The slam of the door. The mechanical click of the lock. Stumbled steps, and the dull thunk of the knife strapped to my leg hitting the floor. The creak and groan of bed springs and shoes clattering to the floor.

I barely hear any of it it over the sound of blood rushing in my ears and the gasping breaths when Tobias and I can stand to put enough space between us to breathe. One of my hands cups the back of his neck, his hair tickling my knuckles as I pull him up the bed with me.

Somewhere in the scramble of limbs his knee ends up between my legs and it sends jolts of pleasure radiating through me that threaten to tumble past my lips in a moan. I left coherent thought somewhere at the bottom of the Chasm, but even without the well-placed pressure between my thighs it was supplanted with a single word: yes.

It's been too long since we've been intimate like this; since that night in the factionless safe-house. There were too many lies, too much unsaid and unaccounted for between us to be together after that. Not tonight though. Whatever remains of those things crumbles.

I claw at his shoulders, bunching his shirt in my hands and pull it off. His back is warm and my hands are cold. He shivers under them as one hand traces the patch of flames on his side and the other feels out the planes and curves of muscles bunching and stretching around his spine.

He shifts his weight forward and this time I can't stop a whimper bleeding through my lips. My face burns in embarrassment, but I feel Tobias' lips turn up in a smile against my neck. His hand loosens from where it's dug into the shallow spaces between my ribs and down my side, thumb grazing over the jut of my hip bone before cautiously tracing the waist of my jeans.

He's asking silent questions as he fingers at the button holding them together, and it's enough to make an alarm bell sound through the haze in my brain. When I don't answer he presses his forehead against mine. "All you have to do is tell me to stop and I will."

Something inside me stirs, rises up in defiance. I twist my fingers into his hair, shackling him to me, and clash my lips against his. It's not that much different from that day in the training room he threw knives at me, reminding me of my way out between each throw.

But it's not enough to stop my fear building up from gentle swells to crashing waves as he eases the button open and slides the zipper down. The sound is deafening in the silence. I have to the fight the urge to smack his hands away, to ask him what he's planning on doing.

I swallow hard, reminding myself that Tobias has seen my legs before, but it's a feeble protest in the face of the tidal wave of fear and panic overtaking everything else because it's not just my legs, he wants to uncover all of me.

A moment ago all I wanted was him, was this, and now in the place of that pleasant fog of lust blanketing everything I never wanted to think about seeps in; everything I thought I left behind when our friends were turned into drones and the people I loved died.

I think about how bony I am, how I'm made up of edges and angles instead of bends and curves. I think about how I have no hips to speak of, and breasts so small they're nearly flush with my ribs. I think of Peter's groping hands and taunting words about being built like a twelve year old. I think of how I've never done this before and have no idea what to do with Tobias once he's naked too. I think of the disappointment he will try to hide at all of it.

I feel like I'm drowning in the raging sea of my hallucination and desperately trying to cling to the rock and pull myself free. I feel fingers touch my cheek and flinch away instinctively, but of course it's just Tobias.

"I'm not going to hurt you." His voice sounds wounded, and something inside me breaks, pulls me out of the fear that I hadn't realized was making my shake, making my heart race, and my breathing come in rapid bursts.

"I know you're not." My voice comes out as a strained whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Don't say you're sorry." He snaps.

His anger feels like a slap in the face. I pull myself up and move to the edge of the bed, hiding my face in my hands in case the tears prickling my eyes spill over to my cheeks. "I don't know what else to say."

I feel him shift, get off the bed, and walk around to sit next to me. "You don't have to apologize for your fears." But he still sounds angry, or frustrated, or maybe just exasperated, and it doesn't help. "What are you so afraid of?"

Even if I could talk around the burning tightness cinching my throat shut I wouldn't know what to say. I told him months before that I didn't understand his attraction to me and he'd called me stupid told me if all he wanted was sex he wouldn't come to me. I know what he meant, but I realize suddenly that it's not enough for him to love me.

"I told you before that you can tell me anything. I wish you would." He says softly.

There's so many thoughts swarming in my head that I can only eek out six words, but they sum up everything else. "I think you will be disappointed."

"I've never done this before either." He sounds embarrassed and it makes me feel fractionally better.

"It's not just that. I think you'll be disappointed because of... everything I'm not. Peter was right; I'm built like a boy. I worry that you'll be disappointed because I'm not curvy like a girl should be."

