"What's it going to do to me?"
It's a question I've heard all day, the first one out of every trainees mouth when I present them with a vial of clear liquid and orders to drink it. I don't blame them given everything that's happened.
"Did you take the aptitude test before the war?"
"Yes."
"This is the same."
The Abnegation man prostrate in the metal chair - the same one I first faced my fears in - looks at the vial in hand with his brow furrowed. I can see a black curve peeking out of the sleeve of his shirt; a single line of a bigger tattoo.
Almost all the trainees now sport something Dauntless in their appearance; tattoos and piercings and colorful hair mixing with every color of clothing and accented in black. It never feels like an affectation though, just that they are finally showing the world who they truly were instead of subverting themselves in faction archetypes.
"What will the test show you?"
"Do you remember what we said on the first day of training? About respecting the values of other factions," I prompt when he looks confused.
"You said that selflessness, kindness, intelligence, and honesty all required bravery; that each of those virtues had a place in the Dauntless way of life."
"That's what we're testing. How you take those things and apply them."
If he was Erudite and not Abnegation his next question would be what he has to do, or not do, to end the simulation, but because he's not he takes the vial from me and swallows its contents without another word.
A few hours later they've all gone through the simulation and I'm reviewing the footage and making notes when I hear the door open behind me, and a second later Christina plops into the metal chair.
"Where were you this morning? I was freaking out; I thought I'd have to put the trainees through the simulations and I don't know how to do that."
"Sorry, I overslept."
If you considered fooling around with Tobias 'oversleeping'.
"You're lying. And even if you weren't biting your cheek - which you are, by the way - you were too flushed and happy looking when you finally did show up to have 'overslept'. So...?" She draws the word out so it's long and teasing, but leaves it hanging there full of expectation.
I grit my teeth. "So... what?"
She rolls her eyes. "Have you gotten over your fear of intimacy?"
"Where were you Friday night? I didn't see you at Uriah's birthday party," I counter, trying to change the subject.
"I'll tell you if you tell me," she quips. Christina was never one to be easily dissuaded.
"Fine," I huff. "We've fooled around, but haven't, you know... done it yet," I say awkwardly. My cheeks burn and I press my hands to them, trying to chase it away with the chill of my fingers.
"Really?" She says wonderingly.
"Really, and don't say it like that."
"Like what?"
"Like there's something wrong with me. I don't tease you over being scared of moths, do I?"
"I just don't get it. I mean you like him, he likes you... so what's to be scared of?"
"Well, I don't 'get' whatever it is you're doing with Uriah," I snap. "And as far as what there's to be scared of... You mean aside from the fact that I look more like a boy than a girl, and I've never done this before, and have no idea what to do with him or what he wants; I hardly even know what I like."
Christina watches me with wide eyes, mouth slackening into an open 'O' as I bluster on. "So yeah, aside from all that, there's nothing to be scared of, right?"
I take a deep breath, trying to steady my breathing, and my anger crumbles under it. "I'm sorry," I mumble from my hiding spot behind my hands. "This is making me crazy. After everything we've been through, to be scared of this... it's getting better, but we still haven't had sex despite what everyone thinks," I finish, remembering Tori's knowing smile and teasing words at dinner.
"I was babysitting," Christina says quietly from next to me. "Cara was in the midst of some sort of breakthrough in getting the Erudite's long-lasting transmitters out of us, so I was watching Elia. I got to the party after you left." It's her 'I'm sorry', and I'm grateful for it. "Not that I'm any kind of expert, but can I give you some advice?"
"Okay."
"Nobody knows what they like at first. Just like we had to learn how to shoot guns and throw knives, we have to learn how to be good in bed too. If you two don't talk about it it's just going to be awful forever, and what's the point of that?"
"Is that what you're doing with Uriah most nights?"
"Yes, it is." For the first time her voice is hard. "Would it be better if I spent my nights being angry or mourning something that barely, never existed?"
"Do you talk to him about what you like?"
Her eyes, which were clouding over with anger, clear and a smile twists up her lips. "He's really good at following directions."
