I could feel Tobias everywhere. The press of his weight between my thighs, the pressure of his fingers between the mattress and my back. There is no fear, he kisses it away; chases it off my lips, across my jaw, down my neck, and away. All I feel is wanting; lust and love and need pulsing through me.

The incessant beeping of the alarm clock brings me back to reality. The bed is empty. I have no idea when Tobias got up or where he went, but I at least know that if it was something bad he would have woken me up too. I pull his pillow against me, wrapping my arms around it and inhaling his scent off it. It's different now, mixed with my own, but instead of calming me like I thought it would, all it does is make my frustration peak.

I kick the covers away, and stomp into the bathroom to turn on the shower. I try to let the water wash away the tension still thrumming through me, the after effects of my dream, but everytime I close my eyes I'm assaulted with images of Tobias and I, memory and fantasy merging into one. By the time my soapy fingers slide up to the space between my legs the pleasure it sends through me is enough to supplant the reality of my fingers with the fantasy of Tobias'.

Self-pleasure fell somewhere between frowned upon and forbidden in Abnegation. But I'm not in Abnegation anymore; there is no Abnegation anymore. There's only me and Tobias and the cold tile and hot water in this shower. I feel everything inside of me rise up, build to a wave that crests and breaks, that makes me weak in the best way.

The dining hall was almost empty, most people had already finished dinner, but I lingered, the piece of chocolate cake in front of me untouched as I think over the things we have planned for the trainees. It's different now than it was when I was an initiate. The first test they had to go through wasn't literally jumping into the unknown, it was enduring Niles and the Candor truth serum.

We didn't make them lay bare their darkest secrets, but since we can't have them going through training only to use the knowledge against us, we had to know where their loyalties lied. It was the easiest step we could take to keep everyone sheltering here safe. And bringing the Candor into the process had helped re-establish an alliance with them after Jack Kang tried to sell us out to the Erudite. Of course the fact he was no longer their leader helped too.

But that isn't the only change; the simulations will be different too. Next week won't be spent facing their fears, it will be spent going through a series of simulations to test their reactions to things like people being bullied or put in danger. Compassion is another form of bravery after all, and if they won't stand up for others as well as themselves we don't want them.

I laugh to myself, wondering if this is what being a parent is like. We are doing everything we can to not raise another generation of Dauntless bullies; to get back to principles that Dauntless strayed from over the years, while at the same time encouraging the virtues of the other factions. Compassion, honesty, and intelligence all had a place in the training now.

The week after that they'll spend shooting at each other with paintballs in the abandoned buildings surrounding the Pire. It's really just an extension of Capture The Flag, but when Christina and I redesigned the training program we both decided there needed to be more emphasis on teamwork and strategy, and - like the Candor truth serum -, this was the easiest way.

Besides it will be fun, and a good way for the trainees to relax before they spend the week after going through another round of simulations - this time their own fears -, and eventually their fear landscapes.

Even before I see him, I know it's Tobias who touches my shoulder as he sits down next to me. "You look like you're deep in thought."

"And you look tired," I reply, taking in his sagging posture and beleaguered expression. I push my cake in front of him, and a small smile turns up his lips.

"I spent all day at the Hub."

"I was wondering where you were."

"I didn't want to wake you up."

"What were you doing there?"

"Organizing for the trials."

The trials. I'd forgotten about them. All of the Dauntless and Erudite leaders were being tried for their crimes; most of them would end up dead. It was another change; in the past they would have been tried and sentenced by their factions, but in this new world everyone would have a hand in it.

"We need to pick three people from Dauntless to sit on the jury with Candor, Abnegation, and the factionless."

"No Amity?"

He laughs humorlessly. "No; continuing punishment for their non-involvement. They can send three people as 'advisors', but they won't have an official say."

"Do you think they will?"

"I don't know, Tris. I hope so."

I rub my hand up and down his back, over the faction symbols his shirt covers. It's a simple touch, but touching is powerful even when it is simple. It would be easy to say it's because of the way we grew up, but I'd seen it too often in the days and weeks after the war. People of all factions needing physical contact, whether holding hands or hugging or something more intimate. Nothing seemed to be able to replace the way touching could soothe a person.

