Dear God, it's finally here!

I'm so, so so sorry for how long it took me to write that! I hope that never hppens again. But like I promised - I haven't stopped, just had a bit of a writer's block. Here's to never have that again!

I want to thank those who kept checking this fic while I was gone, who kept favoriting it and following it and commenting. I see everything nd it made me happy, but I didn't want to post another note and raise hopes since I didn't know when this will be up.

A great great thank you to Sarahbeth1925, who for some reason still wants to be my beta even after all this time. YOU ARE A SAVIOUR!

Last thing before we move on to the story: I've been writing for the One Direction fandom lately, and I could relly use a beta for that. So if you love the boys and can help me with characterizations, if you can britpick for me or just help me in general - send me a message, yeah?

Title: Secrets That We Share

Rating: T (M overall)

Word cound for this chapter: 4,528

Secrets That We Share

Chapter 5: FEARS

When I face Molly I see red. I can't hear anything above the sounds of my heartbeats, can't see a thing except her figure. I know I have to win against her today. I know I will win. I know it like I know my name is Tris.

"Begin!" Four calls, and a second later I stick my elbow in her face.

As she stumbles backwards with her hands covering the place I just hit, I glance at Four. His face is stern and his eyes are following us with deep concentration. I think maybe he wants me to win just as much as I do.

I return my eyes to my opponent. When I look at Molly I imagine she is the punching bag, and Four's instructions echo in my mind. Use your knees and elbows. Attack quickly, don't let her have the upper hand.

But Molly Atwood is not a punching bag, and she fights back. She is tall and muscular, and the few hits she manages between mine are effective. She punches me in the left eye, and for a few short moments I see nothing but black dots. That's enough for Molly to knock me down to the floor.

In a second I know it's over. I have no way to get up when she pins me to the floor like that. The image of me leaving the Dauntless headquarters passes in front of me, and I almost scream with frustration.

And then I see Tobias.

The man standing in the room is not Four, my instructor. This guy is Tobias Eaton, the one who used to hold me and tell me he loved me, who used to tell me quiet jokes and to tickle my hips until I couldn't breathe anymore. And Tobias's eyes are worried and his face is no longer emotionless, and he slightly reaches his hand towards me.

And I hate him. I hate him for making me fall in love with him once and then breaking my heart. I hate him for appearing in my life again and acting as if he did nothing wrong. And I have to prove to him that I can manage on my own now.

So I struggle against Molly's grip harder, flailing my legs uncontrollably until my knee hits her spine and she lets out a sudden cry. I know this is my chance, and with every last drop of energy I have left I turn us around.

I pin her to the floor now. She tries to release herself, but I keep my grip tight and determined. I know it's over. Now that I can actually look at her I see that her nose is broken and her lips are bleeding. I know if I hit her one more time she will lose consciousness.

"The fight is over," a voice calls from behind me. The tone tells me it's Four talking, not Tobias. "Tris wins."

I stay where I am, not letting go. I want to hear Tobias, not Four. As much as I hate him, he is the closest thing I have left for home.

A hand grasps my shoulder, warm and firm. "Let go, Tris. You win." That voice again. The one that keeps remind me he is no longer the guy I love and desire.

"Shut up."

My voice is shaking and I don't realize I am crying until Christina comes near us and asks me quietly if I'm alright. I clench my teeth, angrily and unsuccessfully trying to withhold the salty tears.

"Come on, Tris, get up." Four's hand pulls me away from Molly.

"Shut up!" I repeat, not knowing if the trembling of my arms comes from anger or desperation. When I release myself from his grip, I think for just a moment that all I've been doing since coming here is pulling out of his hands, as if my past has been trying to catch me and I have been running away from it. "I need to go to the infirmary," I say, bringing my hand to my face to cover the hurt eye and the slashed lip.

Four nods. "Christina, can you help –"

"I can get there by myself."

When I head towards the door I pass Molly's body on the floor. Her eyes watch me with hatred and pain and her lip quivers as she mutters, "Stiff."

I ignore her and leave the room, closing the door behind me.

