Tris wasn't sure where she wanted to go, she just knew it was anywhere not surrounded by four plain white walls. Too much was happening, and it felt wrong to stay somewhere they didn't have to be. Not while she still had a choice, anyway. She didn't get much of a reaction from Matthew or Tobias after her simulations, but she could tell from the small glances they shared, their careful tones, and Matthew's eager note attached to her simulation footage that it was something that was going to make her stand out even more.

She wove through the compound, tablet in hand and Tobias by her side. She always felt safe, confident, and cared for when she was with him. While they were mostly foreign feelings to her, she knew that she didn't want to experience another day in her life feeling any differently. She glanced over at him, a small smile on her face. His eyes were focused forward, but he sensed her movement, responding instantly with a smile of his own. He smiled even wider when she rushed ahead of him, opening the door and running out into the warm daylight.

He took off after her, easily catching up as she ran through the overgrown grass, the wind blowing her long hair all around. She let out a light laugh; he felt it resonate deep inside him, grabbing hold of everything he was and threatening to never let go. It had startled him the first time it happened, when he felt hope and wonder begin to radiate when she was around. But the more it happened, the more he craved the lightheartedness he felt when he was with her. His thoughts raced as his feet slowed; Tris turned when she noticed he wasn't keeping up, a wide grin on her face.

It came together, slowly at first, as he looked at her. But as each thought, each feeling wove into one unified entity, he came to a staggering, inescapable conclusion: he was in love with her. He stood there, his mouth hanging open slightly, as the revelation slammed into him, leaving him shaken and flustered. He realized how panicked he must look when her smile faded away as she watched him; he snapped his mouth shut and cleared his throat.

"What is it, Tobias? What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.

"Nothing," he replied, his heart hammering against his ribcage. He drew in a deep breath to calm his churning mind and emotions. He needed to get himself under control and focus — he was there to help her with her fear sim footage, not to get lost in his own thoughts and feelings.

He walked past her towards one of the larger trees within the gates and sat down, the coolness of the shade a welcome relief. She hesitated for a moment before joining him; she was quiet at first as she stared back at the compound. But he could see the wheels working inside of her head: the way she bit her lower lip or slightly puckered them both to the right side of her mouth, her brows knitting together, then apart. He gave off an amused chuckle.

"Go on," he said, pulling her attention to him. "Let it all out."

She gave him a soft smile. "Most of it is straightforward, really. My family, my home. I don't want to lose those things."

She sighed as she tapped on the tablet and opened the first video, watching herself struggle against the ropes and remembering the feel of the sun searing her flesh, the rope cutting into her skin. She looked over her shoulder when it ended; the fields surrounding the Bureau were almost identical to those in her fear. "Being trapped. Or alone," she mumbled, turning her attention back to the tablet. It briefly crossed her mind that her statement could be taken in more than one way. "Maybe being somewhere I would never be found."

"Maybe. It's not a far stretch to think that if you died here, nobody in the city would really know what happened to you. That's not your body in that grave; it really would be like you never existed."

Tris closed her eyes, fighting the sting of oncoming tears. "My mom suspects, though," she said, wiping at them.

"Yeah, but suspecting and knowing are two different things."

"I wish I had a way to let her know. I wonder if she would try to come get me."

Tobias was silent, giving her the time she needed to work through her thoughts. He hated that his mind turned to his own father, wondering if Marcus ever suspected the same, or if he even cared.

After some time, she tapped to see the next video, and they watched her fumble around in the fog, unable to get to her parents or Caleb no matter how hard she tried. "I hated giving up," she said, watching herself curl into a ball. "But I knew it was pointless to keep trying. They weren't really there. It hurt, so much." Tobias's eyes were glued to her as she lowered her head, shaking it back and forth. "If something were to happen, I couldn't get to them, either."

Tris let out a strangled sob and held her head in her hands; she didn't cry long, considering there wasn't anything she could do about either situation. There was no way for her mother to get out of the city even if she were able to get a message to her, and she was stuck in the Bureau. Tris never thought she would miss those nights when they would sit around the living room as a family, her mother knitting, her father reading the paper, and she and Caleb playing a game where they had to trap the other's thumb. She sniffled and wiped her cheeks, knowing that those days were gone forever.