Tobias doesn't say anything. The sliver of light pouring from the cracked bathroom door doesn't illuminate us, so I can't read the expression on his face to know what he might be thinking. In the terrible quiet that settles between us I can't stop myself thinking the worst. I can't stop myself thinking my fears were well founded and in the silence Tobias is formulating a pacifying lie.

By the time I break it my voice sounds wet and I hate myself for it. "Please say something."

"You believe him?" He scoffs.

"It's not a matter of belief; I'm not blind. I'm short and skinny and bony. I don't have curves, just angles." My voice is hard and angry, but I'm not. It's just cover for the hurt and humiiation burning in my chest.

"I know what you look like, too."

He's always struggled with kindness. My mind instantly fills in the blanks. I know what you look like and I love you anyway. I stand up, giving in to the sudden need to flee in the only way I can.

"Tris?"

"I'm going to take a shower." My voice is hollow, dead, but I can't really find it in me to care.

The close of the bathroom door behind me sounds final. It sounds like another wall going up between us. I move robotically, turning on the water, brushing my teeth. I open the door of the medicine cabinet so I don't have to look at my reflection in the mirror tacked to the front only to be confronted with the little pink plastic case of birth control pills resting on the shelf next to a bottle of salve. I'm tempted to throw them in the trashcan so they'll stop mocking me.

Under the nozzle in the shower I can't tell if I'm crying, it's all just fat wet drops of water sliding down my face. I remind myself that Tobias stayed in a faction that would have killed us both, a faction that he'd grown to loathe, because of me; that he put his life in danger to keep me strong when Jeanine was torturing me; that he loves me, and that should be enough.

But it's not. I want him to love me and lust for me. One without the other feels like a consolation prize. I have his love and want his lust. If the tables were turned it would still be the same.

I stay in the shower until the water turns cold, chilling me to my bones, only then remembering the conflicted look in his eyes at the bottom of the Chasm. He needed me tonight, maybe not in the way I needed him that night in Amity, but I couldn't even give him that... whatever it was. And I don't know if I ever will be able to.

Maybe I will never get over this fear the same way Tobias' has never been able to get over any of his. The thought makes me sick. With what little strength I have left I force myself out of my sanctuary.

I slip into bed as gently as I can, but I know Tobias isn't asleep. He sighs and runs a finger down the notches of my spine. Usually it's enough to make me shiver in want, but all it does right now is remind me of how bony I am.

For the first time in a month I fall asleep without the comfort of his arms around me.

I should have a badge that reads Refugee Liaison. When I'm not busy training anyone of fighting age with Christina I spend my time finding homes and jobs in Dauntless for the refugees. This afternoon it's an Abnegation family. The ride up to the seventh story of the Spire is a quiet one. I don't expect it to be anything else.

In the mirrored interior of the elevator I can see the little girl, no older than seven, clutching at her mother's hand taking in my appearance with wide eyes. I keep looking forward but offer her a tight lipped smile, an Abnegation smile, in the mirror. She looks down, blushing furiously at being caught staring.

I shift my gaze to the rest of her family: her mother, a middle-aged woman who looks tired and haunted, and two brothers only a few years older than their sister. I don't have to ask where their father is; he's dead.

I never know by what strength the Abnegation to can stand to be here. Even if the Dauntless were under simulation they were still the ones executing people in the streets. Maybe they see how much the Dauntless who remain in the Pit are tortured by it, maybe they see the horror still lingering behind the eyes of the people who woke up holding guns amid a sea of grey and red.

The family follows along obediently as I lead them down a hallway and into an apartment. It's not very big, but it's better than sharing beds in the dormitories. It belonged to someone before the war, dead or traitor I'm not sure; it doesn't matter, it's theirs now.

The mother eyes at the floor-to-ceiling windows warily. "Don't worry about the windows," I mutter once the kids wander off, "they're bullet-proof."

As I ride the elevator back down to ground level I look at myself in the mirror. I don't look much like the girl who jumped into the net first on Choosing Day. My hair's shorter; I have scars and tattoos I didn't have then. My wardrobe is rendered in shades of black and it clings to me, not as tight as some of the other girls wear, but not loose either.

Black boots, black jeans, black shirt cut to show off my ravens, black jacket. I close my eyes and try to remember what I looked like that last day when my mother cut my hair. All I remember is looking grey and ghostly. And maybe I was just a ghost then, a shadow before I came here and took a definite form. I didn't know who I was before I came here. I didn't know there were people I'd die for, or kill for.