A little hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat. "I'm not sure I need to know this, Christina."
"It's not like I'm telling you what he likes," she dismisses my comment with a flippant wave of her hand. "I'm just saying, we try new things and talk about what we like and don't like. Maybe it's easier because I was Candor and never learned to be dishonest, or maybe because I don't love him and it's just for fun, but even if I wasn't and it wasn't, it would still be bad if we weren't trying."
I sigh. "You make it sound so easy."
"It's not, but," she lowered her voice conspiratorially, "most guys dig it when you tell them if they're doing something right."
Immediately I think back to Tobias telling me he liked listening to me, and my cheeks flush for an entirely different reason.
"C'mon," she says as she stands up, "we've got trainees to look after. You know, they're not nearly as terrorized as we were; I think we're doing them a disservice by not being as intimidating as your boyfriend was." She shakes her head, laughing to herself. "You let him throw knives at your head without blinking an eye, but he tries to sleep with you like any other normal teenage boy and you panic."
"Oh, shut up," I smile and playfully knock my shoulder into hers as we walk down the hallway. I chew on my lip debating my next question. "Does it hurt? The first time, I mean. I've heard it does," I mumble.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"Well, if they're really small," she wiggles her fingers at me as if to demonstrate, a full tilt smile splitting her face. "Then no, it doesn't"
"Oh my God, forget I asked." Her laugh follows me down the hall as I race away from her and towards the training rooms.
xxxx
We all have nightmares. All of us. I dream about Will and my mother and father. I dream about being held captive at Erudite headquarters and Caleb. One time I even dreamed out Eric killing children I couldn't save. The worst ones though, are the ones where I dream of losing Tobias; the last person I love.
My eyes peel open at the sound of our apartment door closing. I don't even remember falling asleep. I roll over and breath out a sigh of relief when I see Tobias cast in shadows and light as he walks across the room, toeing out of his shoes, kicking out of his jeans.
He and Zeke had gotten back from the Hub hours ago, but he had been... I didn't know where. Zeke was the one who told me that Tobias had gotten dragged into the middle of an argument between his parents, in front of everyone, as they hashed out the last minute details before the trials started the day after tomorrow. I did think about seeking him out, but if he wanted to talk he knew where to find me; he didn't need me to coddle him, the same way I didn't need him to coddle me.
He lifts the blue quilt up and slips under it carefully. I reach out touch his face, the stubble of his cheeks bristling against the pads of my fingers. "I didn't mean to wake you," he breathes out.
"It's okay, I was having a nightmare anyway," I say, my voice thick with sleep.
He shifts around, and a moment later I feel his fingers slipping through my hair where it's messy and bunched at the top of my head. "Go back to sleep, I'll fight them off."
"Who's going to fight off yours?" I ask around a yawn.
"You, of course." His free hand finds mine in the dark and our fingers twist and twine together. "Can I show you something or are you too tired?"
"Do I have to get out of bed?"
His silent chuckle shakes the bed. "No." He reaches over me and turns on the bedside lamp before pulling me up and turning around. It takes my eyes a moment to focus and my brain to clear the last fog of sleep, but when I do I see a raven - identical to mine - rising out of the Dauntless flames that lick up the sides of his neck like a phoenix.
Tobias has never been one for romantic gestures - it took Candor truth serum for me to understand the depth of his devotion -, but the sight of my mark on him makes my throat constrict with emotion. In this world where we grew up learning the mantra, faction before blood; where even though our families shouldn't have mattered, they did; he put me above everything else.
"It's where everyone can see it," I choke out.
"I have no reason to hide you," he says simply. I don't miss the irony. One of the first things he did when we got back to the Pit was hack the cities central computers as well as Abnegation's and what was left of Erudite's. For all intents and purposes 'Beatrice Prior' was dead. There were only a handful of people who knew my true identity.
I feel a tear slide down my cheek, and then another, and another; the only relief to the emotions that threaten to overwhelm me. My sight blurs and I feel rather see him turn around, but then his arms are around me, pulling me close.
