Again (and I honestly can't tell you guys this enough): Thank you so much for reading! My special love and gratitude to all of you who've taken the time to review! Hope y'all enjoy this next chap.

KPOV

Keena couldn't sleep, which wouldn't be groundbreaking – per se – if it wasn't for the mindset that kept her up tonight. Because instead of nightmares that usually haunting her every waking – and sleeping – hour, she now found her thoughts to be much more pleasantly inclined.

She was Dauntless; A true Dauntless member. One out of 4 – maybe 5 – other Amities that had made it in and that idea left her giddy and happy.

Yesterday, her mind had been busy with other things. Her fearlandscape, the fear of Jeanine finding out she was divergent, the things Zeke had said, telling her friends about her life before Dauntless, her conversation and kiss with Eric and even the fight between Eric and Alijah – who turned out to be fine in the end; bruised and cranky - a bit of a sore loser, she supposed – but fine.

And with that worry gone, she could finally focus on what truly mattered: She was Dauntless now! And she could almost squeal with happiness... You know, if she would give in to such a childish act.

Which she most definitely didn't.

But only because the rest of the room was still asleep.

Keena sighed and looked around at the sleeping forms of her co-initiates and friends. Some beds were empty, either because they hadn't made it into Dauntless, or because they were still out partying. Keena and Lara had left early, right after Eric's fight with Alijah. They'd made sure Alijah was properly taken care before heading for the dorms, spending the rest of their night speculating about their future here at Dauntless until Lara had fallen asleep.

In her bed.

Again.

When Jasper strolled in an hour later or so, he'd looked particularly put out at that, but when Keena offered to swap places with him, he declined.

He wasn't all that bad actually.

"Fuck!" Someone swore and a giggle could be heard from outside.

It didn't take long before a very intoxicated Mira and a slightly-less-but-not-by-much intoxicated Jonah stumbled into the room together. Mira sushed her boyfriend loudly, while he hadn't said a word, and upon seeing Keena awake and upright in bed – leaning with her back against the wall – she came over with a creepy smile on her face.

"KEENA! You SNEAKY slut! We NEED to talk!" She whispered in so loud a voice Keena was surprised Lara slept trough it.

Keena was so looking forward to tomorrow afternoon when they would all get assigned their own one-person unit. Her own place, with her own stuff. Her own place of solitude where she could hide from lovely but loud friends like Mira on moments she just wanted to hide from the world and think.

Like now.

"How about tomorrow?" Keena offered with a little nod in Jonah's direction, who was waiting on her to join him in bed. One single glance at her boyfriend had Mira convinced and she 'whispered' her agreement before walking over to Jonah's bed with what she must've thought a sexy walk.

It wasn't.

But Jonah was probably too drunk to notice anyway.

Keena sighed and removed Lara's arm from her stomach. Although there was a general rule not to have sex in the dorms (when other's were present), there was literally no way of knowing what the two lovebirds would do in their drunk states. Not feeling much for finding out, Keena quickly got dressed and sneaked out of the room.

The hard rocks of the Chasm would have to do for now.
At least starting tomorrow, she could lay in her bed in solitude.

...

"Okay girl, spill." Mira gushed and practically fell into the seat next to Keena when the darkhaired girl finally appeared for 'breakfast' somewhere around 1pm. It was called lunch for all others.

Keena had just taken a bite from her apple so her mouth was half full when she replied. "I dong kno whaa you're talking abou."

"Oh, really now?" Lara – who was already seated across from her – grinned wickedly while wiggling her eyebrows quite unlike herself. She was spending way too much time with either Jasper or Mira. Or both. "So you think we're just going to forget about that moment between you and Eric last night?"

"There was no moment."

"Oh no! Not this time girl. We let it go once, but after last night..." Mira interjected. "I mean the. Sexual. Tension. Wew!"

"There was defitely no sexual tention." Keena rolled her eyes, looking over at Lara hopefully. Help a friend out.

Lara, upon seeing her friend's hopeful look started to stammer. "I- uh – I mean..." She trailed off as her eyes shifted between the two girls in front of her, before settling on Keena with a pained look on her face. "There kinda was."

Mira whooped loudly and high-fived the brunnette over the table before both girls turned to look at Keena, completely oblivious to the amount of onlookers Mira's outburst had caused. Keena by now had swallowed her apple, but really wished she hadn't. Just to buy her some time to think.