I automatically exit the elevator when the chime sounds and the door opens, my mind too bound up in thoughts to notice where my feet are carrying me. I'm unsurprised to find myself at the door of the Control Room. Tobias and I haven't spoken since my fear wrecked everything last night; he was gone when I woke up this morning.

I press my palm flat against the cold metal door, hesitating. I have no idea if he even wants to see me right now. But my pride has gotten me in trouble more often than I'd like to admit, and maybe it will again today; it won't let me fail without a fight.

Tobias is bowed over the desk, asleep and using his arms as pillows. He looks young when he sleeps; less like a man who's killed people, and more like a boy of eighteen. I wonder if he slept at all last night, or just waited for me to drift off before coming up here. I sink into the chair next to him, hyper-vigilant against making any noise that would rouse him.

I pull my knees up against my chest and wrap my arms around them. He almost killed me in this room. I wonder if he thinks about that while he's here. He never talks about it if he does.

When his eyes sleepily peel open they're dark blue and thoughtful. "All of your fears are about powerlessness." He says without preamble. "Is that what happened last night?"

"Not like you mean. Not like Marcus used to make you in your fear landscape."

"How then?"

I stare at him carefully replaying what happened in my head. I tell him the truth. "I didn't know how far you wanted to go. I don't know if I'm ready for that yet."

"I don't know if I am either."

"Then what we were doing last night?"

Even in the dim light of the computer monitors I see him blush deep, burning crimson. "There's other things besides sex."

It makes me blush too.

"The part of your fear that isn't about being powerless... I don't think it's about me; I think it's about you, about how you see yourself. I don't think Peter touching you the way he did helped, but I think it's deeper than that. You have this ideal in your head and you don't live up to it, and it warps the way you think I see you."

As much as I hate to admit it I know he's right. Even when I was Abnegation I was self-conscious to the point of discomfort even if I didn't have to look at myself in the mirror everyday. I never could manage to project out from myself enough to forget what I looked like.

"I don't see you that way though. I like the way you look, not because I love you, but because I like the way you look."

I let my gaze wander to the computer screens in front of us. I could argue with him that he hasn't seen me naked, and even if he's thought about it fantasy is probably better than reality, but I know it's a losing battle.

"You're never going to get over this until you like the way you look, Tris." He says, breaking into my thoughts. He looks smug, knowing he so accurately read my mind.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Hmm?"

I take a deep breath, steadying myself because I'm not sure I want to know the answer to this question. "We've been back here for a month. Why haven't you tried..." I trail off, trying to find the right word or phrase and coming up empty. "I mean, I know we've both been busy, but I just thought if you were interested it wouldn't take you a month." I finish lamely.

"You haven't either," he points out, "and you've always been pretty bold about taking what you want."

"So have you."

"Not this. I wasn't the one crawling in your bed in Amity or... whatever that was that night in the safehouse."

"Answer the question, Tobias, please." I whisper, suddenly afraid that he's stalling for a reason.

"We never talked about you fear - I didn't know if it was even still a fear -, but I didn't want to do anything that would make it worse. And," his blush returned in full force, "even if this isn't in my fear landscape, it doesn't mean I'm not terrified by it."

"What do you have to be afraid of?"

He lets out a mirthless chuckle. "I never even kissed a girl before you, Tris. I have no clue what I'm doing, and I don't mean just that. I have no idea how to just be with someone, and that alone is terrifying because it means making myself vulnerable. But I sit up here and I think about it, and even though I'm dead tired by the end of the day the only thing I want to do is crawl in bed with you and forget everything else.

I want to show you how much I love you, I want you to feel it, and then as soon as we're alone I find myself looking for any excuse not to follow through with it because I don't want to be one of those guys whose only concern is pleasing themselves. And I have no idea how to any of that. So to answer your question, I haven't done anything because I'm terrified of seeing dissapointment in your eyes."

"Do you think about it a lot?"

Tobias looks at me in disbelief for a moment before he laughs. He looks like he did that morning in Marcus' living room; happy and free and alive. "That's what you got out of all that?"

"I'm just curious."

"Then yes, I do." He grabs the armrest of the chair I'm sitting on and pulls it over, close enough that he can slot his lips against mine. And for a while I forget everything else.

When we finally stop I lean my forehead against his. "What are we going to do about this?" I sigh.

"I have an idea; several, actually."

"Why am I not surprised?"

A/N: So... thoughts? This chapter took a little longer to get together than I planned, partially because of the holidays, but partially because the dialog was tricky. Thank you to those of you who have left reviews; I love hearing from you guys. And thank you too, to everyone who favourited/followed this :)