~8~

Our rankings are being revealed after dinner, just like they promised. When the other initiates finish their food and hurry to the training room, I remain alone by the table and stare at my plate. I ate nothing, the meat and mashed potatoes look just like they did when I took them.

I wonder if I should even go and check where I'm ranked, thinking maybe leaving without knowing it would be better. I don't need the Dauntless to tell me how weak I am, how much I don't fit here.

"Sweetheart, Caleb and I are going to give this food to the factionless. Do you want to come along?" My mom asks with a smile. Whenever she talks about those people there is some sadness in her eyes.

I blink my eyes. Suddenly the thought of depending on the Abnegation people's mercies makes me sick.

I stumble over someone's leg on the crowded street and mutter my apologies. When I look up I see a young woman with messy brown hair and dirty clothes. "I'm sorry," I repeat as I hurry to leave the place. Even though I am Abnegation I don't like the company of the factionless.

"You're going to burn a hole in the table if you keep staring at it like that."

I jump in my seat and come back to the reality. Eric is standing in front of me, his hands on his chest and his eyes black and murderous like always.

"Aren't you going to check the scores?" he asks, pointing his head in the general direction of the training room.

"What for?" My voice sounds empty even to my own ears.

He raises his eyebrows. "Don't you want to know who leaves?"

I shrug my shoulders, trying to sound more comfortable than I really am. "I guess I am."

For the first time I see Eric smiling. It's a small curve in his lips and it makes him look more brutal than usual. "You're a lucky girl, Stiff." He winks at me and turns to leave the table. "Maybe I was wrong about you after all," he adds above his shoulder.

I stare after him for good five minutes before disposing of my food and running to the training room. Our rankings are written on the regular green board, and another one has the combined names of us and the Dauntless-born initiates. I stand far from the crowd surrounding the two boards and find my name on the short list. I look with shock mixed with relief at the number "6" written next to my name. It doesn't take me long to understand that I have a chance to stay.

My eyes move slowly to the combined list and my mouth falls open. There are five names written below mine. I am staying.

~8~

Four and Lauren inform us all that those who don't continue with us can stay the night in the headquarters and leave in the morning. Drew, Al and Myra say nothing as we all enter the bedroom. Myra finds her way to Edward's bed and he accepts her with open arms. We all look away, and even the Abnegation side in me doesn't care right now.

Al sleeps under me, and for hours I cannot fall into the blessed world of dreams because the bed is shaking as he cries. I think about trying to cheer him up, to say something nice. I don't.

It isn't long before I wake up after finally falling asleep. Keeping my eyes shut and trying to return to my dream, I hear Myra and Edward whispering things to each other. I can't hear them well, but I guess they say goodbye.

At least they have a chance to say goodbye, I think to myself bitterly and bite my bottom lip. I didn't get one, when Tobias decided to leave. It has never occurred to me before, but maybe it was better that he didn't say goodbye. It would probably make it harder. That way I have only the good times to remember as our last moments together.

The bed creaks and I open my eyes to see Al getting up. His tall figure is higher than me even though I sleep in the top bunk, and I can see the white of his eyes in the dark for only a moment before he walks to the door.

"Where are you going?" Edward's voice comes from the other side of the room.

Al turns around. "I'm thirsty."

"It's okay, you know," he tells him in the quiet of the darkness. "You won't be alone there."

Al's voice is barley a whisper above his shoulder as he closes the door behind him. "No, I guess I won't."

~8~

Like every morning in Dauntless, no one can tell it is time to wake up until Four knocks on our door and yells from behind it: "Morning! Wake up!"

Our group is divided in two groups: those, like Peter and Molly, who yawn and rub their eyes after a good night sleep, and the other, like Edward and Will, who look like they didn't sleep more than one hour tonight. I know I look like the latter.

I jump off my bed and am halfway through the room before Christina asks if anyone knows where Al is.

Turning around, I see his bed empty, the beddings still a mess. "Did he come back after leaving last night?" Edward asks, scratching his head. "I don't remember seeing him, but I also don't know when exactly I fell asleep."

"I don't remember seeing him coming back either," I say.

