TRIS POV

With a mere three hours of sleep fueling me, I drag myself into the training room. It is almost eight o'clock, but Tobias isn't here yet, and as much as I want to get training over with so I can take a nap, I am glad.

I can't even begin to imagine how awkward today is going to be. How could he kiss me, after how assertively I have been pushing him away, after how clear we have both made it that we would have no chance together in this world after that disaster of a war?

More awkward still, I can't deny that I enjoyed it and wish I would have made the most of it.

Closing my eyes for a brief rest, I recall Christina's words from the night before: "He still has it bad for you." I had snapped at her in defense, but now I realize that I have to apologize like I planned to last night, only sincerely now.

Because she might be right.

But I don't think I want that; I can't risk being in a relationship again. We have agonized each other in unspeakable ways that neither of us will ever forget about. I would rather both of us part ways once more than be the creators of our own destruction.

Maybe I am overthinking this. Maybe it was a spur of the moment thing, and he completely regrets his actions, and he will make that clear. I don't know. Only time will tell.

Christina walks in a minute before eight, looking nearly as weary as I do, even as the morning person she is. We approach each other, and at the same time, we both say, "I'm sorry." We must both despise being at odds with our best friend.

I laugh softly, and it is barely a laugh. "I'm sorry I got angry. It was just too early in the morning," I apologize.

"Don't worry about it," she deflects, rubbing her eyes. "I know it's a touchy subject, and I shouldn't have gone that far."

I give her a side-hug. "Good?"

"Yeah." And because she is Christina, she begins, "So now I've gotta complain about little miss Erudite and how I had to put up with her all night on my team."

She babbles about Jessica for the next five minutes. Time ticks on, and I wonder if we are ever going to start initiation today until Tobias finally steps into the training room.

I figured that he was going to feel terrible this morning, and his appearance displays it. His dark hair and clothes are disheveled, like he woke up and came straight here. He is rubbing his temples when he walks towards us, surely trying to assuage the headache he has. When he gets close enough, I see the red surrounding his usually vigilant eyes.

"I'm going to be honest, I feel like shit," he announces to us, as if we couldn't already tell. Nobody dares to whisper to each other like normal because they wouldn't dare do anything that could set him off in this mood. "I was planning on doing knives this morning and letting you go early for lunch, and then coming back later for a training review, but I don't think I could handle that. So here's the deal: if you manage not to piss me off, I'll let you go early and you can have the rest of the day off. Then we'll throw in an extra day tomorrow. Got it?"

At our assenting nods, he sighs and walks over to the tables that have throwing knives placed on top of them. He picks up three of them and walks over to the line of targets.

"Watch carefully," he commands. With his arm out in front of him and his body sidewards, he launches the knife at the target. It hits dead center, despite the major hangover he is suffering through. "It's like shooting. Just breathe through it and position yourself right, and you'll get the hang of it."

Once all of his knives are buried in the middle, he sets us loose. We each pick up a set of knives. I examine the familiar weight and try to become reacquainted with it; Christina grabs them without care, desperately wanting to get this over with; Dez holds them with innate Dauntless interest; Justin looks excited just to throw something, as boys often enjoy things like that.

Those of us with experience have no problem, and we quickly stop worrying about making it stick and instead focus on aiming. The newer initiates struggle, and because Tobias doesn't seem to be in the mood, I take over and help a couple people around me.

His pacing combined with the aura of grumpiness he gives off make me increasingly anxious. Although I have decent aim, I have to readjust myself and steady my breathing when he passes me so I won't hit the floor. How did he throw knives at me last year with the threat of Eric behind him like this? It seems impossible that he didn't hit me. Well, besides the nick of my ear. Hopefully we won't have another incident like that this year.

Two hours later, I have mastered the knife-throwing skill again. Others still seem to have trouble, their knives flying to the left and right, completely missing the target in front of them. If they are lucky, they hit the target next to theirs.

