So here's the first chapter of STWS.

A few important notes:

1. This chapter is a bit different than what the next ones will be like. The reason is that there isn't much to do until Tris actually meets Tobias again. As you'll see when you read the chapter - the lines of the plot are the same but the words are different. This chapter is a lot like the book - I actually used the book to write it. The book I have isn't in English so I translated afew stuff. The next chapters will not be like that: the idea of the plot will remain, but it might take different directions. For example - Eric and Four will train Tris' group and the Dauntless-born initiates will be separated from the transfers, but things might be different inside the groups. I'm not gonna use the book anymore, maybe just to check descriptions.

2. As for now the story is rated T. When the time comes (in a chapter or two, I think) it will turn into M.

Last thing: I work really hard on this fic. I spent my entire Saturday writing it, even though tomorrow I go back to the army (yay! *she said cynically*). Please read and review!

Title: Secrets That we Share - Chapter 1

Rating: T (M overall)

Word count for this part: 4,338

Secrets That We Share

Chapter 1: DECISIONS

A small mirror on the white wall is the only thing that's in the room. I stay away from it because I don't want to see my reflection. I shouldn't look in the mirror.

My heart is beating fast and hard, my breaths are quick and heavy. I can feel the fear rising inside me, spreading to every nerve in my body.

I know the solution to it is to look in the mirror. I know if I stand in front of it the fear will go away, but I don't want to break the rules. Not again. Never again.

The thumps of my heart are getting stronger; I can almost hear them echoing in the silent room and I clench my fists and make myself stay on the floor. I must not look in the mirror.

But I have to make the fear go away. I realize I am crying and shaking but I don't know when it has begun.

You should look in the mirror, a small voice whispers inside my head. Put an end to it. Look in the mirror.

"No!" I tell the voice and close my eyes. I put my hands on my ears, trying to ignore the voice, but it keeps talking to me until I break.

Crying out loud and screaming for the fear to go away I stand up and walk towards the mirror. I look down at my feet for a few long moments and then I stare into my reflection.

I don't know what I see there, but it wakes me up and I find myself covered in sweat in my bed. I lay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling. The dim light that breaches through my gray curtains is just enough to let me see the wood pattern on it.

I bring my hand up and check the time. 6:42, only three minutes before I need to wake up. I sigh and get out of bed. I go down the stairs to the bathroom to brush my teeth and then I go back to my room, make my bed like I do every morning and then change my pajamas to my usual Abnegation gray clothes.

My parents are already sitting by the breakfast table, but Caleb isn't. They greet me good morning when they see me and I smile and return the words.

Caleb and I leave the house half an hour later and walk towards the school. "Are you okay?" he asks with a worried look. "You look stressed."

I nod. "I'm fine. I just had a bad dream." Again, I think, but I don't say it. I've been having those dreams for a few weeks now, not the same one every time but the same concept: breaking the rules.

"You're scared of what will happen today?"

"No," I answer what I know I should answer, even though I am terrified. "I don't need the aptitude test to tell me where I belong."

Caleb nods. "I guess you're right. I am, though. Scared, I mean," he adds and laughs a little. "No one knows what happens in the test."

~8~

The morning classes pass by quickly. It always amazes me how the sixteen-year-olds of each year don't think about the fact this day's their last day of school. In lower grades we were all happy.

We sit silently at lunch, not because we don't want to talk but because the Abnegation ideals tell us to do so. The thought makes me grit my teeth inside my mouth and bite my inner cheek. Maybe that's why Tobias has left. Maybe he couldn't bear the thought of living like that for the rest of his life, I think and flinch like I do whenever I think about him.

I haven't seen him even once since he's left Abnegation to join Dauntless. In the first few weeks I'd lay in bed at night and cry myself to sleep, but then I realized I couldn't go on like that and… pushed him away.

I don't like thinking about him.

In front of me is a plate full of plain food – rice and chicken and some peas – but I don't eat anything. I feel as though I might vomit just from putting the food in my mouth. Susan, my neighbor, tells me I should eat but I shake my head.