By the time he lays us back down and turns the light off my eyes are dry, and when I kiss Tobias I feel his lips turn up in a smile against mine. I want to ask him what happened today with Marcus and Evelyn and how that led to the tattoo, but I don't want to ruin his moment of happiness, or mine, so settle myself against him and fall almost instantly back to sleep.
My finger hovers over the trigger of the rifle nested against my shoulder. I take a deep breath and hear Tobias' voice in my head count to three. I pull the trigger, and a hole appears on the target at the other end of the room. It's up and to the right of the bullseye. I frown, readjusting slightly so my next shot will hopefully hit lower down and to the left.
One. Two. Three... pull. The rapport echoes around the room, and another hole appears, grazing the edge of the bullseyes. Better, but not perfect. Again.
My stomach still lurches when I pick up a handgun, but spending my lunchtime most days learning how to use a rifle has helped, and I'm getting much better at it. I can actually fire it without breaking down, and I'm hitting what I'm aiming at, though I'm still not as good as Tobias.
I shake out my shoulders and aim again, but before I can do more than that the door opens behind me, and I look over my shoulder to find Harrison nervously watching me. "You have a visitor."
"Who...," I trail off in confusion.
"An Abnegation girl, says her name is Susan." I fall into step behind him as he leads me out of the Pit and up to the Pire. "This isn't good, Tris; no one's supposed to know you're here."
"I know, but Tobias can't erase me from people's memories as easily as he erased me from the computers around the city. And the Abnegation have every reason to keep me alive."
She was waiting for me in the same room the Dauntless leaders had used to watch us go through our fear landscapes. A plain cardboard box is resting on the battered table next to her. Harrison closes the door behind us, but I can see him standing guard outside it through the window. Susan nudges the box towards me. "Your family's old house is going to be used by the factionless; I thought you might want the few things your parents left."
"Thank you, Susan." I know it won't be much, but it's nice to have something to remember them by.
She looks down. "There's some of Tobias' things in there too, from Marcus' house. I know you and he are... close."
My hand stops in midair, hanging in space a few inches above the box. "Was all this Evelyn's idea?"
"No." Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper. "It was Marcus'. And," she pulls her hand out of her pocket, "he sent this as well."
I take the slip of folded paper from the palm of her hand gingerly, as if it might bite me. It contains a simple map, tomorrows date, and a time. "Tell him no," I snap.
"He said you'd say that. He told me to tell you to think about it; he will be there regardless."
"What's this about, Susan?"
She shakes her head, giving me a polite, tight-lipped smile; an Abnegation smile. "I don't know. He said to give it to you and to tell you to think about it when you said 'no'."
I sigh and scratch at my hairline. I don't want to talk to Marcus, and despite what my former faction thinks he's not a good person, but I can't explain all of that to Susan.
"I have to get back." She sticks her hand out awkwardly, and when we shake it's jerky and unnatural. "It was nice seeing you again, Tris."
xxxx
The blue glass statue, stacks of school papers, and books - both mine and Tobias' - are littered across the top of our bed. He has awful handwriting. How his teacher could decipher it enough to give him a grade is a mystery. His lowercase 'j' looks more like a 'y'; a little curl on top and a straight line down.
But it makes me smile to think of him at twelve or thirteen, sounding older than his years as he writes about the history of our city, even though the thought that he was being terrorized by his father itches at the back of my brain.
I'm so lost in the fantasy of it I don't register the commotion in the hallway until there's frantic banging on the door that sends a shiver up my spine and makes me clutch the papers in my hand so tightly my knuckles turn white. There are some sounds that convey panic and distress better than words ever could. The frantic rap on my door is one of them.
Zeke is on the other side, bloodstained and eyes wide. A strangled sob works it's way up my throat and past my lips before I have time to clap my hand over my mouth and stop it. Every single nightmare I've ever had about losing Tobias flashes through my head as we sprint hand-in-hand to the infirmary.