While I'm waiting for the other initiates to collect their knives, I chat with my friends to stay awake. Accidentally, a knife slips through the bundle in my hand and clatters to the floor. It lands a few feet away towards the targets, but nobody has begun throwing again yet, so I quickly step forward and bend down to pick up my knife.

Out of the corner of my eye, a projectile flies toward me, blade over handle, and I gasp as I dive out of the way, but not in time. The knife scrapes my arm, slicing open both my shirt and skin.

Too shocked to be enraged, I scan the line of initiates to my left. My eyes find the culprit immediately.

"What the hell?!" I shout.

Jessica cowers and holds her hands up in defense, pretending to be innocent. "What are you looking at me for?" she snarks. I haven't been paying much attention to her, but I know that she can't be terrible at this. She is in eighth for a reason, so this must have been a purposeful act.

By now we have the attention of everyone in the room, including Tobias.

"You just threw a knife at me!" I exclaim.

Seeing no escape, she bursts out, "What? Oh no! It must have slipped!" She feigns horror, like she didn't just try to seriously injure me.

Fed up with her petty vendetta against me, I push myself off the floor and throw myself at her before anyone can stop me. She shrieks when I approach, but a strong pair of arms roughly wrenches me backward.

"Jesus, enough!" Tobias yells, positioning himself in between us. I notice how his face twists in pain, but I don't feel bad for worsening his migraine. "What the hell is wrong with you two?"

"Us two?" I scoff. "You're kidding, right? She purposely threw a knife—"

He levels a glare at me, and says in a low voice, "Did I say I needed your input, Stiff?"

I open my mouth and close it, unwilling to get into anymore trouble. Someone stifles a chuckle—Peter—and my face heats up with embarrassment.

Is this seriously being pinned on me, after she could have killed me? Is Tobias really treating me like every other initiate, when he kissed me last night? Plus he knows that I would never stir something up like this. My mind is so boggled by his behavior that all I can do is obey him.

"You two are constantly acting like children around each other, and I am not going to put up with it anymore. One more incident like this, and I'll throw you both out on your asses," Tobias grumbles threateningly. And then to everybody else, "Get out. We're done for the day."

Jessica files out behind them, a triumphant smirk written on her face. But I stay behind with my arms crossed over my chest, my lips pursed in anger.

"I don't want to deal with you right now." He organizes the haphazardly dumped knives on the table and lines them up with the blades pointed at the targets.

"Oh, I'm sorry to inconvenience you. You know, after you just humiliated me in front of all the other initiates, after you—"

"Keep your voice down," he hisses, massaging his temples. "For the record, I didn't see what happened."

"Yeah. Well, Four, you guessed correctly. I made it up. I fell on the floor and cut myself and blamed it on her," I retort, and I gesture to the bleeding slit on my upper arm.

He sighs and the dark bags under his eyes seem to deepen. "I never even suggested that. You know, Tris, you're one of the smartest people I know, and yet you can never figure the simplest things out."

Is it possible to straighten and feel defeated by a compliment at the same time? "Enlighten me."

"If I don't punish you like I would everyone else, then it will seem biased. Our former relationship isn't some big faction secret. And I've already heard them questioning why you ended up in first place without doing gun training."

I groan, "I did do gun training!"

"They don't know that," he corrects me. "Do me a favor and don't get in any more stupid fights. I don't want to have to clean up your messes."

It wasn't meant to be cruel—especially since he implied that he wouldn't render me factionless if it came down to it—but it strikes a nerve in me. "My messes? Oh my God...how can you be saying this to me with a straight face after you kissed me last night?"

Tobias's jaw tightens, and he keeps his eyes focused on the knives he is shuffling, even though they are already perfectly in line. That doesn't give me an answer.

"I'm done with your shifting attitudes. Either you care about me or you don't. I told you I didn't want to play guessing games," I say.

"Well, that's life," he deadpans. "You keep expecting it to be black and white when it is all a confusing, gray mess that nobody can sort out."

I think of the opposite-colored tiles in Candor, which I stared at when he was lecturing me back when I carelessly tried to throw my life away. I think of how when I squinted, I could see a charcoal color with the occasional overbearing of white or black.