Myra nods. "He didn't come back," she says quietly. "I was awake all night."

After she speaks, silence falls on the room. We all look at her and Drew and we don't say anything. These two will leave today and will be forced to live with the factionless.

It is really hard not to be accepted to Abnegation if you choose to join the faction. There aren't rules dictating only ten initiates can become true members, and even though I don't know much about the initiation in the other factions, I find it hard to believe that Amity or Candor, or even Erudite, will do something like this.

How many of us would have chosen Dauntless if we knew we might not even stay here?

The silence wears off as we all begin to get dressed again. Christina, quick to finish as always, taps my shoulder and asks quietly if I want her to bring me something from the dining room. We share a silent agreement that none of us want to sit between the Dauntless on this day and see their looks.

I shake my head, thinking I can't put anything in my mouth at the moment.

It takes her mere minutes to come back, but she is not carrying food and her eyes are wide with something I recognize as horror as she runs through the door. "Al jumped off the chasm!" she calls out, breathing heavily.

Everyone in the room stops moving. With one sock still in my hands, I bring myself to ask a shaking "What?"

She grabs my arm in one hand and Will's in her other one and rushes us through the door and towards The Pit, the rest of the initiates right behind us. When we get there, it seems like every person in Dauntless has found his way to the railing around the chasm. A cacophony of words and voices fills my ears, the sounds echoing back to us after hitting the cave walls.

Christina lets go of my arm and runs forward, but I stay right where I am, unable to move forward. "Let me through!" Christina yells as she pushes aside bodies wearing black. She slowly makes her way to the center.

A while later – I'm not sure how long I've been standing and staring – people start moving and create a clean path. Four men walk away from the chasm, carrying a body.

Al's body is soaked with water, not only from the outside. His hair sticks to his face, dripping drops of water on his body and the floor.

Edward's words from last night crush down on me, replaying themselves in my mind again and again. You won't be alone. You won't be alone. You won't be… alone.

The men cover the body with a black fabric and carry it – carry Al – away from The Pit through one of the many doors. Everyone begins to walk away, but our group of initiates stays where we are.

I watch as the men disappear behind the door and as the Dauntless people return to their own businesses, and I do nothing. I probably look like a real fool, standing half dressed in the middle of The Pit, holding a sock in my hand.

~8~

Edward doesn't throw himself off the chasm, but that morning he tells us he is leaving Dauntless. We don't ask and he doesn't say, but everyone knows it's because of Myra. Deep down inside of me, in a place I don't even want to admit exists, I wonder if I would have left my faction for Tobias, had I been old enough when we were still together. I don't know a lot about love, having only ever been in love with him, but I am pretty much sure there is a difference between the love we used to share and the one my parents still do. I don't know if the one I had in me would have been enough to abandon everything and go with him like Edward does.

So maybe you shouldn't blame him for leaving. Maybe he wasn't sure about it either.

I clench my teeth and push the thought away.

~8~

We have the day free. Four says we should get to know the Dauntless-born initiates, now that we're going to go through the second and the third stages with them, but none of us does as he says. Peter and Molly talk loudly to Drew, who was informed he could stay since Edward left. They didn't look sad when they thought their friend would leave, but I guess it was pretence since they both look relieved now.

Christina, Will and I sit in silence on Will's bed. Every once in a while I throw a glance in the direction of Al's bed. It is the first time someone I know has died, and it plants a dull feeling in my stomach. I should feel sad, but I feel empty. Al and I weren't even that close, but his death affects me a lot.

Around noon I leave the room, saying I need some time alone. I wander around the compound, looking at my feet more than my way. Somehow I find myself standing next to the chasm in The Pit, holding the cold metal tightly and staring to the depths of it. I wonder what Al thought as he stood here all those hours earlier. Did he plan this? Or was it a decision made in the heat of the moment?

I take a few steps back before turning my back to it and leaving.

My legs carry me down the steep paths we walked our first day here, until I reach the net. I stare at it for a few long moments, before climbing on it and crawling to the middle. I lay there with my limbs spread wide open, my eyes staring at the skies far above.

