Chapter Fifteen:

FOUR'S POV:

I walk back to the compound after another day at the greenhouses. This was the fifth time I've gone there to work. Ronald has been teaching me a lot about the plants and I'm truly enjoying it. I understand why the greenhouses and the people who work there have a calm, content feel about them – the work is fulfilling and tiring, simple yet somehow complex. I still don't know if I can imagine doing it for years and years, but it has been nice to try out and I do think I'll make use of my new skills again in life, even if I choose not to work at the greenhouses. And I'm glad to finally be contributing to something again.

The wind pierces through my jacket as I hug it closer to me. It hasn't snowed again since that first time, but it certainly feels like winter now. The sky is a solid steel gray and it seems to hang lower than usual. I used to hate these winter skies, they always made me think of something broken, but now I look up at it full of expectation.

I rush into the hotel and to my room and take a quick warm shower. In the past few days Tris hasn't yet asked me how I mean to approach Evelyn and Tin – we've generally avoided this topic – but I know she has been thinking about it. I too have been thinking about it. Finally I decided it's time to go see them. So I hurry out of my room and go up two floors where I was informed Evelyn is now living with Tin. I hope I'll find them there.

When I reach room number 509 I stop. This is where they should be. Dark memories of being locked inside a closet start to creep into my mind; I firmly knock on the door before they have a chance to take hold of me. My mind is set. A moment passes. Then I hear a slight rustling sound and the door opens. There stands Tin, my little sister, in front of me. Her dark curls are a tangled mess and she wears an oversized t-shirt and shorts, her tiny frame engulfed in cloth. It's hard to believe she's ten years old, she's so small. We look at each other for a while, her eyes wide in surprise.

"Hi," I finally say awkwardly.

"Hello," she answers in a tiny voice.

"Are you alone?"

Tin looks back into the room. "Yes. Evelyn left an hour ago, I don't know where she went." She sounds a bit defensive in her reply, maybe she thinks I'm only here to see Evelyn. Part of me wants to turn around and leave on the spot, to come back when someone else is near and I know it's safe. But instead I ask, "Can I come in?"

Tin's eyes go even wider. She looks around again and says, "Yes!" excitedly. Then she opens the door wider and walks into the room. I follow her. Their room is larger than mine, with a big bed and two windows in the far wall. The bed is a mess of blankets and pillows. There is one chair in the room, which is covered in clothes. Tin sees me standing near the door, then she goes to the chair and unceremoniously throws all the clothes on the floor next to it. "You can sit here," she says.

I take a seat. Tin sits cross-legged on the bed with her back leaning against the headrest and looks at me expectantly. Now what?

"How old are you?" I ask. Tris already told me she is ten, but I don't know what else to say.

"I'm ten." Tin replies. Again there is a certain defensiveness in her tone.

"Where did you live all your life?"

"In the factionless part of town. We lived in the basement of one old house near the Abnegation sector until I was seven, after that…" she shrugs. "We moved around a lot."

"Do most factionless live in one place for a long time or do they all move around a lot?"

Tin purses her lips in thought. "It's different for everyone. I know one family, they've been in the same house since I was born or maybe even from before that, they live where we used to live. But there are people who never stay more than a few nights in one place. Not everyone likes having just one home."

I just started asking questions to have something to do, and because it seemed like a good way to get to know her, but now curiosity has kicked in. We never knew anything about the factionless, we were just told it was the worst imaginable fate. While I did spend time with them during the war, I'm not sure how valid those experiences were and how much of it was due to the circumstances. So listening to Tin talk about it is fascinating to me – what must life have been like for her growing up there?

"Did you like it? Being factionless?"

This time her answer shoots out immediately. "It wasn't perfect, but it was better than living in a faction." At the word faction she makes a face.

This surprises me. "Why?"

"Because in the factions they tell you EVERYTHING. They tell you what to do all the time. It's bad enough Evelyn always told me what to do, I couldn't stand it living in a faction."

What she says is true in a way. "But… wasn't life hard? Weren't you poor and sick and hungry?"

"So what if we were poor?" she asks angrily. "I always had enough to eat. Some people got sick, sometimes the Stiffs would take care of them, if they didn't it could get bad, but…" she shrugs her shoulder. "That's the way life is. People get sick and die. People died in the factions, too."