Caleb is being called to take the test before me. He looks calm despite saying he was afraid. He leaves the cafeteria along with 9 other kids, two from each faction, and I lose sight of him as he gets out. I wish him good luck in my heart.

Caleb was born to be an Abnegation. He is good and kind, always helping others, always forgetting his own needs and desires. He fits into Abnegation so much it makes it even harder for me to do so. I'm always the sister of the perfect guy, the one who's not as good as he is.

I am the exact opposite: I don't believe I should give up everything to help others, I don't think I shouldn't have a happy, comfort life because then I would forget I need to give to others.

I don't hate the Abnegation ideal and rules, I just hate the extremism. I didn't fit in Abnegation for 16 years, how can I fit in 60 more?

Caleb comes out, looking shaken. His face is pale and his hands are shaking, and his eyes gaze into the air without seeing what's in front of him.

I don't have the time to ask him what's wrong because a woman calls my name. "From Abnegation: Beatrice Prior and Susan Black."

I walk with Susan towards the door. Each step feels like thousands. I'm sure Susan can hear my heart beats fast in my chest.

Ten rooms are waiting for us outside the cafeteria, separated my mirrors. Susan and I both stop for a moment and the memory of my recent nightmare floods in my mind. "Move on, Stiffs!" an Erudite boy calls as he pushes us aside.

Susan isn't looking up as she enters room number 5, keeps looking at the ground, but I can't stop myself from looking at my reflection. I can never see my reflection like that. My blonde hair is in a ponytail in the back of my head, long enough to cover my long neck and ends in my shoulder blades which are covered in gray Abnegation robe. I look ill as I enter room number 6.

A Dauntless woman waits for me in the room. She has dark hair and small, angular eyes and she's wearing all black like all the members of Dauntless. When she turns to close the door I see a tattoo of a hawk on her nape.

She stands next to a machine I don't recognize and a reclined chair and smiles at me as she tells me to take a seat. "My name is Tori," she says, "and you have nothing to be afraid about."

"What is going to happen?" I ask.

She shakes her head. "I can't tell you." She moves around me, attaching electrodes to my head and my chest. When she finished she offers me a vial full of clear liquid. "Drink this."

I take it in my hand and look at it for a few moments before drinking it fast and closing my eyes.

~8~

There are two baskets on a table in the school's cafeteria; in one is a hunk of cheese and in the other a long knife. I look around, wondering how is it that's I'm here. I shouldn't be here. I step closer to the baskets to examine them better. The hunk of cheese is just a regular cheese, but the knife looks deadly.

"Choose," a woman says from behind me, but when I turn I see no one.

But how should I choose? I don't know what I'm going to need them for. "What for?" I ask loudly.

"Choose!"

"Not until you tell me why!"

"Fine. It's your choice."

The baskets and the tables disappear and I find myself standing in a white room with no windows, only one door. It cracks open and a dog with pointy nose enters the room. He growls at me and now I understand the purpose of the cheese and the knife. Too late, I think.

I feel the wheels in my brain working. What should I do?

~8~

When I wake up at the end of the simulation I feel like I've been here for days, but I know it hasn't been more than a few minutes. The pictures from the simulations run behind my eyes – the dog and the little girl, the man in the bus. I shiver when I remember the man in the bus.

I look around. Tori stands next to me, taking the electrodes off my head while looking nervous. "What is it?" I ask. I have the feeling something isn't right.

"Your results are… confusing. I'm sorry, give me a minute." She busies herself with the machine for a few long minutes in which I feel my palms being covered in sweat and my heart beating strong. Every minute that passes and she says nothing increases my fear.

She finally stops dealing with the machine and takes my hand in hers, squeezing it. "Listen to me, Beatrice," she says quietly and urgently. "What I'm going to say to you now is very important and very dangerous.

"Your results were inconclusive. You see, the simulation is design in a way that it eliminates one faction in each stage of the simulation, so in the end it rules out four factions and leaves you the one you fit with.

"But your reactions to the simulations ruled out only two factions."