Tobias looked away when her hand hovered over the tablet, hesitating before tapping the next one. He could feel her shift next to him, their arms brushing up against each other as she fidgeted, and he could see her occasional glances at the screen out of the corner of his eye. This was one of the harder ones for him to watch, so he couldn't even imagine her wanting to relive the fear she had gone through. He took the tablet from her.

"This one is pretty straightforward," he said, angling it away from her. He could see the man pawing at her, touching her in a way he shouldn't. His stomach churned when she began fighting for her freedom.

"Could that really happen? Could our home end up like the Fringe?"

Tobias shook his head. "I don't know. I want to tell you that it can't, Tris, but I've seen pictures of other cities that used to be experiments. Some of them seemed to function just fine, but others…" he trailed off, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The truth was that some of the cities looked far worse than the Fringe. She nodded, clearly shaken by the horrors she was imagining. "It would probably take a long time, even if it did." He tried to sound reassuring as he held the tablet out to her.

"Why did the other experiments fail?"

"The lack of factions. At least that's what David says. Without some sort of shared goal, things just devolved right back into chaos. The factions are there to provide focus and, more importantly, time for things to heal."

"How long has it been?"

"School told us hundreds of years, but I've looked and never found a solid answer."

Tris nodded her head, running her teeth over her lip as she took the tablet back and tapped the next video. Her curiosity was short-lived; she clenched her jaw as she watched David yell at her, blaming her for lying and being the cause of the destruction of everything she knew and loved. She knew she was not a failure, though. There were other cities that she'd never had anything to do with that had already failed.

Tobias stiffened next to her, catching her attention. "David's an ass," he said. "You are not the problem."

"I know. I'm just one person. This is so much bigger than me, and you, and even the Bureau. Whatever it is that makes me different, I don't know that it's the answer to the questions he's asking. I mean, what's going to happen when he finally realizes that I'm just… me? Will he be angry? Will he blame me for everything?"

"No, Tris. Nothing's going to happen. He'll just have to deal with it like he's done before. You're not the first one." Tobias tried to convince himself that he was right, but the truth was there was only so much he could do. David was in charge; if he wanted to lock Tris up and do experiments on her, he was all but powerless to stop him.

The small amount of confidence she possessed faded completely once she tapped on the next video. Her shoulders sagged as she watched the frail, emaciated version of herself struggle to make sense of what was happening. She had thought she looked thin from her angle inside of the sim, but seeing herself from the outside was even worse. The ache of her underused limbs, the needles inside of her veins, the wires tugging against her paper-thin skin as she tried to move; watching it brought back all of the pain she had felt. She shuddered, the warm day no longer enough to keep the chill from spreading throughout her.

Tris let her fear take hold of her — only for a moment — and she wondered what would happen to her if they were to actually turn her into the lab rat she imagined herself to be in the sim, if she were to actually die at the Bureau. She reached out and took Tobias's hand, squeezing it as hard as she could. His hand was warm as it wrapped around hers, giving her a different kind of strength as she watched herself break free from her confinement, charging the glass. She was thankful for it as he squeezed back.

"If anything ever did happen to me, you wouldn't forget me, would you?" She said it softly, thinking of how everyone she had ever cared about already believed she was dead and had moved on. She looked up into his deep blue eyes, trying to find in them the reassurance that she was important to him, that he truly cared about what happened to her. Tobias ran his thumb over her hand slowly and whispered, "Never, Tris."

She fell silent again as she tapped the last video. Watching herself beg David to not harm Tobias, agreeing to do whatever he wanted in exchange for his safety, made her heart feel like it was being torn in two. Experiencing this fear had made her finally admit to herself that she liked him more than she had ever thought herself capable of liking anyone.