I feel my eyebrows draw down. "Did you ever go to school, Tin?" I try to keep my voice neutral and not let the concern show.

Tin sniffs. "We didn't have a school, but we had classes. There were a few people in each area who got all the children around them together every day for lessons. Evelyn helped organize those classes. Almost all the kids went to them. Most of the time."

"Most of the time?" I ask.

"I know how to read and write. I can do math. I know the sun revolves around the Earth and stuff like that. Not that any of that ever helped me." I'm surprised to feel relief flood through me at this. So she has received some kind of education. It may have been irregular and lacking, but it's something. I imagine all the factionless as illiterates and it makes the task of healing Chicago seem even more impossible – at least we won't have to deal with that.

"What else did Evelyn do? Most of the factionless have jobs, right?"

"Yes, terrible jobs with even worse pay!" Tin exclaims. I nod to show I agree with her. "My mother drove a train."

Now I'm shocked. "What?" I ask.

"She started when I was five. She didn't work every day, though, because of me."

Images of those trains drift through my mind – all those times I was jumping on, jumping off, the sense of freedom they had always given me – and it may well be that my mother was the one driving? The idea of it is so strange I don't know what to think or feel.

"What did you do when she was working?"

Tin chews her lip. She doesn't seem to like this question. "There were people I stayed with. Sometimes my mother's friends and sometimes people who took care of children among the factionless. And I had classes."

So their lives had some kind of organization. I already knew that from the time I spent with them, but I had never considered the challenges children might present. They found a way to deal with it.

Then another question comes to my mind, this time my curiosity is directed at the girl in front of me and not her society. "And what did you do with your free time?"

Again Tin shrugs. "I walked around. Played with my friends. Normal stuff."

I laugh. "Normal stuff?"

"Yeah, stuff kids do," Tin replies somewhat self-consciously. She seems very smart for her age.

"I understand," I say, though her answer hasn't really told me much about her. "Do you miss your friends?" is my next question. I remember someone asked me that once during Dauntless initiation. The question seemed so stupid to me at the time, but it sounds like Tin had a somewhat more normal childhood than I did.

"Some of them," she answers stoically. I can tell she doesn't want to talk about it. I think I like this kid. A quiet settles in for a moment. Then I wonder: if I have a thousand questions, maybe she's curious about me, too.

"Is there anything you want to ask me about my life?" I ask, already feeling uncomfortable.

Tin doesn't even think. "What are you afraid of?" So that's been on her mind since our last meeting. At first I consider evading the question somehow, but then I decide it's not fair to let her ask me questions and then not answer them.

I take a deep breath. "I'm afraid of heights, confinement, killing or hurting innocent people and becoming like my father. I think I'm also afraid of losing Tris." It all comes out in a rush. Then I think about what I said, "Maybe that's not exactly right, I haven't been through a fear simulation in a long time."

She looks at me intensely for a few seconds. Then she asks, "Do you love Tris?"

I nod.

"And she loves you?"

"Yes," I answer.

"Do you think you're going to be together forever?"

This question makes me blink. Are we? Who can know? "I think so. I hope so." The last thing I want is to show doubts about my relationship with Tris.

"But you don't know, do you?"

"I don't know, Tin. Something might happen to either of us, things could change. I don't think anyone can answer that question for sure, just like no one can tell the future. But to me what matters more is another question – do I want to be with her forever? And to that I answer yes. And so does she, I think."

Tin thinks about this for a long time. "Is that what happens when you love someone? You want to be with them forever, even though you know you might not?"

I nod. Tins nods back.

(page break)

TIN'S POV:

I stare at the door Four just left through for a long time. He hugged me before going. He's so tall he had to bend down low, but he hugged me tight like Evelyn does. It was nice.

We talked for a long time, mainly asking each other questions. At the very end he said he was sorry he left that first day. When I asked him why he just smiled and said not every question can be answered in one day. Some other day, he said.

I try not to let myself get too excited. But it was so nice being with him, talking to him. And he said some other day. That must mean he wants to see me again. A big smile keeps creeping up onto my face, even though I keep trying to chase it away.

That's how Evelyn finds me a few minutes later: sitting on the bed looking at the door, a huge smile on my lips.