"You guys are acting strange." Keena furrowed her brows in confusion, her gaze sweeping around the room. She was glad to note people had refocussed their attentions back on their own conversations. Still, just in case anyone was still listening she kept her voice low anyway. "I just stopped him from killing Alijah. There wasn't any sexual tension, I assure you." She said, and to her dismay she sounded way more disappointed at the admission than she would've preferred.

Mira and Lara glanced at each other before they started laughing. Out loud. For a disproportionate amount of time. Again earning them an audience. Much to Keena's dismay.

"Right." Mira said, wiping a nonexistent tear away from her face. "Like that eye-contact you two lovebirds displayed last night wasn't close to something entirely too personal. Oh and that's without the fact that he'd been eye-fucking you from that table in the corner for over an hour previous to his fight with Alijah. I mean, even I got hot from just watching you two interact - and this is Eric we're talking about – yikes." She exclaimed before catching herself. "I mean for me – not for you, obviously – you go girl! Tap him good."

Lara wrinkled her nose. "That's just vulgar, Mir." She said, before focusing her attention on Keena. "But I'm curious too. It's obvious something is going on between you two. Don't you trust us?"

"Of course I do!" Keena was offended. "I literally just told you about my life yesterday."

"And yet you neglect to tell us all the juicy stuff." Mira countered.

"Mira!" Lara threw a grape at her friends head before focussing her attention back on Keena. "What Mira is trying to say is that we're here if you ever do want to talk about it." She smiled kindly, it only added to the discomfortable knot in Keena's stomach. "And I'm glad you trusted us enough to tell what you already did." A beat. "Truly." The chocolate colored eyes of her friend found her own and they were filled with the same warmth her smile conveyed. Keena smiled back at her, but it was overruled by the sigh that followed it.

"There's just nothing to tell." Keena started plucking at her apple with her fingernails, her gaze purposefully ignoring those of her friends which where undoubtedly upon her person. "Not anymore, anyway. So, whatever you two think you saw last night... It's been months – It's all in the past."

"Months?!" Mira's eyebrows shot up while the blush on Keena's cheeks told it all. "Shut up! I told you, Lara! I told you!" She exclaimed enthusiastically, holding out her hand at the brunette. "Pay up."

Why was Keena not surprised the two had a bet going on about it?

Lara rolled her eyes. "Just until yesterday we were just initiates, babe. I can transfer some points to you, but I don't actually have any money on me."

"Oh. Right!" Mira's enthusiasm didn't suffer from it. Not one bit. "Later than. But first -" and she turned back to Keena here, almost gushing. "Tell us all the details. I bet he has a huge co-"

"Honestly, Mira. Keep it down." Keena chatised, shooting a quick glance at the table next to them. "Or I won't tell anything at all."

"Alright. Fine." Mira put her hands up in moke-surrender, before dropping her voice to a whisper as she rambled all of her questions into one breath: "How often? How was he? He's good isn't he? And rough! I bet he's rough. When was the first time? Mor than once? Could you even walk after? How big was he? Good lord, Keena. Tell us! We're dying to know!"

Lara snorted. "She means she's dying to know." A beat and then: "I'm just a healthy and normal amount of curious."

Keena chuckled. "Fine. But this will never ever ever leave the three of us." She eyed them seriously.

"Scout's honor." Mira promised, hand in the air, and Lara nodded along.

And thus she told them.

She told them all about the coincidental meetings in the training rooms during early mornings and late nights. She told them about their first kiss at the Chasm and how she'd run away right after and about their fights in the training rooms that sometimes bordered on sex with clothes on. Or how – when she'd escaped the infirmary after her fight with Jasper – he'd found her on the rooftop and carried her to his apartment to rest. She told them about their first time of sex, the way she'd shot his balls during capture the flag, only to show up at his doorstep later that night and how it pretty much ran from there to some everyday sexual arrangement.

Except it hadn't been.
It had never been just sex.

Because there were moments that had nothing to do with that. Mornings where they shared a smile over coffee or nights where he watched her cook up some midnight snack with a fond look on his face. There had been these thrills when he purposefully brushed against her in public, standing a little closer than necessary for a leader and his initiate, but not inappropriately so. And of course there was the meaningfulness of him buying her a toothbrush or how would rub her back when she was sore and tired of training. How they would spend hours in silence – just enjoying each other's company – while she read a book and he answered emails on his tablet.