I try to understand what she's saying to me. "You mean… I can be in three factions?"

She nods. "I'll go through it with you from the beginning so you understand: first you had to choose between the cheese and the knife, which basically is Amity or Dauntless. You didn't choose, though, so I ruled out both. You were highly intelligent when the dog entered the room, which indicates strongly towards Erudite. But the fact you jumped on that dog to save the little girl shows a strong connection to Dauntless, but we ruled out Dauntless in the first part of the simulation because you didn't take the knife. It also connects you to Abnegation because of your choice to help the girl on your expense. You're following this far?"

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat.

"Now we get to the bus. You didn't tell this man the truth, even though you knew he badly needed it." When I look away feeling guilt bubbling inside me she smiles reassuringly. "Don't worry, only Candors say the truth in this test. So that means we rule out Candor.

"Well, it's not exactly true. People who belong with Abnegation also tell the truth in this one. So we rule out Abnegation."

I'm not following anymore. She's talking about ruling out factions and reactions that mean something, but I didn't see it like that. I didn't try to fit somewhere during the simulation – I tried to follow my instincts, my heart.

Tori notices. "In the end, what I'm trying to say is that you have three possible results: Abngation, Erudite and Dauntless."

I blink my eyes a few times, confused. I've never heard of people with more than one result.

"Now, hear me carefully, Beatrice. When a person has more than one possible match, he is called divergent. You shouldn't let anyone know about this."

I nod. I know I shouldn't talk about the test results.

But Tori shakes her head, a stern look on her strong face features. "Beatrice, you can never talk about this. Not with your family, not with your friends – with anyone. Being divergent is extremely dangerous.

"I deleted the record of your simulation from the computer. I'll write your result manually. I'm going to write Abnegation, but you have a lot to think about. You have less than 24 hours before the Choosing Ceremony, use the time you've got left to figure out where you want to be.

"You should go home now. Don't go back to your friends in the cafeteria."

"But… my brother…"

"Ah, yeah. Interesting boy. I examined him as well. I'll let him know you weren't feeling well. Now go."

I get up, my legs feel like they're about to collapse. Before I leave, I ask her, "What's the meaning of your tattoo?"

She raises her eyebrows at me and brings her hand to touch the tattoo on the back of her neck. "In some cultures the hawk represents the sun. It's a reminder that I managed to overcome my fear of the dark."

"You were afraid of the dark?"

She smiles. "No one has no fears. Not even members of Dauntless. Go, Tris. Take your time to think."

I leave the room, not even giving my mind to the fact she has called me "Tris".

~8~

I find myself taking a detour from my usual path on my way home. I am standing in the alley – our alley – and staring at the spot where we used to sit so many times, hugging and kissing and sometimes just talking. I feel nothing.

I expect to feel emptiness, to feel lonely. Maybe to feel anger. But I just stand there and I feel nothing.

I've asked myself many times what could make him leave Abnegation, and every time I reached the same answer: he didn't fit here, just like I don't fit here.

But you do, according to your aptitude test, that familiar, annoying voice of my subconscious tells me.

What should I do? I don't want to imagine life outside Abnegation, apart from my family, but I can't believe being Abnegation is what I want for myself. Erudite is out the question. I am my father's daughter, and I can't live among those people.

My mind skips unwillingly to the Dauntless kids, jumping from the moving train every morning, looking like they have no worries in the world. Do I want to be a part of them? The answer is yes. But Then I think about the beautiful lifestyle of my faction – we give and we help others and we ask nothing in return. It's beautiful, it's something important and I do agree with the idea, even if not with the implementation of it.

What should I do?

~8~

"The ceremony is on the 19th floor," father tells us, smiling.

I nod. He doesn't know I've been here before.

I still don't know what I'm going to choose. I'm afraid I will faint between the sea of gray clothes while we climb the stairs. In my desperation I cling on to Caleb's hand, squeezing it tight. I know I'm hurting him, but he says nothing, his grip as strong as mine.

