I met Eric by the entrance to the dining hall again. He pretended to not rub at the dark circles under his eyes, and I pretended to not notice them. Walking down to the training rooms was quiet. Eric stuck his head into each door we passed, grimacing. They were all booked. I guess now that we were thoroughly into the simulations there was no reason to hold them for just us Initiates.

When Eric opened the stairwell door I thought for certain I knew where he was going to bring us then. He didn't stop on the level with the exterior door though, prodding me to continue up the spiraling stairs to reach the top. It opened to a familiar tar covered rooftop and I laughed.

"You're telling me on day one we could have just taken the stairs?" I asked. Eric lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. "There's no fun in that, though," I supplied for him.

He pointed at me. "Bingo." Moving across the roof he led us to the lip we'd stood on to jump. My stomach didn't agree with my brain that it was totally safe to just sit there with my feet dangling over the edge. I made myself do it anyways, scooted as far back as I could while still staying on the lip. Eric had no such reservations, his seated stance as easygoing as he'd been way back on Choosing Day.

I looked down at the yawning crater that lead down into Dauntless. It was easier than trying to maintain eye contact with Eric. "I think yesterday one of my fears cropped up in training," I said. The words stuck in my chest.

"That so?" Eric replied. He didn't push further.

"Mmhm," I mumbled. My heels bounced against the building beneath me. "I was so mad though that I didn't bother making sure Four did anything about it. I just yelled about it."

More silence. The morning breeze kicked up, and I closed my eyes, taking it in.

"My brother died in front of me. In the sim, I mean. He's not- I mean he's in Erudite now. I just froze up. When I saw it happen."

I heard Eric shifting next to me, but he still didn't say anything. I kept my eyes closed. I could see the simulation again. Could see Caleb's terror scrawled all over his face. The fact that he was bleeding out was secondary, nearly unimportant. He was scared. And somehow… that made me even more terrified.

"It's not just death that I'm bothered by, I think," I said slowly. I turned to look at Eric finally. He had been watching me, his eyes sharp despite his obvious tiredness. "But I don't know for sure what it was about the sim. There's… there's something more there. Like the ocean. Like- like touch."

I tore my eyes away to look instead at the darkness underneath us. Eric sighed. "Do you want to talk about the fear with Caleb or do you want to talk about touch?" he asked bluntly.

"I don't know," I replied, trying to keep out the whine that was creeping in. It would be easier to just talk about the sim with Caleb in it. But it would also be more or less what was going to happen anyway with training. I'd resolved to bring up the sim with Lauren later today to get her to earmark it for review.

"Tris."

I picked at my cuticles. Eric dragged one leg to straddle the lip and faced me directly. He rapped a knuckle against my knee. "I want to help," he said, "but you have to ask."

"It's embarrassing," I whispered. The breeze pulled on my hair, and I flipped it over my shoulder, looking at Eric in the process. "And I feel exactly like the out of place Stiff everyone wants me to be because of it."

"One fear isn't going to keep you from being Dauntless," Eric protested. I scoffed.

"I'm not talking about Initiation or phase two or any of that. I mean it's everywhere in my life," I said. "How am I supposed to move on past the next couple of weeks knowing that I don't fit in? That I'm going to freak out when someone gets too close because all I can think about is what if they touch me? Who's gonna want to do anything with that Dauntless, hmm?"

"Are you thinking that right now?" Eric asked.

I gave him a look. "That's not the point," I retorted.

He didn't give up. "It's exactly the point. Are you worried right now about me?"

Heat rose on my cheeks and I clenched my hands around each other. "It's different," I sputtered. I didn't want to explain why it was. Why I couldn't hear the little alarm bells in my mind when I was around him.

"I know you about as well as you know everyone else you're here with. Are you scared when you're with me?"

"Well, no, but like I said it's different," I said.

Eric bounced his fist on his knee. "That's what I'm trying to get you to understand. It's not always going to be how you're afraid it is. You're not always going to be afraid," he said. I swallowed hard. I thought - just for a moment - that he knew what I'd been thinking about earlier this week and that this was his way of making me say it.

He continued, blithely unaware of my internal struggles. "What you need to do is figure out what sort of situations set you off and see how they differ from when you feel alright," Eric said.

"And that'll fix me?" I replied quietly.

His hand stopped its bouncing, hovering in the air. "You don't need fixing. You're not broken. You're just afraid," he answered.

Silence fell between us for a solid few minutes. I chewed over what he'd claimed. He had no reason to lie to me, no reason to sugarcoat things if I really were not able to fit in with Dauntless with my fears. But actually convincing myself that he was right, that this wasn't just another in a long line of reasons why I wouldn't belong, wasn't quite so easy to swallow.

I pulled my feet up from the open air. My head was starting to spin from the height. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin there. It helped to settle things down.

"What are you afraid of?" I murmured.

Eric sighed and looked away. "A lot of things," he admitted.

"Like sharks?"

His lip twitched in a smirk. "Like sharks," he echoed. "And other, less tangible fears. Concepts so vague you can only confront them wrapped up in other layers. How do you defeat feeling inadequate? Or failing to stand up for what you believe?"

I arched an eyebrow. That all sounded… complicated. And earnest. "So you really knew what you were talking about when you pulled up that ocean sim for me to beat," I commented.

"I tried to," Eric replied earnestly. "It might still be better... expressed some other way, but that's the closet I know to trigger you to fight against that lack of control it's representing."

I chewed on my lip. I knew exactly the best way to fight against my fear of touch. He slept on the bunk above me. Part of me wondered if I should tell Eric that or maybe Lauren. They could probably design the sim to show me him exactly. "Does it matter how many fears you have?" I asked instead.