But she didn't tell them that.
It felt too personal.

Eric for sure wouldn't appreciate other people knowing he had a softer side to him and in all honesty, Keena wasn't sure she herself would like other people to know that side of him either. To know him like she did. All that had been said and done between them was between the two of them and not even her friends were entitled to that information. He'd trusted her – showed his emotions – and she wouldn't betray that trust just so her friends would listen on in disbelieve.

No one else needed to know.

Or should.

So instead, Keena went on and told them about Alijah's interference. About her fears that she'd become too attached to him. How she'd pushed him away after a while and how she'd been reluctant to admit she missed him terribly – and still did. She even told him about his involvement in the whole ordeal with Oliver and Jeanine. How she'd chanted at him she hated him and how he had left her alone on the roof, refusing to deal with her drama for any longer.

Her story ended there. Quite like the other more intimate parts, Keena decided against telling them about about yesterday – their moment in the hallway and weapon's closet together – because for some reason that – too – felt way too personal to share. Even if it was 'just a kiss'.

A kiss.

A desperate reunion of sorts that had had her wanted to cling onto him forever.

And words.

'Find me when you figure it out' he had said.

But what was she supposed to figure out? Was she supposed to sort out her feelings and come back to him then, when she knew what she wanted from him? Or did he simply wanted her to fix her chaotic mind, not feeling much for dealing with the drama any longer and only wanting her for some casual drama-free sex?

Her rational mind knew it was the former.

It was the first option. She knew that. And yet that little voice in the back of her mind found it awfully hard to believe. Why would he – of all people – take an intrest in her. Dauntless' most feared – but also respected – leader, that she was sure a lot of members had long since deemed emotionless and incapable of love.

How could she be the one to turn him over?

"Oh my god." Mira exclaimed with a gasp – disrupting the silence – and Keena turned to her to find her eyes wide as saucers. "You love him." She breathed.

"I do not." Keena voiced, although their was little abundance to be found in the statement. If anything, it came out more like a question. "I- I mean he's... He's Eric."

She winced at her own statement. It wasn't fair to him to depict him as the monster others thought him to be when – just with her – he was everything she'd ever hoped for and more.

He was strong and protective. He took care of her in a way

He was intelligent and perceptive and in his own dark and dry sense of humor, he was even funny. He was firm and honest with her, keeping her on her toes and not afraid to call her out on her bullshit. It was a good thing he challenged her – she could only imagine how bored she would become if he didn't – even if it was excruciating at times.

But it was more than that. He knew when to keep quite too and when to just let her wonder off in her own thoughts for a while without feeling the need to interrupt her like most of her friends did – except maybe Lara – because he too was a thinker. An intellectual. So smart. So sharp.

He was perfect in all those ways.
But that didn't mean she loved him.

She could still see his flaws. She saw his arrogance and cruelty to others – things she didn't agree with – and yet she didn't seem to mind. Because she knew the person behind it. He was the youngest leader in Dauntless – he had good cause to be proud of himself – especially with his background.

She was still secretly convinced Jeanine had tricked him into thinking like a Dauntless. In every way he represented more of an Erudite. Cold. Clinical. Mask in place. Secretive about his knowledge and just how far his comprehension stretched. A reader. A thinker. Sometimes logical to a flaw. Emotionally distant... except with her. Not anymore.

But she couldn't love him.
Or could she?

"Do you even know what love is, though?" Lara asked neutrally. "I don't mean it in a nasty way. It's just – with all that you've told us yesterday about your life in Amity – I wouldn't be surprised if you wouldn't even recognize love when it was right in front of you."

"I know what love is." Keena scoffed, before swallowing heavily. "I loved – love – my siblings."

"That doesn't count, Keena." Mira interjected. "You raised your siblings. It's parental love. You were the person they looked up to – their protector, an example, a rolemodel of sorts – they were never in a position to hurt you. They couldn't take your heart and dance all over it. They couldn't break it. Loving them is as harmless as it can get and you know it."

Keena was baffled. Mira had not just said that. Was it not yesterday when she'd told them about her sibling's murder? Her heart had been broken allright – and no, it wasn't any of her siblings' fault – but it had broken and it had hurt. So no, loving them hadn't been harmless.