That, I realize, is an accurate representation of my feelings for him. Negative and regretful one minute, positive and hopeful another, indifferent and nostalgic the next. It is not just him that can't decide where he wants to go from here because I can't exempt myself from that blame either.

The only thing we can do to make this simpler is be honest, something I have never been skilled at.

After a brief moment of silence, I clear my throat and say, "I, um...I'm not mad that you kissed me. That's not what I meant."

He sighs again and meets my eyes with his conflicted, sleepy ones. It reminds me of the soft side of him that I only got fleeting glances of, like during our time in Amity. His tousled hair adds to his carelessly attractive appearance.

"It's just that I don't know how to interpret that. Or anything you do, really."

"You're the only girl I have ever kissed," he admits, "so I don't exactly go around doing it flippantly."

It is his way of telling me that the kiss meant something to him. So, unlike I previously believed, it wasn't really a spur of the moment decision.

And on a side note, some part of me is elated that he hasn't kissed anyone since last year.

"Well...what are you expecting from me? You do realize that I can't just accept this and continue forward again. We are different people now than we were before the war, Tobias, and after seeing how last time turned out, I don't know if I want to go through this again." I turn away with my arms wrapped around my middle.

But is that true? If the past couple weeks have proven anything, it is that I miss him. At some times, I desperately want what we had—at least in the beginning—again, and I am ready to admit that to myself. Being in Dauntless and reliving moments with him has made it hard to ignore.

He presses a hand to his forehead and replies, "I don't know if I do either."

"Then what are we doing exactly?"

"I don't know!" he snaps, so forcefully that I jump slightly.

With my eyes trained on my feet, I try to think of something to say to bandage what just happened. And while nothing comes to mind, I do note that I do this a lot. We fight, and I feel guilty and search for a way to mend things as much as I can, but we always end up in a worse place than we were before.

We try to protect ourselves from the pain, only to inflict pain upon each other. So I take a different approach this time.

"I miss you," I say quietly, almost in a whisper.

"Well, I didn't kiss you for no reason," he responds, practically mimicking my words, and I turn back to face him.

"I don't want to hurt each other again."

He bows his head, holding himself up with the table. "There's no way to avoid that anymore though, is there?"

He is right. The war shifted and molded us. We can long for the old us as much as we want, but in reality, we will only find destroyed versions of each other in our place. And we are too damaged to not wage smaller wars of our own—

There is a chasm between us, a gaping schism that only seems to widen as hard as we try to close the distance. Someday, our combined efforts to reach each other again will lead us both into the abyss.

We will have to decide if it is worth it.


TOBIAS POV

The map of Candor seems so much more complex on my computer screen than I remember the actual building being.

Tris was right; if we want to get anywhere in this investigation, then we have to get information on the victims for starters. But while I study the screen in front of me, it becomes increasingly obvious to me just how difficult this task of getting in and out, unscathed and with a copy of Candor files, will be.

Deciding that I will come up with a better plan than the one I currently have later, I shut off the computer and walk over to my bed. I may have slept for most of the day, but it was not enough to recover from last night's paintball game.

I groan to myself at the thought of last night as I crawl under my covers. With a lapse in judgment, I kissed Tris after the game, and I can't come to the conclusion that it was a good or bad idea. I suppose it was foolish, because like she said, we are different people now. It was wrong of me to get my hopes up.

But when she was genuinely laughing, full-on until her cheeks were bright from smiling, and she had those glowing embers in her that I hadn't seen in a long time—or ever, really—I couldn't resist. She was Tris again. Fierce, beautiful, young Tris. Not aged by horrifying experiences and tainted to the point of being belligerent and unlikable.

The kiss felt that way too. For the first time in a year, I had a spark wake me up from the dull life I have been leading. Suddenly there was meaning and something to enjoy in this world, and it was all for my taking.

Yet, as we agreed, the wide gap between us cannot simply be crossed.

