. When Dan had to have his appendix out and it got infected, we knew that there would be no days off for a while. But when Jan got put on bed rest, Carly broke her leg and was put in traction, Shawn ruptured his spleen, and Bob threw out his back… we knew we'd never see anyone outside of the control room for a long time.

At the end of the first week, I realize the only thing I've had to look forward to is trading out drives for Natalie today.

And I don't even expect to see her.

I open the door and close it. For a moment I just stand there, trying to process what I'm seeing.

"Hana!" It's Natalie. She's lying on her back, on the bed, with her head hanging off the edge.

"What are you doing here?"

"I thought I'd check on you. I know you worked 20 hours today, so I won't keep you long, but I wanted to see how you're doing." She flips over onto her stomach. "How are you doing?"

I walk over to the bed. "I'm tired." I flop down on the bed next to her.

Natalie laughs. "Okay, I guess I asked a pretty obvious question." Then suddenly she becomes serious. "How are things with Eli?"

I groan. "I finally got him to agree that since Jude is engaged, we could tell people we are dating."

Natalie gives me a puzzled look. "That should make you happy."

"It would have… if we hadn't decided it the night before the control room went critical." I feel a tear slip down my face. "We never got a chance to tell them."

"Oh, Hana…"

I wipe it away. "I've got to get home and get to bed. I'm back at work in…" I stand up and check my watch, "Seven hours."

"Get some sleep," Natalie urges me. "Just remember, this won't go on forever, and then you and Eli can tell everyone."

"As long has he doesn't change his mind!"


It's now the end of the second week of this non-stop work. Working an average of eighteen out of every twenty-four hours has gotten old. I am so ready for a day off. Actually, right now, I'd be happy with two hours off.

The only good thing that has happened is also a bad thing. My shifts have become so erratic that Eli and Nick don't walk me around Dauntless any more. It's good, because Nick no longer has to waste his time walking me places I'm perfectly capable of walking to all by myself. It's bad, because I no longer get to see Eli. Right now I'd be willing to inconvenience Nick for a chance to see Eli. Even if I couldn't hold his hand, or hug him, or kiss him.

Today is a rare day where I don't have Erudite. Instead, I watch Dauntless and the cameras in the Factionless sector that come with it. Hours of watching my friends live real lives while I watch, stuck in here, alone. Joy.

All I can hope for today is a glimpse of my friends as the cameras flip through their rotation. At least I'll know they're alive.

I'm two hours into my shift, when it happens. I see Eli on the screen. It's all I can do not to pull the camera from rotation and just watch him. My eyes fill with tears. I miss him. If only we had told everyone we were dating before all this madness started. We were so close. If we had made the decision just a day earlier, even, we would have had time to tell everyone. Maybe then I could invite him to come eat a sandwich with me while I work, the way Bekah does every couple of days with Conner.

As it is, I'm pretty sure it's not going to matter if the next time I see Eli is at the garden, where it is private, or in the cafeteria at dinner time when it is the most crowded. The first thing I'm going to do when I see him is pull him close and hold him for a very long time.

The screen flicks to the next camera. There are almost 400 cameras on this loop. At five seconds per camera, that's somewhere between twenty and thirty minutes before I'll see him again, if he hasn't moved in the meantime. I stifle a groan. This is impossible.

Watching the screens while I wait for the feed to loop back around is agonizing. Amazingly, almost half an hour later, he shows up again. However, this time, Jude is on the screen with him. His back is against the wall and she is pressed against him. My heart stops. The feed continues to the next camera. My fingers fly to take me back to that camera. I know I'm not supposed to do this, but I have to know what is going on, and in half an hour, it will be over.

By the time I can give the computer the commands, whatever was happening is over. Jude now stands alone in the hallway, her hands balled into fists. I check the three cameras on either side of the one I was watching, but there is no Eli.

"Chow time!" Angie brings in our boxed meals. I take one the one she hands me and tell her thanks, but I'm really not sure I can eat it.