A bird flies there, and I touch my collarbone, trailing the lines of my tattoo. I think about my parents and my brother and all I feel is a pinch of pain, none of the waves of missing them I felt during my first days here.

"I thought I'd find you here."

I look up to see Tobias standing on the edge of the ground, his arms crossed. I say nothing.

"Can I…?" he gestures towards me, as if asking for permission to climb the net next to me.

I nod and close my legs, pulling my hands back to my body while he makes his way towards me with grace that tells me it isn't the first time he's walked on this net.

When he reaches me he lies down. I can feel the heat radiating from his body as he presses into me. "How are you feeling?" he asks. "About Al, I mean. And, well, everything else."

I turn my head to look at him for a moment, and his eyes meet mine. I swallow and look back to the sky. "I hate you," I say, my voice surprisingly calm. I don't know what makes me say it, but it comes out and it feels good. "I hate that I have to see you every day, knowing that you chose to leave me without a word. I hate that apparently I need your help to make it through this initiation. I hate that I still–"I stop myself before saying something I might regret.

His hand finds mine and he intertwines our fingers. I don't pull back. "I can't say I'm sorry," he says and squeezes my hand. "Not about leaving, anyway. I am sorry I didn't tell you before."

"How long had you known?" I ask.

"That I was going to choose Dauntless?" he asks. When I nod, he continues. "I knew I was leaving Abnegation for years, though I only chose Dauntless after my aptitude test."

I frown. "Years?" I turn back to look at him.

He nods. "Since I was ten, I think. I never… I never had any intention staying there."

I feel my eyes water, but I refuse to cry. "Why didn't you tell me, then?"

"I thought… Well, I thought you didn't need me to tell you, in the beginning. Our thing, you know, our rebelliousness… I never belonged there, and neither did you, and I thought you knew that." He sighs. "And when I realized you didn't see things the same way, I just didn't know how to tell you without hurting you."

I sit up and roll on top of him, straddling his hips and bracketing his head with my hands, and looking him straight in the eyes. "So you said nothing, and broke my heart."

I say nothing else as I lift myself and climb back to solid land, leaving Tobias lying on the net and heading back to the dormitory.

~8~

The second stage turns out to be individual. Right after breakfast Four and Lauren lead us to a small corridor with a door at each side and tell us to sit. "We'll call you in one at a time," Lauren says. "Once you finish you have the rest of the day free."

"Peter, you go with Lauren. Drew, with me," Four says and walks into one of the doors, not looking to see if Drew follows him.

When both doors are closed, we all look around at each other. "We just wait?" A Dauntless-born initiate with blond hair asks.

"I guess so," another one says and sits on the ground. She leans her back against the wall and closes her eyes as if trying to sleep, and a moment later everyone sits as well.

It's quiet in the beginning. No one starts small talk, no one makes an effort to communicate until Lauren opens her door twenty minutes later and calls a Dauntless-born initiate named Annabelle. As she closes the door behind her, we turn to look at the other one, waiting for it to open as well.

It takes a few more minutes, but finally Four opens the door and calls Will.

"Good luck," Christina tells him with a small smile.

"So everyone needs a different amount of time in there," one of the Dauntless-born initiates says. He has dark skin and a snake tattoo behind his ear, and I remember him as the one who jumped third. Uriah, I think.

"Seems like it," the blonde girl says. "I wonder what they're going to do to us in there, though, if they give us the rest of the day off."

"It'll be fine, Mar," Uriah tells her with a smile.

Christina is being called before me. I notice that sometimes it takes a few minutes before Four and Lauren open their doors again, and sometimes much longer. Molly stays inside Lauren's room for almost forty minutes, Four having taken three initiates during that time.

He opens the door again and looks at me. "Tris, you're up."

I stand up and walk over the room. I don't know if I'm happy I get to do this stage with him, or disappointed. I close the door behind me and look around.

My eyes are immediately drawn to the chair in the middle of the room. It looks just like the one I sat on during the aptitude test. My heart races as I turn to look at Four.

He approaches the chair and pats it. "Have a seat," he says.