"Who are the Abnegation and factionless sending?" My tone is careful, but it's the subject that I'm treading lightly over, not the words. To anyone else the question is innocent, but Tobias knows what I'm really asking him.

"No one I know from Abnegation, but you've actually met the factionless jurors; they were in Marcus' living room the morning after we escaped from Erudite headquarters."

"Please, please tell me it's not Peter and Drew," I groan. Or Evelyn, I add silently.

"Ugh... I'd almost forgotten about them. No. Jacob, Sophie, and Nathan."

There were more than three people there that morning, even without Peter, Drew, and Evelyn, but I never knew their names. I know one of them was playing the banjo and another made a joke about Tobias and I kissing, but even those who distinguished themselves are hazy and indistinct in my memory.

"Do you..." I trail off, looking for the right words. "What do you think of them? Do you like them?"

"They're okay, I guess. I like them as people, but I'm not sure that will make a difference."

I let him eat in silence until the only thing left on the plate is crumbs. "You never wanted this. Never wanted to lead, never wanted the factions... why are you doing this?"

He pushes the empty plate away and turns to face me, taking my hand in his and lacing his fingers with mine. He doesn't look at me but I can still see the shame he's trying to hide. "I didn't do anything. I knew what was going on with the Dauntless and Erudite and I didn't do anything."

Listening to him makes me think of him under the truth serum and how he said he was born for Abnegation and after he met me he thought he could make more of his choices in life. It reminds me of my father and how he said we should give power to those who do not want it, and how we should use guilt as a tool and not a weapon.

"Even if it wouldn't have changed anything I should have tried. And you're right, I didn't believe in the factions anymore - I still don't -, but we have a chance to change things. Maybe nothing I do will make a difference, but I have to at least try."

"What do you think society should look like?" We've been so concerned with just staying alive for so long I've never asked him. It's seems ridiculous now that we haven't talked about it before.

"There's something I want to show you first before we have that conversation, but you need to be able to shoot a gun before I can." I can't even imagine what would require that, but at least it's not another simulation. I don't think I can go through that again after everything that happened at Erudite. He reaches up with his free hand, hooking a finger around around my ear to pull me close. "But right now I really just want to fall asleep next to my girlfriend."

"Lucky girl," I whisper.

"Lucky guy," he whispers back.

As soon as we're through the door of our apartment Tobias shucks out of his shirt, dutifully handing it over for me to sleep in with a shake of his head and a sarcastic comment about me stealing all his clothes.

I lay in bed watching him splash water on his face and neck through the open bathroom door, the faction symbols on his back on display. There's a part of me that wishes things were different, that the world wasn't robbing us of our time and energy and we could just be normal teenagers for once, but maybe that was never meant to be our path in life.

I'm already half-asleep when he slips between the covers next to me and kisses my lips, then down my neck to my ravens, a mumbled I love you wafting warmly across my skin as he does so. I pull his face back up to mine, my fingers caressing the curve of his cheek as I look at him in the dark.

"Everything you're doing, Tobias... I'm proud of you." It feels like a secret whispered between us, and maybe he knows and I don't need to say it, but it feels important to nonetheless.

He touches his forehead to mine for a moment and pulls me closer, burying his face against me. For tonight it's enough.

I finger the plain black dress hanging in our closet. It's the only dress I own, the same one Christina picked out for me when we were still initiates. I never really had a chance to wear it; being fashionable wasn't high on my list of priorities in the middle of the war. Tonight is different though; tonight I'm going to my first Dauntless party.

I smile remembering Marlene saying it would be easier to fight in a dress and who cares if you're flashing your underwear as long as you're kicking the crap out of them? Even though the weeks have stretched to months I still feel the ache of grief shroud my heart. I pull the dress off the hanger. It might be too much for a birthday party, but I want to wear it.

It's tighter than I remember, but maybe that's just because I bought it the first day I came to Dauntless, when I was still lanky. Now I have bulges of muscle that keep the fabric from floating freely around me. I twist around, trying to see how tight it is on my backside, but eventually give up and drag the desk chair into the bathroom and climb up on top of it so I can see it in the mirror.

By Dauntless standards there's nothing provocative about what I'm wearing, so I don't change. I put the chair back and by the time I hear the door close and Tobias' footsteps cross the floor I'm pushed up on my toes, leaning against the sink, peering into the mirror, and carefully lining my eyes in black.