Eric waffled at that question. "It… The current ranking system favors people with less fears a bit," he admitted. "But when it comes to working well as a Dauntless it doesn't matter if you have twenty fears or four." His expression soured for a moment.

"You can have that few?" I wondered. Phase two was winding down, but it certainly seemed like there'd be more than four fears on my roster by the end of things. Not to mention phase three could still bring even more as we worked to address the ones we knew about.

"Unfortunately," Eric growled. "My point, though, is this - we're all only human. Each and every one of us. We have weaknesses. And we have strengths. Dauntless is knowing how to use one to get over the other."

"Dauntless is a lot of things. Every other day I'm getting a new definition of what it means to belong here. And they're never the same," I replied.

He chuckled. "Yeah, I guess there is a lot going on behind the simple 'faction of the brave and the bold.'"

"Why don't we ever let that on?" I asked. It had been bugging me for a while. Why had I gone through my whole childhood thinking the other Factions were all so one-dimensional? All I'd ever thought Dauntless could be was foolhardy and tough.

Sitting here out on the rooftop with Eric though I felt for the first time like maybe I could be a clever and kind Dauntless, too.

"We're a bit thick sometimes," Eric admitted. "And the facade serves us well enough. People trust a military that's tough all around to make the calls we ask them to let us make." He made a face and amended, "Most of the time."

Not letting us stick on that topic, he brought the conversation once more to fears. "I do wonder if you already know what's different now, up here when things are fairly calm, than when you are bothered by the thought of touch," Eric said, swinging his legs back over the open air.

My earlier worries returned in force. "Why would you say that?" I asked lightly.

"Because you said it yourself - you knew it was different. So what made it different? What happened the last time you freaked out that's not happening now?"

I tensed my shoulders and shook my head. "Dunno," I replied shortly.

"Bullshit," he said flatly. "What went on last time? You said back on the ropes course something had happened the night before. What was it?"

I bit the inside of my cheek and stole a glance at Eric. Would he think me any less Dauntless hearing the story? Christina had understood. Even Will had the wherewithal to look ashamed when he heard what Al had tried. Shame still burned in my gut regardless.

"There's a guy in my Initiation group. He's got a crush on me," I paused to swallow. "It's my friend, Al."

Eric didn't bring up his usual mockery that he did whenever Al was mentioned. His gaze turned steely as he remained quiet.

I continued. "That night he wanted to talk to me about it. Thought that I hadn't been getting the message. You know, because I'm a stupid Stiff," I scoffed. "I told him I'd noticed and that I wasn't interested. He didn't agree. Thought that I was telling myself to not accept it because I was afraid."

"That's not true," Eric said. I nodded. I knew that more than well enough.

"I started feeling trapped. He just walked closer, wouldn't back off. He was so sure that he knew what I was thinking and how I was feeling. Told me it was 'okay' to want him," I spat. "All he did was touch my shoulder but I'd made it so damn obvious that that wasn't what I wanted. He was supposed to be my friend, and he couldn't even tell that.

"I yelled at him. Shoved him away. And ran because all I could think about was what if he tried something more." I wrapped my arms more tightly around my knees. My fingers curled into my skin. "He made me feel like a coward. An idiot. I'd trusted him and he broke it the moment he tried to take something from me he told himself I was too afraid to give," I muttered.

"I'm sorry," Eric said gruffly. He shuffled over, close enough that his arm pressed against my shoulder.

I leaned against him. Just for a moment. "So," I sighed, "the difference from then to now is that I do trust you. And I trust other people. Just not as much because there's always that chance that they're going to try to take something from me, too."

Eric tensed. "That's… Why do you trust me that much?"

I resisted the urge to bury my face in my arms. "You've respected me this whole time. Whenever there was a challenge I didn't think you were just posturing to put me in my place. 'Cept maybe on the range. Though that was more to put Al in his," I said.

Next to me, Eric didn't respond. I added quietly, "You make me feel..." Safe. "Competent. Like all I need to do is trust that I'm as capable as I think I am and I'll make it in Dauntless."

"You are going to make it in Dauntless," he murmured. Silence once more crept up around us. I didn't mind it as much as before. After everything that we'd talked about, I believed him finally. Maybe I'd find I didn't have any other fears. Maybe I'd have a dozen more. But Eric had been right. I could figure out ways to move past them and keep my head on straight.

I looked down at the pit under my feet. "Is the net set up down there all the time?" I asked.

"Yeah. It's easier than coming in through the train depot," Eric replied without much consideration. Then I think he saw the grin slicing across my face. "Oh no, you don't," he growled as I unwrapped my arms from about my knees. He suddenly didn't look quite so relaxed sitting on the ledge.

I turned and dropped down - backwards this time - into the void.

Just like with the end of physical training, we weren't told it was the last day until midday. Lauren paused for a moment after our lunch break to simply state that by evening we would have finished the battery of typical, expected fears and that tomorrow we'd be starting something new.

I waited for the nausea and concern that had sat with me all through rankings for phase one but it never showed. I had no reason to think that I would be ranked poorly. Both Will and Christina had pulled well into the middle of the pack, too. Never mind the fact that Eric had said there would only be cuts made after the first and final phases.

Really, all that I found myself wondering was exactly how the next phase would work. Were we going to be returning to the testing rooms? Would we do any more physical training? And how long was phase three going to last? Both other phases so far had been about two weeks of straight training without breaks for weekends.

My heart leapt. In two more weeks' time I could be fully Initiated. I could finally call myself Dauntless and know that I belonged.