After I climb in he starts busying himself with the wires, attaching them to my temples and my chest. I catch the slight redness in his cheeks as he pulls my shirt down to have access to my chest, and in a moment of ire I snap, "Nothing there you haven't seen yet."

He pulls his hands back as if they were burned and clenches his teeth. He takes a few deep breathes, and I turn my head so my eyes don't meet his as he starts working on the electrodes again.

"This serum," he says when he finishes, and I turn to watch his hands, "is your next stage of initiation." There is a small syringe with orange liquid inside it in his hand. "It will force you to face your fears."

"How?"

"It stimulates your amygdala, which I assume you know if you listened in biology class." When I nod he continues. "Well, the serum produces illusions, which, combined with the stimulation on your amygdalae, will form your biggest fears.

"This screen here will show what is happening inside your head, so I'll be able to see what you are faced with, but I can't help you. You have to overcome your fears by yourself. Once you do it, the simulation will end and you'll wake up."

He reaches forward and grabs my arm, bringing the syringe to touch the inside of my elbow. "Ready?" he asks.

No, I think. "Yes."

~8~

I open my eyes in an empty field. I'm lying on the ground and staring at the skies, and for a moment I don't understand what in this scene is supposed to scare me, but then there's something moving on my collarbone.

I jump to my feet with a yelp and tug my black shirt down, trying to see what is happening. I fail, only feeling a stinging tug.

And then they're out: three little black birds leave my collarbone and begin circling me, growing bigger with every second. I stare at the ravens as they reach normal size, shaken out of my awe only when they start attacking me. A scream leaves my mouth and I close my eyes on instinct, flailing my hands in the air in a lame attempt to shoo the birds.

Their beaks poke the skin on my hands and arms, piercing it and hurting me. "Stop!" I yell as the blood begins to run down my arms. Somewhere in my mind I know they're an illusion, but the pain is real and it pushes that thought deep into the back of my mind.

"Help! Someone help me!"

Suddenly the ravens stop their poking. I open my eyes and see them backing away from me, circling around me again. With a sigh of relief I fall to the ground, tears making their way out of my eyes.

The relief is short lived, soon replaced with horror as each of the ravens' bodies twist and stretch until a new raven breaks out. It keeps happening, and in a matter of seconds I'm surrounded by hundreds of black birds.

There is a moment where it seems like all the birds fix their eyes on me, and not a second later I am drowning in a cacophony of loud shrieks and claps of wings. I'm bleeding and my body is sore and aching, but no matter how hard I flail my hands in the air, the birds keep on coming.

I try to clear my head while tears stream down my cheeks. You have to overcome your fears, Four's voice tells me in my mind. Once you do it, the simulation will end. But how do I overcome hundreds of ravens while they're attacking me?

I bite my bottom lips until I taste blood, and I stop fighting, stop screaming and trying to get out. Just when I think I might pass out, the shrieks and the pokes stop, and I open my eyes in the simulation room. I feel the tears on my cheeks, and instead of being relieved that it's over, I cry harder.

I feel a soft hand on my shoulder, and then Four wraps his arms around me and hugs me tight. "It's okay, Tris. You're safe now. You're safe."

It takes me a while to calm down, and all this time he keeps swaying me in his arms and whispering comforting words in my ear. When I can finally take steady breaths again I push him away and wipe my tears. "What is wrong with this faction?" I ask him, voice trembling somewhere between anger and fright. "This has nothing to do with courage. It's torture."

"If you can clear your mind while facing your deepest fears, you'll be able to do it later when you face other things. It's a tool to build your mentality," he says, but the fact thyat he doesn't meet my eyes and his empty voice tells me he doesn't really agree with these words.

"What does that even mean?" I ask angrily. "Being attacked by hundreds of ravens is not something I'd normally be afraid of. That's just bullshit."

He finally meets my eyes. "Maybe it's not about the ravens. Think about it when you leave this room. What was the simulation really about?"

That night when I lie awake in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, I realize I don't need to think that hard about the meaning of it. It's clear as day. The ravens came out from my tattoo; they represent my family. And they turned against me.

I don't sleep well that night.

Hope you enjoyed it!