There wasn't a need to say anything out loud; he could see for himself how much she cared, but she spoke anyway. "It's sort of weird, isn't it, that on Choosing Day we have to make such life-altering choices when we know next to nothing about them? If we choose to stay, we never get a chance to experience anything different, and if we choose to leave, we're expected to forget everyone and everything we have ever known and cared about. It doesn't feel like much of a choice when you're always going to lose something or someone." Her eyes drifted up to Tobias. "There are far worse things than not being remembered. My mother, my father, my brother… I don't know what I would do if I lost anyone else."

He could hear the sadness in her voice, feel the heavy implication of her words. He had never really thought about relationships before, at least not positively; his few awkward experiences had been failures, and he had blamed himself. But Tris coming into his life had made him understand just how wrong he was. In the few short weeks they had been together, they had formed a bond that was stronger than anything he had ever known. He would do anything for her, the same way he was certain she would do anything for him.

He clenched his jaw; even if it wasn't specifically laid out in his landscape, he knew he shared her same fear. "I'm not gonna let that happen, either."

She watched him for just a moment — the heavy rise and fall of his chest and the way his eyes roamed her face before looking directly into hers — and moved even closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. When his arm came around her, she nestled her face into the crook of his neck and whispered his name. Her breath on his skin sent a shiver through his body. He pulled her closer, shifting her body so she curled into him. Her arms snaked around him, holding on tight. She wanted to get lost in him again: the press of his body against hers, the taste of his lips, the heat she could feel rising up within herself.

After a few moments of contentment, she sighed and turned her thoughts back to her predicament. She had spent too much time ignoring what was right in front of her and pretending it would all go away. This was her life now, and she had to figure out how to deal with it.

"So, what now? I know I keep asking that question, but it's the one thing that keeps coming to my mind, especially after this." She motioned towards the tablet. "It's going to change David's expectations, isn't it?"

"Yes. But whatever he wants, you don't have to do it, Tris. Tell him no."

"Then what? I mean, it's not like I can go home, Tobias. Is there even anything else here for me?" Her words hit him like a punch to the stomach and he pulled away from her sharply.

Tris's eyes widened as he scooted away; she stopped him from standing by planting her hands firmly on his shoulders, her fingers squeezing him back in place. "That's not what I meant. I just—"

"It might not be what you meant, but it's what you said," he snapped. His face was blank, masking the rising panic and doubt he was feeling about having opened up to her. He should have known it was a mistake to trust; she must not feel for him the same things he felt for her.

She let out a loud breath, trusting that if she took her hands off his shoulders, he wouldn't take off. "Tobias, what I meant is that I can't simply hang onto you every day. I need… something more. You had an entire life here before me. Am I just supposed to tag along to the Fringe when I don't even know how to hold a gun? Or be dragged out to the cities and wait in the van for you to come back?"

"Tris—"

"No. I still need to form my own life. I still need to find out what it is that I'm good at. I need…"

"You need to do it alone." His statement was matter-of-fact, but she could see him retreating inside himself; he averted his eyes and shifted away from her slightly, his body tense and rigid.

"No!" She shook her head quickly. "That is not what I'm saying at all. I can do it with you. I want to do it with you. But I need to figure out how to do it on my own, too. I need… I need to find a purpose. Something more than just being born with healed genes."

His posture softened, and he gave her a short nod, reminding himself of how strong she was, and that he shouldn't be surprised by her determination. Selfishly, he was also relieved to hear her say that she wanted him around.

"Tobias, I… I really don't know what I'm doing," she admitted, letting out a rueful laugh.

He sighed, and gave her a small smile in return. "Here's a little secret, Tris: nobody really knows what the hell they're doing."

"Well, as long as I'm not alone."

"You're definitely not alone." He reached out and took one of her hands in his, idly rubbing circles with his thumb. She wasn't sure if it was meant to comfort him or her, but she liked that he seemed to always do it. His watch beeped and he let out a groan; she smiled.

"Four."

"Hey. Where are you?" Matthew said, leaning in close on his end. "Are you… outside?"

Tobias rolled his eyes. "Yes."

"Oh. Well then, stop by when you get a chance. I need to talk to Tris."