Love was never harmless.

As soon as you cared for someone, it would be all the more painful once it would be ripped away from you. Things were never permenant – all things would end – and letting yourself love someone meant setting yourself up for heartache once that time came. So love, no matter how heart-warming the feeling could be, always came with a sacrifice.

So no, Keena wouldn't never call love harmless.

At the stunned look on Keena's face, Mira seemingly realized her error and hurried to explain. "Okay, that came out wrong. I just meant that parental love differs very much from choosing to actively love another person that is not related to you."

"Being related has nothing to do with love in my experience." Keena snapped, still annoyed with her friend.

When Lara – ever the peace-maker – tried to intervene, Keena somehow already expected her to play unpartial party, like she so often did – the Switzerland of their group – but instead her face cringed as she spoke her next words.

"You're not going to like this, but I have to agree with Mira on this one." She tried tentatively. "Your experience is misguided. If that story of yesterday is anything to go by, most people in your life have taught you can't trust love. That it's unreliable and the person of your affection will be taken away from you. You loved your grandfather and siblings, but they died, too soon in your life and too early in theirs. You trusted your teacher and he... well, took advantage of that." She paused for a moment. Staring off into the distance. "And your mother... She sounds quite like my own, I suppose. A true Erudite. Cold and distant. Never happy – not with me, not with anything – except the occasional breakthrough at work."

A small smile tugged on her lips as Jasper took that moment to enter the cafeteria.

"I've never met your mother so I can't be sure." She continued, her eyes glued to her boyfriend. "But if she was anything like mine, she didn't teach you how to trust love either. For me... that was Jasper. And even that took me years and years of friendship, heartbreak and radiosilence before he finally worked out his own fears to ask me out."

"You sure know how to make it sound appealing." Mira snorted before turning her attention on the blonde next to her. "Believe me. It doesn't take years and years of friendship, heartbreak and radiosilence for everyone. It's love. It's scary and new and exciting. But we're Dauntless. If we dare to take a leap in the name of the safety of our city, we should also be able to take a leap for love. You two will figure it out."

"I have nothing to figure out because I don't love him." Keena reminded them, her groan muffled by her hands as she hid her face. All the while trying to ignore the sting in her stomach as she uttered those words. Had she just lied? Was it possible her body recognized her feelings better than her logical mind did?

"You have a flair for dramatics, you know that right?" Mira grinned. "And you're wrong, by the way."

"So wrong." Lara emphasized.

"In fact, you couldn't possibly be any more wrong." Mira pointed her thumb sideways at Keena and turned to Lara. "Have you ever seen anybody more wrong?"

"No, never." She giggled.

Keena grunted and hid her face in her hands. "I need new friends."

"You love us." Mira smirked. "But not in the way you love Eric."

"With kisses." Lara added dreamily.

"And sex."

"Gosh!" Keena closed her eyes and slammed her forehead on the table.

She could die. She literally could die of shame right now. She'd heard conversations like these before, of course. Around the Amity campfires girls could talk of little else, unless you included the sub-related fields gossip and sex, but other than that it was always boy-talk. Keena had on occasion listened in on some of the conversations but more often than not, had tuned out after a minute or so – convinced she would die of boredom if she continued the ear-torture any longer. But now, the tables had turned. This no longer was some random story of some particularly uninteresting stranger. It was becoming way too personal for her comfort. Or liking.

"Can we please talk about something else?" She begged her friends. "I don't love him. I never did. It was a sexual arrangement that exists nowhere but in the past."

"Right." Mira sighed dramatically, rolling her eyes to emphasize just how much she didn't believe her. "Because god forbid you ever love a strong, sexy, healthy piece of man muscles."

Keena simply glared at the girl in response, but try as she may, she couldn't rid herself of the memories flashing before her eyes: Eric handing her a cup of coffee as she walked into the kitchen, rough fingers gently brushing over her delicate ones. Or the one on the couch, where Eric absentmindedly stroked her hair as she leaned against him, a book disregarded in her lap as she just enjoyed his touch and presence.

"Eric and I are a done deal. A page turned. A chapter finished. A book closed." She settled on eventually.