I like to think that she has some sort of feelings for me, aside from hatred, of course. She didn't exactly resist the kiss, and she did take care of me when I was too cowardly to face my emotions head-on and got drunk to get it out of my mind. Tris has never been an easy person to read though, so I can't say for certain what she wants.

Rolling over to find a position that is comfortable enough and hoping it will jar my mind and throw away my thoughts, I am perplexed when I hear a knock at the door. It is rapid and soft—not a man's. But what woman could be at my apartment, let alone at night?

I get to my feet and walk over to answer the door, flicking on a light on my way. When I press my ear to the door, I hear sniffling, which makes me unbolt and open the door.

"Tris?" I say, as if I can't believe she is here.

"I-I'm sorry," she chokes out, tears streaming down her face. "I didn't know where else to go..."

I don't know how to react, especially since I have no idea what is happening, so I automatically opt for, "Hey, it's okay. Come in."

After pulling her inside, I poke my head out to make sure nobody witnessed her entering my apartment. Call it paranoid, but even if Hunter isn't watching me, it would not be good if someone found an initiate sneaking into my apartment at this time of night. Nobody is in the hallway, and I made sure long ago to angle the cameras away from my apartment, so I think we are in the clear.

Shutting the door behind me and locking it, I turn my full attention to her. "What's wrong?" I ask, concerned. Tris isn't much of a crier, so it sets off warning signals in my head.

"They let her go, they..." A sob overcomes her, and she can't respond for a few seconds until she can get air. "They let Jeanine go free."

I freeze. I stop breathing altogether. Jeanine Matthews, who orchestrated the attack on Abnegation, who enslaved the minds of two whole factions, who tortured us and eliminated Divergents for the "sake of the city," was found innocent.

"Someone must've helped her, inoculated her against the serum or something..." Probably. She hiccups, her cheeks blotchy. "Tobias, after all she has done, they freed her."

It sets off another round of tears. Still too shocked to comprehend this either, all I can do is murmur, "C'mere," and wrap my arms around her.

Tris sags into my embrace and wets my neck and my shirt with her tears. She allows herself to display weakness around me, which I consider to be a step in the right direction. While it should only be me comforting her, the way she clutches onto me gives me strength I didn't know I needed.

"What did they announce exactly?" I mumble against her ear.

"Candor put her on trial with truth serum," she whimpers. "They said she didn't know that what she was doing was necessarily bad, just that she thought it was helping the city."

"She murdered people, and she didn't know that was bad?" I ask incredulously, putting some space between us but still grasping her arms.

"She denied being behind the Abnegation attack. They couldn't find any evidence of it. And when they let her go, all they did was make her give up her leadership position."

One step ahead every time. There is no possibility that she didn't have insiders, or that she wasn't inoculated against the truth serum, like Tris inferred.

This isn't even about failed justice anymore. The Candor let Jeanine, arguably the most powerful person in the city, go with a slap on the wrist. They can strip her of titles all they want, but her influence over Erudite won't disappear.

"I've never felt safe since the war," she croaks, eyes overflowing again. "But now, with the woman who tortured me out..."

She bites her lip and meets my eyes. They are piercing, with storms brewing inside them. But the lost appearance of them takes me back to when I saw that exact look, when I broke up with her.

The sting of her betrayal burns through me, shifting into an uncomfortable ache the longer I see her in front of me, in Jeanine's personal laboratory when she should be back in Abnegation.

She had feigned fear, and I was idiotic enough to believe it was genuine. I trusted her with everything I had, even after she threw herself straight into Jeanine's cold malice.

The words that fly from my mouth are animalistic, fueled by the fury and the hurt. I don't even know if I mean half of them. But in this moment, I don't care because the one person I put my faith in, the one person I loved, has basically taken everything I offered to her and set it on fire.

And for what? This could be the most important breakthrough in the history of our city and it wouldn't serve as an excuse for what she has done.