I see him leaning against the door, arms crossed across his chest in the reflection. His eyes slide over me, and even though there's space between us his gaze feels intimate. When I finish my cheeks are flushed pink and I don't know what to do with my hands. "Is it too much? The dress, I mean."

He closes the distance between us and fits his hands around my neck, sliding his fingers into my hair. "I like the dress," he whispers and then presses his lips gently against mine. My fingers find the hem of his shirt, slide underneath to touch his bare skin as we kiss.

xxxx

The only way we made it out the door was with promises of later. I look at myself in the mirrored interior of the elevator as Tobias watches the panel over the doors, each number illuminating in turn as we rise up and up, carrying us towards Zeke and Uriah's new apartment.

My lips are swollen and my cheeks are still pink from our impromptu make-out session. I still don't think I'm pretty, but I am striking. Except for the patch of blue on my arm from the Erudite serum my skin looks creamy against the black of my dress, and my eyes are always piercing when I line them in kohl.

I blush even deeper remembering Tobias' fingers dancing across my backside, and his playfulness at pointing out that I do, in fact, have some curves. It was even harder to leave our apartment after that, to guide his hands out from under my dress and the places I wanted them most.

When the doors open I can hear the party before I can see it, a steady hum of voices punctuated by raucous bursts of laughter. Tori is standing in the hallway laughing harder than I've ever seen her as Harrison's boyfriend Liam cracks jokes. Maybe it's just the alcohol in her system, but she smiles at me, greeting me like it wasn't the first time she'd spoken to me since that day in Jeanine's laboratory.

The apartment is packed with people, but as soon as we walk through the door Zeke booms out a greeting and drags us into the kitchen. "You need drinks, immediately."

"Hey, Tris," Uriah says as he pulls me into a hug.

"Happy birthday, Uriah." I can't help stiffen a little at his touch, and I don't let go of Tobias' hand; it's still strange for me to be touched so casually by anyone but him. As soon as Uriah lets go Tobias subtly shifts us around so that he's standing behind me, both hands on my hips, sheltering me. I'm grateful for it; grateful that he understands me.

"Do you guys like what we've done with the place?"

I look around, but it's hard to make out anything besides the wall color with all the people milling about.

"It's great. I'm sure Eric would hate it," Tobias says sarcastically.

"This used to be Eric's apartment?" I ask, my tone clearly conveying disgust.

"Yeah, I know," Uriah smirks. "I thought we'd find a closet full of dead girls or something when we threw his shit out."

"So, Tris," Zeke says with a mischievous grin, "I'm really glad you're here. The last time Four and I got drunk you were still an initiate and you couldn't stay and hang out with us by the Chasm. He moped until he passed out; totally killed my buzz."

"I didn't mope." His voice is somewhere between defensive and embarrassed.

"You moped. There was moping. Back me up on this Lauren, you were there."

Her cheeks are rosy and an easy smile slides across her face. "I remember moping," she says in a singsong voice from her perch on the counter.

Tobias' arms wrap around me, pulling me closer. "Can you blame me?"

"Nope." I feel my cheeks burn. Part of me wishes a hole would open up and swallow me, but another part of me - the bigger part of me - is pleased, is incandescent with their compliments. "Go easy on that, Tris," Zeke says as he hands us our drinks. "It's strong stuff."

As Tobias leads me away I take a sip and grimace. "Don't worry, you don't have to drink it if you don't want to," he mumbles just loud enough for me to hear. It's hard for us to make it more than a few feet without running into someone he knows, or at least people who know him. After a few minutes I stop worrying about remembering names and whether or not I'm shaking hands properly.

He keeps an arm anchored around me and there's undisguised adoration in his eyes every time he looks at me; pride in his voice every time he says I don't think you've met my girlfriend, Tris; and a smug look on his face when people realize I'm the girl who stabbed Eric and cheated death at the hands of Jeanine Matthews because he's always known how strong I am.

The emotions brimming inside of me make me feel like I'm floating, make me feel like my body is too small to hold them all; it makes me feel as light as he looks, smiling and laughing and joking as we make our way through the crowd to where Shauna's holding court like a queen in one corner.