"Liar." Mira smirked before taking on a more serious expression. "You know Keena. You're a caring girl. Whether you like it or not, your background in Amity shines through to your every decision: You helped Lara out when she first had trouble to keep up with cardio; You stood up for Maximus during knife-throwing incident with Erich; And hell, you even went as far as kicking Jasper in the butt for taking him so long for asking Lara out..."

"Wait what?!" Lara piped up, surprise all written over her face. "She did what?"

Mira ignored her and continued unbothered. "As much as I hate to say it, you're a nice person, Keens. Some might even say kind. You may fancy yourself incapable of love, but you aren't. You have a heart. With feelings. And you use it all the time... Just deal with it already."

"So what was this between you and Jasper?" Lara tried again, turning to Keena this time.

"I know I have feelings, Mir! I'm not claiming I'm emotionless, but there is a big difference between caring and loving."

"So you don't love us?" Mira exclaimed in mock-shock.

Keena glared unimpressed. "That's different and you know it."

"Just as different as loving people that are depended on you is. Which in retrospect also differs from loving someone you are depended on."

"Yes-yes! I get it, alright. It's different. It's all so goddamn different!"

"So, ready to admit you love Eric yet?" Her black-haired friend coxed with a grin that easily matched the Cheshire Cat's.

"No. I – I just..." She sighed. "Are you guys even serious right now? I mean it's Eric. Dauntless' most vicious, violent, venomous, –"

"Vigorous, valorous, vehement, valiant, validatory leader, yeah-yeah don't we know it." Mira finished and at Keena's raised eyebrow she chuckled. "Don't look at me like that, you started the whole V-adjectives thing."

At this Keena laughed – really laughed. "Yeah, I'm not quite sure where that came from either." She admitted with a frown before widening her eyes in a mock-amazed way. "Still. Mama's very proud of you for using such big words."

"Ha-ha." Mira stuck out her tongue. "At least in Candor books weren't forbidden like on your muddy little farmland." A beat. "But you distract me, girl. We're getting off-track. You. Eric. Love. NOW." The raven-haired beauty wiggled her eyebrows.

"Arghh." Keena growled. "I thought we went over this already. He's Eric."

"Exactly my point." Mira agreed with a nod. "We went over the V already, do you really need us to finish the entire alphabet for you?"

"Wealthy. Wry. Willful." Lara chimed in with a grin, finally having given up on finding out what happened between Keena and Jasper. Either that, or she just decided to postpone it for a bit.

"Hilarious." Keena deadpanned.

"Ah no! I've got the X!" Mira groaned. "But I'm pretty confident Xylophagous and Xyloid apply to Eric." She pondered. "But out the tree of us, only you've seen his wood, so we'll just leave it up to you to decide." Mira and Lara laughed. Keena not so much.

"Truly, you two outdo yourselves." Keena told them with a blanc face.

"Yonder. Yummy... Oh! Yours!" Lara continued, smiling broadly.

"Guys. I get it. Joke's over now."

"Fine." Mira relented. "Lara was getting all the easy letters anyway."

Lara snorted and stuck out her tongue in a childish but entirely too cute a manner. "Whatever makes you sleep at night, Candor." She baited. "You just didn't want the Z."

"Can you blame me? Z is impossible!"

"Zealous."

"Show-off."

"That's an S."

"I hate you."

"Doubt it." The brunette replied with a wicked grin that easily matched Jasper's.

At the same time the two girls turned their attention back on Keena, who'd been watching the banter with only half her mind.

"Where were we?" Mira asked to no one in particular.

"Keena trying to convince herself just how much she didn't love Eric."

"I don't." Keena exclaimed, although she knew she was being totally ignored.

"Right. Okay. Because that's believable."

"I don't care about believable. It's true. Correct. Juste."

"But you had sex with him?"

"You know I did."

"Because you find him attractive."

"Obviously."

"He is attractive." Lara agreed with a sigh. "I mean scary. But so attractive."

"Jeez. Thanks." Keena cringed uncomfortably. "Really needed your consensus."

"And the sex was good, right?" Mira continued her interrogation, reaching for a grape before popping it into her mouth.

"I guess." When her two friends stared at her, Keena rolled her eyes. "Fine. It was mind-blowing. Happy now?"

"Almost." Mira told her offhandedly. "So, he made you feel good during sex?"

"I just told you he did."

"And afterwards?"