He had told me last night that sometimes we need to think about ourselves. My brother said it, the boy who had never put himself first, always found people to help. Always the perfect Abnegation.

I'm still trying to understand what the meaning behind his words is. Does he know I'm considering transferring to a different faction? Is he telling me he agrees?

We reach the ceremony hall too fast. My father kisses my head, then Caleb's, and backs away. "See you soon," he says, smiling. Mom hugs us both and then looks us in the eyes. She's smiling too, but there's something behind her smile. She only wishes us good luck.

Caleb and I join the other sixteen-year-olds, standing exactly where Tobias has stood two years ago today. The five metal bowls are standing in their line, filled with the factions' symbols: earth, water, glass, stones and coals.

Marcus Eaton, Tobias' father, walks inside when everyone takes their seats and raises his hands. This action reminds me of the time Johanna Reyes did the same thing to make the crowd go quiet.

He starts talking, giving a speech about how it's time for us to choose and how each faction is important for the city. His words are an echo of Johanna's, saying the same things with different phrases. I think maybe that's what the person standing there says every year, repeating it again and again over the years.

The first name to be called belongs to a girl from Amity, who looks scared as she makes a cut in her hand but secure as she joins her faction and goes to stand alone behind Amity's seats.

I don't understand what Marcus calls. I don't know how I'm supposed to hear my name and walk towards the bowls. Then I remember I'll be called right after Caleb and decide to just wait for him to leave my hand.

I look at the crowd of Abnegation members and search for my parents with my eyes. I find them smiling among the others, watching the dependents that choose their factions. I can't leave them. I can't.

"James Tucker."

Tucker, a boy from Dauntless, stumbles over his feet as he makes his way out of the line. He steadies himself and blushes. Taking the knife from Marcus, he cuts himself and after a moment of hesitation lets his blood fall over the glass of Candor.

A low murmur rises from the rows of Dauntless as James Tucker makes his way to stand behind the proud, smiling Candors.

He is the first to switch a clan this year.

One by one the kids I know from the classes we've been sharing for ten years step forward to choose their faction, and I stand there and freak out. I can't choose yet. I don't know what to choose.

And then, "Caleb Prior."

My brother squeezes my hand once more and steps forward. I see his hand shaking as he takes the knife. He's going to choose Abnegation, I have no doubt. It's the place where he belongs.

It takes me a few seconds to accept what I see. He joins Erudite. He's leaving Abnegation, leaving the family. My brother, my ever so giving brother, prefers Erudite over Abnegation.

He has taken every option I had to choose. I can't leave my parents as well. I can't do this to them. Not when I hear my father's shocked cry, when I see his face.

Marcus needs to ask for the crowd to be quiet again. I hear him calling my name and I feel myself walking, but my mind is not there.

I look from the gray stones to the lit coals and bite my inner cheek. What do I want? Where do I belong?

I can't leave my parents too. I reach my hand and take the knife from Marcus, my eyes meeting his. Their color is dark blue. His eyes are Tobias'.

I cut myself, barely noticing the pain. I thrust my arm forward; my blood falls on the carpet between the bowls of Abnegation and Dauntless. And then I move it and let it fall on the coals of Dauntless.

~8~

I stand between the other Dauntless initiates as we wait for the ceremony to end. I process nothing of what's happening. I don't look in my parents' direction, not in my brother's. I stand, shorter than everyone around me, and stare in the nape of a tall guy who is a Dauntless-born.

When the ceremony ends, Dauntless leaves first. I look at my parents for the last time and divert my gaze when I see my father's accusing look. He looks broken.

We run. There's no reason for the running, but we run. I feel the adrenaline spreading in my veins as I run. Laughter and shouts surround me, people jumping on people while running, people smacking others playfully on the back of their heads.

"What's going on?" The question comes from a boy who transferred from Erudite.

I shake my head but keep running. My confusion disappears. All my feelings do. There is only the burning in my lungs and the ache in my muscles and the wind in my hair. We round the corner of the street and I hear a familiar sound – the train. We need to jump.

The boy from Erudite asks if we should jump on it and I reply a breathless "yes".