"Are you okay?" she asks me.

I nod. "I'm fine," I lie, thankful it is Angie and not Abilyn who works in the kitchen. Abilyn would call me out on the lie immediately. My stomach is churning. Eli and Jude. This can't be happening. There has to be an explanation for what I saw.

Yeah, there's an explanation for it. It doesn't matter that she's engaged to someone else. I'm stuck here in the control room, alone, and he's wondering if he made a mistake, leaving her for me.


The days have started to blur together. I feel like I live in the control room. I haven't done anything outside of it for three weeks now except shower and sleep. They have to figure out what to do about this labor shortage in the control room. I haven't seen Leeann in a week. Bekah says Leeann has seen me twice this week, but I was asleep both times, and Eli… I'm not even sure when the last time I saw Eli was, except for that day I saw him and Jude on the screens in the control room.

Dan came back today- part time, but he is back, and tomorrow Carly comes back part-time, too. I have two extra hours off today. I figure I'll try to eat like a normal person in the cafeteria at a table instead of in the control room, hunched over a computer. I scan the small late breakfast/ early lunch crowd. I don't expect to see any of my close friends, but I do hope to see someone I know to sit with. At first the only person I see that I know is Jude. As soon as I see her, I decide to quit looking and sit by myself on the other side of the cafeteria. Then I see who is sitting with her. I bite my lip, and my heart stops for a second.

Eli.

If I had to guess, I would say I haven't seen Eli in person for almost three weeks now. My heart squeezes. After seeing him on the screens, with Jude, I really didn't want to see them sitting together. The thought bounces in my head again. Has he been seeing Jude in my absence? There is a knot in my throat. I think about pretending I didn't see them, but Eli sees me right about then and waves me over. I try to swallow past the lump in my throat and go join them.

"Hey, stranger." Eli smiles at me when I sit down next to him. "I haven't seen you in a long time."

I sit down and look at my plate. This isn't the reunion I had been hoping for. There's no way I'm going to hug him with her sitting there. "I haven't seen anyone in a long time." I try to make it look like the tear I'm rubbing out is really sleep.

Jude looks across the table at me. "Control room getting to you?" She asks with an almost-sincere voice. She's trying, because Eli's here.

"Pulling sixteen to twenty hour shifts without a day off for the last…" my brow furrows as my worn-out brain tries to remember how long it has been.

"Three weeks," Eli supplies for me.

He knows. "That sounds about right," I stifle a yawn and repeat myself. "Working sixteen to twenty hour days without a day off for the last three weeks is starting to get to me." I cut my chicken. "I love the control room. I just wish everyone would get healthy and stay healthy!" I put my bite in my mouth.

Jude returns to doing what she does best: ignoring me and claiming Eli's attention for herself. Wearily, I keep eating, not bothering to keep track of their conversation. I steal a glance at him just in time to see him laugh at something Jude says. My stomach turns. I see the scene of them pressed together in that hallway replaying in my mind. I haven't eaten much, but suddenly I'm not hungry any more. I push back my chair and stand up.

"Hana?" Eli's concerned voice cuts through the fog of sleepiness and confused emotions.

"I'm exhausted." I pick up my tray. "I'll see you guys later."

Eli checks his watch, and then picks up his tray too. "I'm going to be late. I'll catch you later, Jude."

He walks with me to put up our trays. When we are out of range for Jude to hear him, he speaks to me. "I need to talk to you." His voice is soft.

I nod.

"But not right now. I think you need some sleep, and I really do need to get back to work." He pauses for a second. "Will you be around for dinner?"

I nod slowly.

"Can you meet me at the garden, about half an hour before everyone normally gets here?" He glances at me. "Will that give you enough time to get some sleep?"

I nod, hoping the tears I feel in my eyes don't show.

"I'll see you then." He puts down his tray and walks off.

I put down my tray and walk back to my room, my stomach churning the whole time. He wants to talk to me. He's been spending time with Jude while I've been working this impossible schedule. Is the fact that he wants to talk to me a good thing, or a bad thing?