The hallways seem endless, and fear pulses through me, sharp and bitter, twisting my stomach and making my pulse pound in my ears so loudly I can hardly make out what Zeke is saying about how they were attacked on the train and Tobias was thrown out. By the time he pushes the small crowd of people surrounding a doctor in a white coat out of my way I'm positive he's going to tell me Tobias is dead or dying.
He stops mid-sentence and looks at me questioningly. "You're the girlfriend?"
I nod because I can't speak. I'm too busy trying to steady my breathing so I don't throw up on his shoes to risk opening my mouth. I only take in some of what he says. Words like 'concussion' and 'dislocated shoulder' stick out, always accompanied by the word 'severe'. But he doesn't have my full attention until the words 'brain bleeding' come out his mouth, and I almost lose my battle with keeping my dinner in my stomach.
"In a few minutes he'll have an MRI, and as long as there's no bleeding on the brain or other injury then we'll deal with his shoulder. I suspect-"
"What if he has bleeding?" I interrupt.
"There are a variety of treatments depending on the severity; if it's minor we'll treat it with medications and monitor it here. If it's severe or doesn't respond to other treatments we'll have to operate to relieve the pressure so there's no brain damage. Now, as I was saying, if his brain looks okay then we'll take him to X-Ray to make sure nothing is broken and then an ultrasound to see the extent, if any, of soft tissue damage."
"I need to see him." I need to touch him, to tell him I love him; to know he's going to be okay.
"He's in and out of consciousness-"
I take a step toward him, sizing him up. I could hit him in any one of three places and drop him to the floor even if he does have more than a foot and a hundred pounds on me. "I need to see him."
He looks at me warily and then steps aside. "You have two minutes."
I'm through the swinging doors behind him before he even finishes the sentence. I don't have far to look; Tobias is in the first bed. His skin - where it's not black and blue or bloody - is as pale as the white sheet he lays on. My eyes flick over him, quickly taking in the bruises and gashes, the way his shoulder is contorted painfully - if he wasn't passed out he'd probably be screaming in pain.
One side of his face is coated in a sheet of blood and as I get closer I realize it's because the skin must have been scraped off as he slid across the pavement. I lean down, pressing my cheek to his uninjured one, inhaling the scent that is uniquely him - even if it's tainted with the rusty tang of blood - and whispering I love you in his ear.
"We need to move him now," says a soft feminine voice behind me. When I straighten up I come face-to-face with the same nurse that handed Christina and I perfectly innocent looking white paper bags full of birth control and condoms.
"Is he going to die?" My hands are shaking so bad I wrap them around my elbows, hunching in on myself.
"No, I don't think so," she smiles at me kindly. "You can see him for longer once we know what's going on."
I shuffle back out to the waiting room, ignoring the gathering crowd and leaning against the wall. Tori and Harrison aren't far away, badgering Zeke for details despite the fact that he's injured too. I'm too numb to take part in the discussion, but there's a part of my brain cataloging everything they say, spinning with possibilities.
There are groups of factionless outside Evelyn's control, I suppose. But some of the traitor Dauntless or Erudite could have gotten away and tried to exact revenge by killing Tobias. They both offer logical explanations. But Marcus and Evelyn keep turning up in my thoughts like bad cards. Marcus wants to see me, he sends Susan on the same day Tobias is attacked. He and Evelyn fought yesterday, and Tobias was involved. Could he be exacting revenge? Or was he trying to warn me something might happen? They're both so loathsome I can't rule either possibility out.
I feel anger bubble up inside of me, and I push myself away from the wall and out of the infirmary before anyone can notice I'm gone.
A/N: so a not very smutty update. Trust me, we'll get back to that soon enough. So... who attacked Tobias? Anyone want to guess? And thank you everyone who's left reviews; they make my day!
Oddly enough I wrote that little exchange w/ Christina at the beginning as part of the last chapter, but cut it due to length. Hopefully it clears up some confusion as far as whether or not Tris & Tobias have had sex yet (they haven't). Trust me when they do I won't gloss over it :)