"What do you mean?"

"Did he kick you out right after sex? Or did you flee?"

"No." Keena wavered, seeing what direction this conversation was taking. "I mean. Yeah, I ran away in the beginning a lot... but that was only the first few times. After that I stayed as long as possible."

"Because you enjoyed his company? Even when the two of you weren't having sex?"

"I guess."

"Did you two cuddle?"

"Sometimes... I mean yes. We did." Keena sighed. "Are you quite done here, Sam Spade?"

"No, not quite."

"So when are you exactly?!" Keena snapped agitated. "Because your nosiness isn't helping me much!"

"Oh, I'm helping. Believe me." Mira told her seriously. "I just try to get you to admit you enjoy his company."

"Of course I do!" Keena hissed at her. "I do enjoy his company! That's not the problem here! The problem is that he just can't be trusted. You can't love someone you can't trust, now can you?!"

"You can, actually." Lara chimed in. "Depends on whether or not you do trust him." A pause, and then: "Rationally, I can't trustJasper either. I'll look at all the evidence of what an awful person he is – what he's said to me in the past or done to you during initiation for example – and I know I can't trust him. But yet, I do. I feel safe when I'm with him. It's not rational or logical, but deep down I do trust him, even if my mind tells me I shouldn't."

The other girls were silent for a bit.

"Jesus Lara. That was deep." Mira stated eventually, slightly amazed by her speech. "I'm convinced I won't be able to top that, but I want to try anyway."

Mira sighed and collected her thoughts. In that moment, there was an aura of seriousness about the girl that Keena had never seen before. And just as Keena recognized it, the moment was gone and a big characteristic smirk lifted up the raven-haired girl's face.

"Well, unlike you sad poor troubled souls, my parents love me very much." Mira grinned, earning herself an elbow in her side from Keena.

In all honesty, Keena was relieved Mira wasn't treating her any differently than before. After yesterday, her biggest fear had been that her friends would suddenly treat her like she was made of glass, but she was glad to note Mira was treating her with the same radical candor as before. If not a tat more.

"Thanks Mir, what a pep-talk." Keena chuckled.

Mira stuck out her tongue in response.

"But," She emphasized, continuing. "They were also very... overprotective. I wasn't allowed to hang out with friends unless it was at home with one of my parents present. God forbid boys could be considered friends, by the way. Enjoying their company was strictly forbidden, let alone dating them. The only boy outside of school I got the chance to interact with – to some extent – was Jonah, because he was the son of family friends that came over a lot."

At this Mira smiled fondly, lost in some untold memory.

"The point is, that my parents tried to protect me because they loved me and didn't want to see me hurt. But they didn't realize that they were hurting me by caging me in like that. By taking away my freedom, they didn't just take away the chances of me getting hurt, but also the chance of me experiencing the greatest way of happiness that I've now learned is worth every bit of pain: Love."

She let the words linger for a bit – all three of them lost in their own thoughts – before continuing:

"So, when the choosing ceremony came around and my aptitude turned out to be Dauntless, I knew I had to leave them. My parents did what they did with the best intentions in mind and I will forever love them, but when it came down to it, I had to choose my happiness over my safety." She let he words linger for a bit before continuing. "And I think for me, this was an easy thing to do because I had – and have – never experienced pain. Not in the way you have, anyway. After what you told us yesterday... I can't even begin to understand all the heartache you have had to survive. It's surreal to me, really. My life hasn't been all rainbows and butterflies either, but in the end, all I ever experienced came from a place of love. No matter how suffocating a form my parent's love might've taken, the restrictions in my life were there to protect me – because they loved me."

"Yeah." Lara sighed, off in a memory of her own it appeared. "Same here."

"So where does that leave me?" Keena asked, slightly petulant.

It was not in her nature to be sulky, but this entire topic was far from familiar grounds to her. Love had always been an abstract concept to her. She had spend time thinking about it, obviously. In Amity, you could barely set a step out of your front door without being "bulldozered over" by songs, poems and stories of love.

Naturally, she'd spend long sleepless nights pondering over what love entailed. Was it a synonym of trust? Happiness? Contentment? Passion? A mixture of all those things? Who really knew what love was anyway? Some poets talked about a tingling sensation. Other songwriters wrote about the air getting sucked out of you. And thus, for a long time, love had always been a subjective and elusive concept to her. If not completely nonexistent.