When I get back to the apartment Bekah and I still share with Abilyn and Kelly, it takes me a little while to fall asleep despite my exhaustion; my thoughts keep churning, keeping me from sleep. Before Eli and I started secretly dating, he and Jude were together. For some unfathomable reason, he has a weak spot for her. Has she used my absence to move in on him? It wouldn't surprise me in the least if she dumped Zane for Eli. Does he want to talk to me to break up with me and get back with her?

When I do fall asleep my dream is a nightmare filled with Eli and Jude. It proves this is what I'm worried about. I see them kiss. I hear him tell me I'm just Leeann's friend. I watch them get married.

After that dream, I am wide awake. Although I'm still tired, there is no way I can go back to sleep. It's almost an hour before I'm supposed to meet Eli, but falling back asleep seems impossible at the moment. I decide to get a quick shower, dress, and head on up to the top of the Pire. I can wait for him in our spot. If he's going to break up with me, I want to spend some time there now, to enjoy it while I can. If he does break up with me, I won't ever be able to handle going back there again.


I take the elevator to the top floor of the Pire, and then find the staircase Eli showed me, the one that leads to the roof. I know I could have stayed on the elevator all the way up, but the elevator opens out to the plain roof of the Pire. The stairs open to our garden. I prefer that view.

When I open the door, I'm surprised to see Eli has beaten me here, despite the fact I'm over half an hour early. He's pacing back and forth, so even his smile when he sees me doesn't quite put me at ease. Normally Eli sits on the black bench if he gets here first. He says it is peaceful. The fact that he is pacing restlessly doesn't help my nerves.

"Hana!" His eyes light up when he says my name. That quiets the fear for just a moment.

"Hi." My voice is soft, shy, like when we first started getting to know each other.

"Let's sit down," Eli points to the bench.

I nod and cross the roof to the bench. We sit down together, but he doesn't touch me. There is no hug, no kiss. He doesn't even take my hand. My heart drops. I look at my hands, at my feet, at the plants- anywhere but at him. I don't want him to see how scared I am that he is about to leave me. I must be brave.

"Hana?"

"Yes?" I feel his fingers lift up my chin so I have to look at him. As always, I could get lost in those dark brown eyes of his. I could just watch the light play off the specks of gold in them.

"I promised you once that I would tell you the story of this garden." He clears his throat. "I think today is the perfect time to tell you the legend, then I'll tell you the new part of the story I found out recently."

I close my eyes, willing the tears to be absorbed back into me. He's going to dump me. He's telling me the story now, only because he promised me he would tell me the story.

I want to tell him to forget it, and jump up and leave. It must show.

"What's wrong?" Eli asks suddenly.

"Nothing," I lie and sit up straighter. "Tell me the story."

"The legend I've always heard was about a Dauntless-born man who fell in love with a transfer from Amity. He built it as a place for her to escape to, when she missed the plants of Amity."

I smile without thinking. "That was sweet of him."

Eli holds my gaze. "I always thought it was a fairy tale of sorts."

"Why?"

"Faction before blood," Eli answers quickly and shrugs. "I always figured that it was just made up by someone to explain the garden, but…"

His voice trails off.

"But what?"

Eli looks at me and laughs. "Last week I found out that Nick is more observant than I give him credit for. He seems to have put together that my recent spell of bad moods has something to do with your non-stop work schedule."

I feel a blush color my cheeks and hope starts to bloom. Maybe he isn't going to break up with me...

"Evidently, there is a letter from our Great-Great-Grandpa Gregor which is passed on to anyone in our family who dates a transfer. Since his parents were married after mine, he has the letter."

"Ok…" I don't want him to stop; I just want him to know I'm listening.

"This letter is supposed to be shown to anyone in the family who is serious about a transfer. Evidently Great-Great- Grandpa Gregor didn't actually trust transfers. He never considered anyone Dauntless whose parents and grandparents weren't also Dauntless.