The initiates who weren't born in Dauntless are the last ones to jump. I jog along the train and throw myself into a car. I am not strong enough to pull myself inside with my arms and I cling to the handle, flailing my legs as I try to climb in until a Candor girl reaches her hand and helps me.

I look at her. She is tall and her skin is brown and her hair black and short. "Thank you," I say.

She smiles. "My name is Christina."

She offers me her hand and I shake it hesitantly. I've never done that before. "Beatrice," I say. I look around. "We should probably sit down. The train is gaining speed. We will fall if we keep standing."

I sit and lean my head against the car wall. Now that I sit doing nothing I finally have the time to wonder what I have gotten myself into. I have no idea what the Dauntless initiation process is like. I don't even know where their headquarters is.

I change a few more words with Christina and then lay my head over my arms and close my eyes. I hope I have chosen correctly.

~8~

A boy shouts, "They're jumping off!" and I open my eyes.

The train has slowed down but still is fast and the wind is strong. We're passing a rooftop on which the Dauntless jump, and when I look down I see it is seven-stories high.

I stand and offer Christina my hand. It isn't even shaking.

Someone starts arguing with someone else about the jump, but I only fix my eyes on the roof, waiting for the right time to jump. Christina grabs my hand and says, "I can't do this alone."

I nod and then it's time to jump. We take a few steps of leverage and do it.

For a moment that seems like forever there is nothing beneath my legs and the ground is far down, and then we land on the roof. My heart struggles to slow down and Christina lets go of my hand. We lay there for a few moments on our stomachs, can't believe that we did that, and then we look at each other and we both laugh.

We get up and join the rest of the initiates.

A Dauntless man older than any other member of this faction I've seen before shouts from the ledge. "Initiates! Gather around me and listen. My name is Max and I am one of this faction's leaders." He has creases on his skin which is dark brown, and his hair is almost gray. His hands are crossed above his chest and his legs are slightly parted, standing on the edge of the roof like it isn't a place you can fall from and die.

"Welcome to Dauntless! Some of you were born here, some of you weren't. That doesn't matter and no one cares about it. Starting now and until you finish your initiation I don't care who you are and where you've come from." He looks us all in the eyes, not skipping anyone. When his eyes find mine I want to look away, but I stare back until he trails off to Christina next to me.

"You initiation starts right now. If you want to even see the Dauntless headquarters, you need to jump off this roof." He gestures with his hand to make his point.

"Jump off the roof?" A transfer from Candor asks, sounding anxious. "But that's a seven-stories building!"

"So?" Max raises his eyebrows at her, unimpressed.

"Will there be something to ease the fall?" another Candor asks, this time a boy.

"I don't know."

I don't really think about what I'm doing as I step closer to the edge and look down. I can't see the bottom.

"I bet the Stiff won't jump!" a boy calls. He's wearing black and has a tattoo on his hand so I assume he is a Dauntless-born.

My cheeks heat up with anger. I bring my hand to loosen the neck of my Abnegation robe, but end up taking it off. My arm are exposed, something that I never show anyone. I throw the robe at the boy, my eyes flaming, and then take a place on the very edge.

The adrenaline returns, my ears are full with the sound of my heartbeats. I look at Max, who's standing only a few feet away from me. His face is curios, challenging me.

I take a deep breath –

-and jump.

I don't scream while I fall, I don't close my eyes. My hands are in fists in the sides of my body and I accept the fact that either there's something to save me or there isn't, but there surely isn't a way back.

And I'd rather die than being a factionless. I've seen those people too many times to even consider becoming one of them.

And then I hit something. It isn't soft but isn't the ground either. It's a net, I figure. A net stopping the jumpers from falling to their deaths. I struggle as I try to stand up and get to a solid ground again. Someone reaches their hand for me and I take it gratefully.

All I can see when I finally stand up is that we're on a platform ten meters above the ground and a cavern surrounds us. I look at the one who helped me and my heart stops beating for a moment.

His eyes are a too familiar shade of dark blue.

Tobias.