Things changed though. When her mother had given birth to one baby after the other, Keena had been forced to review the topic. Not at first of course. Yes, she had instantly liked each and every one of her siblings and she'd probably even instantly cared for them as well, but to go as far as calling it love? In all honesty, she hadn't even considered 'love' until Aaron – sweet darling Aaron – had asked her, quite casually, if she loved him the way "Nick's mother loved Nick".

She'd been quick to say yes.

This, on it's turn, had let to an hour-long conversation with Oliver whose questions about the subject had closely represented the ones of herself a few years prior to that moment. Questions she – even after years and years of pondering on it – still hadn't found an answer to. So, in that moment she'd simply described what all the books had told her: A sens of safety. Wholeness. Excitement. Adoration. Warmth. Belonging. Destiny... Not that she had understood any of those words at the time, so in a way the concept had just been as elusive to her as it had before, even if she now quoted a tenfold of authors on it with a bunch of other meaningless empty words.

It hadn't been up to the moment her siblings died in front of her eyes and her heart had shattered into thousands and thousands of pieces, she completely understood just how deeply rooted love was and it had scared her in ways she still couldn't seem to comprehend.

Love – however great it may be – had the flip-side of being able to experience such heartache, sorrow and grief one felt they might die because of it. It was indeed as if someone sucked the life out of you and apparently – whether it was a conscious or unconscious decision – her brain had decided that no love had been worth the pain attached to it. It had been so unbearable her normally logical and factual brain had actively pushed the truth away, unable to stand it for a second longer.

And now, her friends were pushing her to take a chance at love and open up for another round of inevitable heartache?

Yeah, hell no.

She didn't dare to take that chance. It wasn't worth the risk. And truly, what would she gain by it anyway?

Eric. A small voice inside of her head told her. She'd gain Eric.

"Seriously?" Mira exclaimed. "Do we need to spell everything out for you?! You're supposed to be Dauntless! Do you really want to die alone and unhappy with your twelve cats because you were afraid to take a leap at love and make yourself happy for a change?"

"Are cats allowed in the Dauntless compound?" Lara questioned with wide eyes. "Oh! I would love one!"

"Only within your own apartment." Keena answered. Remembering the paragraph dedicated to pet-keeping in the Dauntless rules she'd read some months ago. "They don't want them walking in the hallways."

"Jesus, Lara. Can you be any less invested in your friend's future happiness?" Mira reprimanded annoyed.

Lara blushed. "Right. Keena. Stop being a baby and have his babies instead."

"Wow. Didn't see that one coming." Mira laughed, at the same time as Keena exclaimed with a loud groan: "Please tell me I heard that wrong."

"Too much?"

"Hell no."
"Hell yes."

A silence settled over the group in which Keena wondered how it was possible Mira and Lara made it seem as if a healthy relationship between her and Eric was suddenly within reach? No matter how great Keena – sometimes – found Eric to be, it still didn't take away from the fact that they fought all the damn time and that she'd been pushing him away for months and months… He should be done with her by now. In fact, he probably was. I mean... he had pretty much told her to leave him alone until she figured her shit out, right? Well, to be fair: He'd told her to come and find him when she figures things out – which was a bit more positive – but she still didn't truly know what he'd meant by that. It could be anything!

Or so she preferred telling herself.

At least that way she didn't have to face the truth: The fact that both of them were being haunted by lovely memories of them together; That the both of them had been desperate for each other's company, attention and touch.

Keena quickly shook the thought away.
It was bound to end in disaster.

"I like him alright. I like him a lot." Keena sighed eventually, breaking the silence. "I really appreciate you guys for talking to me, but I'm not... I can't just... I'll think about it, alright?"

Lara smiled and her hand reached out to stroke her arm. Mira simply shrugged and reached for another grape.

"I suppose that will do..." The black-haired beauty rolled her eyes, a small grin on her face. "For now."

And with that, conversation stirred to other significant topics - like their new unit assignment later that afternoon - which quickly lifted all of their spirits.

Yes, I kinda scamped my work at the end. I'll probably come back to fix this chapter soon but I really didn't enjoy writing this particular chap anymore because my imagination was already more happily engaged with making up all that comes next...

Please review! Even if this chapter was a bit rough around the edges.