I stayed with her when she went about any situation carelessly without any regard for her own life. I stayed with her when she lied to me about killing her friend and that that was what was tearing her apart in her sleeping and waking hours. I stayed with her when she broke her only promise to me, left me feeling degraded and used after we made love, and turned herself into Erudite to die.

But this, lying once again and committing the ultimate act of betrayal by working behind my back with my abusive father...it is too much. It is enough to tell me that she isn't on my side.

I'm not willing to go through this again. So I do what I maybe should have done a long time ago, like I had sworn to her after Shauna was shot. Because unlike Tris, I keep my promises.

"We're done," I spit.

She freezes in place and doesn't even bother blinking. For a few silent seconds in which she doesn't react, I wonder if after everything we had she just doesn't care. I mean, her actions have proved that.

"I refuse to be with someone who will break promises and lie and keep secrets and outright betray me." My body shakes with held back rage. I don't want to lash out, especially with Uriah and Tori in the room with us. "That's not love. This isn't love. It is some kind of sick joke you are playing on me, and I am not going to stick around to see how much longer it will play out."

Tris's eyes finally fill to the brim with tears, and she is foolish enough to reach out for me with words—probably a fake apology—ready to come out of her trembling mouth. When her hand brushes my arm, I step back like I was just cut.

"We're done," I repeat firmly.

I have never witnessed her crying like this, not even when she had to admit that she murdered Will, not when she grieved for her parents, not when she crawled in my bed looking for a safe haven from her nightmares. Past the layer of tears is pain and need and regret, all shining through her gray eyes that were once blue, when she was my Tris. This shell of a person, this isn't her.

Her expression begs for me. She is lost in the middle of a sea of hopelessness because I have abandoned her.

"Tobias," she sobs, her legs collapsing underneath her.

I keep a straight face and ignore the lump in my throat. I will not comfort her now. I will not retract my words. We are nothing to each other.

She breathes in air like she is choking. She whimpers like life is pointless, yet it has been to her for a while now.

And this time, I don't give in to her trap.

Tori cuts in, "Enough of this. Take her downstairs. She will be tried with the other traitors."

And when Uriah hauls her to her feet, I stare at the wall.

Standing there for minutes, hours, I can't initiate any movement. Her agonized eyes stay ingrained in my mind, and I know that the haunting image will never leave me.

I broke her.

Tris leans into me, unable to support her own weight like she was then. Realizing that I should say something, I reassure her, "Listen, I won't let Jeanine take you back again. I won't let her torture you ever again."

That fact is certain, and I would have meant it back in the setting I just thought of. I could loathe Tris, but I would never let what happened to her in Erudite happen again.

She winds her arms around my neck and tightens her fingers in my shirt. "Can I stay with you tonight?" she whispers.

And who am I to refuse her? She is obviously stuck in a past world of horrors that she shouldn't have to face alone tonight, surrounded by teenagers who wouldn't understand in a dank dormitory.

"Of course."

So we maneuver ourselves toward my bed. I flip off the light switch on the way, leaving us in almost full darkness. Once we both slide under my quilt, my brain catches up with the fact that this will be awkward, sleeping in the same bed as my ex. The last time we slept in this bed together was the night she left.

After a moment of lying stiff and side-by-side, she rolls over to face me. "I, um...I'll probably have a nightmare sometime in the night, so just wake me up if I bother you," she murmurs shyly.

"I'm not worried about it," I reply. "I get nightmares too, you know."

I smile tiredly at her and wipe a stray tear away from her blotchy cheek. She offers one back to me and closes her eyes.

"I miss you," she whispers, repeating the words she already admitted once today.

"I'm right here," I assure her.

Because I understand. At one point in time, we were each other's stability, and I don't think that has changed after our time apart. She is still the person I would rely on for help, and I am still the person that she would turn to in the night when her tormentor was released. We don't need to be in love for that fact to stay the same.

Tris reaches for the hand that is on her cheek and laces her fingers with mine. Her hand is smooth and nearly swallowed by mine. She lays our intertwined hands down in the space between our faces.

And that is how we drift off.