"And then he met Vi- short for Violet, her real name."

"Violet doesn't sound very Dauntless," I manage to say.

"She came from Amity."

I nod. That makes more sense. "I can see why she changed it to Vi."

Eli smiles at me. "Anyway, it turns out that Vi not only changed her name, but she also changed his mind, completely." Eli pauses in his narrative for a minute. He looks out at the skyline.

I try hard not to fidget as I patiently wait for him to continue.

"The letter tells us to always remember that part of the reason we fell in love with the person who transferred is because of the pieces of their old faction that are left in them. That we need to embrace both who their faction of birth made them and who they become in Dauntless."

My stomach begins to relax. He wouldn't tell me that if he was going to break up with me, would he?

"As it turns out, he was the one to build the garden up here. He built it for my Great-Great-Grandma Vi."

"Hana." I look at him. Our gazes lock on each other. "I love you. Not just for who you became when you transferred to Dauntless, but for the Abnegation parts that are still inside of you." I blink rapidly to keep the tears from falling.

Eli shifts off the seat, so he is no longer sitting beside me, but kneeling in front of me. "Hana, I know this might be rushing you, and I'm willing to wait, but I'd like to know, if… if…" It surprises me to hear his normally sure voice falter. "Hana, will you marry me?"

I pull my eyes off his and look at his hand. Pinched between his fingers is the most unusual ring I've ever seen. The band is black with diamond shaped facets cut into them. The facets seem to glow in the light. Then suddenly his fingers tip the ring, just a little, and they change from black to the blackest shade of gray I've ever seen.

My eyes fly to his. The answering look he gives me tells me he knew it would do that, that he was trying to do what his great-great grandfather suggested, and keep a little Abnegation for me.

I feel a tear slide down my cheek.

"Hana…?" His voice is more unsure than I've ever heard it. "Nuptials Day is about two months away. We can get married then, or if you want to try dating publicly, I can hold onto this until after that, and we can get married next year."

I shake my head.

"Hana," his voice is panicked, "you have to give me more of an answer than shaking your head."

I can't speak. Wordlessly I hold my left hand out, and while he holds the ring still, I guide my finger into it.

Suddenly Eli whoops and stands me up. He gathers me in his arms; my arms wrap around his neck, and he twirls me around the edge of our- Vi's, garden. "Really?" he asks.

I smile. "Really." He starts to put me down.

When our noses just about touch, he tips his head and kisses me on the lips, and to my surprise, I find myself kissing him back. At first, our kisses are soft and gentle; they linger for just a moment.

I feel something unleash inside of me, and those little kisses are not enough. He seems to feel it, too. Our lips meet more urgently, longer. I remember my mom's warnings about kissing a boy always leading to wanting more, and I finally truly understand it.

Suddenly, before I want him to, Eli puts me on the ground and steps back a little ways. "I always knew kissing you would be dangerous." He looks at me for a moment, and I see something new in his eyes. It's not just the love I've gotten used to seeing in there. There is something more, and I know the answering look is in my eyes.

It's a look that says a few kisses aren't enough.

He takes my hand and runs his thumb up and down my palm as we start to walk to the stairway door. "It's going to be a long two months."

You can thank MissLoey for this deal I'm going to offer you… about a month ago in a PM after a review she asked me if I had ever thought of writing anything in Eli's Point of View. I told her that Dauntless Gray is one POV, Hana's. But… there was one scene written from Eli's point of view. I wrote it when I was trying to reconcile this chapter and an upcoming one. It's not a full chapter, less than 8,000 characters. I told MissLoey then that when the story caught up to the scene I would send it to her in a PM.

The scene that I wrote from Eli's POV is when Nick gives him the letter from Great-Great-Grandpa Gregor. If you have Fanfiction account and would like to read that scene, review this chapter. I'll send it to you in a PM.

If you log in as a Guest, sorry, I'm not sure how to get it to you then. But it's really easy to get an account and then I can send it to you!