"Copy." He looked up at her and let out a loud breath. "See? Never alone."

Tris laughed and leaned into Tobias, pausing just before making contact. "Well, we're alone now." Her lips brushed against his; he visibly inhaled, holding his breath as she softly pressed her lips to his, keeping them there for only a moment. Tris pulled away and nervously awaited his reaction; he raised an eyebrow suggestively and gave her a lopsided grin, impressed and excited by her newfound boldness. "Come on," she said, standing. "Let's go see what Matthew wants."

"Perfect," Matthew said when he opened his door. "Just the girl I was looking for." Tris rolled her eyes but gave him a shy smile as she sat down in front of his desk. He nudged her on the shoulder and snagged the tablet out of her hand as he walked by, only stopping his playful banter when he saw the look on Four's face. He cleared his throat as he sat.

"I didn't want to send this with instructions, but I was able to hide the information where you can access it without being traced, just in case. A bunch of our servers went offline years ago, and I volunteered to help check them out with some of the tech guys. I lied and said one of them was dead, and they had a replacement brought in. The original is still there, hidden but running. I made sure it wasn't attached to anything that belongs to the Bureau." Tris raised an eyebrow. "Here, look."

He typed on his computer and sat patiently until the tablet in his hand dinged. He handed it to Tris, who opened it to reveal a long article on genes and the Bureau. She looked up at him after skimming it over and shrugged her shoulders.

"Page two, fifth paragraph down." Tris scrolled until she found it. "The third word in is…"

"Matthew," she said, looking back up at him.

"Touch it." She smiled and touched his name. The page disappeared for a moment, only to be replaced by a long list of dates. "Each one of those files is a letter, stored securely where no one can access it but you."

Tris tapped the first one: a handwritten letter showed up next to the link. She tapped it again, making it larger, devouring her mother's handwriting and thoughts as fast as she could. She could feel the lump rising in her throat, her emotions already high as she anticipated what she was about to experience.

"Geneticist by day, computer hacker by night," Tobias said teasingly.

"Eh, I get bored easily. Sorry there isn't more, Tris."

"No, it's okay. Thank you." She pulled the tablet close to her chest, forcing a weak smile.

Matthew tilted his head, watching her for a moment. "It's my pleasure," he finally said. "I'm still working on the other stuff. I think I might be able to find the test results for Indianapolis faster than anything else."

"Well, it's a start. It will at least tell us if there's something worth looking into or not," Tobias said. They stood and Matthew rushed to hold the door open for them. Tris slipped by quietly, her eyes focused on the floor.

"Do you think I could have some time with this?" she asked when she and Tobias were alone in the hallway.

"Tris, you don't need to ask." He looked at his watch. "I'm not really hungry. You want to just skip lunch together and meet back up for dinner?" She nodded and gave him a small smile before turning and walking away.

Tobias watched her; he was no stranger to needing alone time, but he disliked the way her mood had shifted. He wanted to be there for her, especially through the hard times. He took a deep breath and walked back into Matthew's office after she rounded the corner, disappearing from his sight.

"What's on your mind, Four?" he asked as Tobias sat down.

"Do you know George Wu?" he asked. He really wanted to talk about Tris and everything that was happening, but at the same time he didn't want to have Matthew in the middle of it.

"Sounds familiar."

"He travels the cities. Takes reports and gathers information for the Bureau."

"Ahh, yes. What about him?"

"You ever see any of the reports he files?"

Matthew began typing on his computer. Tobias was amazed at how fast he spun his monitor, a long list of files in front of him. He tapped the last one: it was from the trip George was currently on in Omaha. It listed different demographics like male-to-female ratios, adult-to-child ratios, random blood sample results, and violent crimes witnessed, with links to view the specifics. Nothing struck him as out of the ordinary.

"Something there?" Matthew asked.

"No. But that's just it. I feel like there is."

"I can help you comb through it," he said. "I've got nothing better to do right now. I'm stalling on sending Tris's simulation analysis to David." The corner of Tobias's mouth lifted.