She's not as welcoming as Zeke and Uriah were, but she's not suspicious or cold like she used to be either. Tobias and I are polite and she's awkward, and it's the most uncomfortable I've been since we got here. I end up taking a few more sips of my drink just for something to do, but mercifully it doesn't last long before Zeke reappears by our side.

"You aren't even close to drunk," he accuses, promptly fills up Tobias' cup with something out of a brown bottle that smells sharp to my nose before shooing people off the couch so we could all sit down.

I sip carefully at my own drink, content to listen to Zeke and Tobias talk. It makes me feel warm and relaxed and eventually sleepy, so I slip my shoes off and pull my legs up, tucking myself into Tobias' side. I realize it's not something I would've normally done, but the alcohol makes me not care; it's where I want to be. I focus on the way his shoulder moves under my cheek as his hand rubs up and down my arm, letting the conversation dull to white noise in my ears.

I'm not keeping track of how much Tobias is drinking, though I know it's more than me - a lot more. His breath is thick with it and his eyes are heavy when he leans in and asks me if I'm ready to go. It's the only giveaway besides his sluggishness that he's drunk. Thankfully the party has thinned, so we don't have to fight our way back to the elevator.

The ride down to the Pit is a quiet one, and I expect him to fall into bed as soon as we're through the door, but I hear him moving around as I wash the little bit of makeup off my face and change into something to sleep in. He's sitting on the edge of the bed, draining a bottle of water as I step out of the bathroom, and a minute after I get under the blanket so does he.

His hand circles around my knee, and travels upwards, pressing little dragging dents into my flesh as it goes, and it's enough to bring back all that sweet, aching need from before the party back in full force in an instant. I had assumed 'later' wouldn't happen tonight, and even though I'm tired, I'm not too tired for this.

I reach back, grabbing onto his hip and pull him closer. That seems to be all the invitation he needs to press against me. He's hard against my back and it makes my breath catch in my throat. He's been careful not to let me feel that particular part of him, and it's a surprise, but not a frightening one; if anything I'm more curious than scared.

I roll over and pull him on top of me, and after a second of searching his lips find mine in the dark. But his kisses are drunk and sloppy and I tilt my face away, letting him worry my neck instead. It's enough to take the edge off my want, but not enough to make me push him away.

His hands, however, are. They're as sloppy and uncoordinated as his lips and once they find their way up my shirt his touch would be more accurately described as 'groping' rather than 'caressing'. There's a small part of my brain that recognizes that this is how Peter touched me, but I'm not scared by it, just annoyed.

I grab his arm and tug, pulling his hand back down to my hips, and he keeps it there for a minute before sliding back up to my breasts. When I have to remove his hand a second, and then a third time I can't stop a frustrated sigh escaping.

"Let me touch you, Tris," he whines against my neck, and I give in to it for a while, but instead of making me want him more, it just makes me angry. This isn't how it's supposed to be between us. We're both supposed to enjoy this, not just him.

And finally I just snap. "Stop it," I say firmly and grab his arm, pushing him away roughly.

"I just want to make you feel good." He pushes back against me, but it's more of a plea than a threat.

"Well, you're not," I bite out, pushing him until he's sitting back on his heels at the foot of the bed. "If I was groping you like that you wouldn't like it either."

"I wasn't 'groping' you," he snaps back and all it does it make me angrier.

"You're drunk. Go to sleep. And if you can't keep your hands to yourself you can sleep on the floor."

"Fine!" He grabs a pillow off the bed. "Fine, I'll sleep on the floor if that will make you happy!"

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to remind myself that he's drunk and a boy and stupid, and fighting with him isn't going to make this better. But it's hard when he's muttering to himself, and finally I can't stop the words, "shut up, Four," slipping past my lips.

For a moment there's dead silence. "I hate it when you call me that," he spits out spitefully.

"Then don't act like him."

A/N: So I'm guessing that ending isn't going to be super popular, but in the interest of realism I included it. Don't worry I won't have them fighting for chapters and chapters, but they're both new to this so they're both going to make mistakes.

Anyway, I will be changing the rating on this to "M" at the end of the day; I just wanted to make sure everyone knew that since it won't come up under a general search once I do.

And you guys have been spoiling me rotten with all the reviews and follows and favourites; I love it! It's great motivation to keep writing (which is why this chapter's a few days early).