Tris only knew of a few areas around the compound where she could be alone, and the common room wasn't somewhere she was interested in being right now. She wandered, getting lost once, until she found herself in front of the little room near Erudite. She turned the handle on the door, pleased to find it unlocked and empty.

She walked around for a moment, glancing at the various things that were in the room before stopping in front of the old maps. She looked at the one that showed more than just Chicago: it was labeled Illinois, and if it weren't for the marsh — called Lake Michigan on the map — she would have never found her home. Somewhere in that small dot, she spent her entire sixteen years completely ignorant of the world around her. It didn't just make her feel insignificant anymore, it made her feel hopeless.

She found where she had sat when she visited with Tobias and took a deep breath, calming her nerves before sitting down and opening up her mother's letters. They started out innocently enough, and her enthusiasm for Dauntless and the mission she was on was infectious. Tris was smiling, her spirits soaring with every word she read, reliving the life her mother had lived through her own descriptions.

That happiness was short-lived; the dates on the letters grew further apart, the tone more detached. Her mother never mentioned her specific mission, but whatever it was, it was being put aside for her father. They had met and fallen in love, and her plans to transfer to Erudite fell to the wayside. Tris was startled by the knowledge at first, then thought about why David would want her mother in Erudite and how different her life might have been had she been born into that faction.

She could tell by her mother's reactions that David wasn't happy, and she could understand why Matthew thought the two of them might have had some kind of relationship before she left. She pushed aside the thought that her mother had ever seen anything desirable in David; she certainly didn't, and was grateful her mother had chosen to leave the Bureau.

The later dates were no longer handwritten; they became formal, typed correspondences, occurring after she transferred out of Dauntless. Tris thought it was odd, considering Abnegation would be one of the places with just minimal technology. The letters were impersonal, informative, and gave only the barest information, most of which she didn't understand. It wasn't until she read one of the last letters that she broke down; in it, her mother revealed she was pregnant with Caleb.

Tris let the tears fall, the pain of missing her family cutting deep. She might have hated Caleb before for leaving her parents behind to grieve, but she couldn't hate him now: she had left them, too. She wiped her eyes with the hem of her shirt, getting through the last few letters, until her mother cut off all communication with David. Tris didn't blame her; she could tell from her responses that David was trying to make her feel guilty for choosing to live her own life instead of the one the Bureau wanted for her. Tris had never been more proud of her mother for standing up for herself. She might have been the perfect Abnegation on the outside, but she thought her mother's short time in Dauntless had given her the courage to do what she felt was right.

She flipped through the letters again, trying to pinpoint when it was that her parents fell in love. Tris couldn't tell exactly, but the dates told her that it couldn't have been more than a couple of months after her mother had arrived. Tobias came to mind and her neck flushed hotly; her mind seemed to drift towards him a lot lately. She stared off for a moment at the screen in front of her, recalling the small piece of himself he had revealed to her here, and smiled. Tris tapped on the screen, hoping to find a song she could tie to this memory just as Tobias had done.

She didn't have the first clue what she was doing, but after a while, she found herself looking at a picture of a woman with fire-red hair. She tapped on it, stilling when music began to play. She liked the simple melody, and the woman's voice even more as she began to sing. Tris closed her eyes, swaying to the rhythm as she listened. There was passion flowing from every word, a fire burning within this woman that spoke directly to Tris on every level. She felt that fire throughout her, building into an unstoppable blaze. It was perfect, and it evoked something deep within her as she sat there, something that made her want to stand up and shout at the top of her lungs. She scooped up the tablet when the song finished, and set out to find Tobias.

A/N:

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive

-Dog Days are Over - Florence + The Machine

Tris's song. We went through a couple, but we agreed that this one would start a fire in her. Thanks BK, and for your never-ending Beta job, too. :P

Just another reminder, I will be posting this Friday. I know the holidays are usually nuts for people, so no worries if you don't get around to reading it. I'll post another reminder next Tuesday lol. Hope you all have a nice holiday weekend, and eat all the food! As always, thank you for your reviews!