A/N: A million apologies for this taking so long. The only excuse that I have is that it's mostly dialog, which is tough for me so it took longer than it otherwise would. And I do feel bad about that, so I wrote a little FourTris one-shot called Raise Up The Sheets, but I'm going to warn you right now it's very M rated. And before I forget THANK YOU to everyone who left reviews and sent me PM's and Tumblr Asks about this; they always make my day :)
Tobias and I hop down from the train as it pulls to a stop of the fence. The snow has melted away, but it's still cold; the newly risen sun turning puddles that had frozen overnight into pools of slush. We don't look any different from the Dauntless and Factionless we mingle with as we walk; many of them have guns and bags slung across their backs like we do.
We're here for a very different reason though, a secret reason that only a handful of people know about and I smile as I remember Uriah saying he liked bodyguarding me because we get to do 'cool spy stuff'. Tobias' eyes are constantly moving, constantly scanning the mixture of woods and fields that border the road to Amity. I don't know if he's just being cautious or if he truly fears an attack. Once the apple orchards come into view though, he relaxes.
Johanna is waiting for us in her office, a young man with a face full of freckles and red hair not much older than Tobias stands with her. I offer him a small smile as Johanna and Tobias shake hands, and much to my surprise he pulls me into a tight hug.
"Hi, I'm Micah."
"Uh... nice to meet you, Micah, I'm Tris," I says as I pat him on the back awkwardly, wanting nothing more than to push him off of me.
"Oh! That's right," he says, and his arms spring apart, releasing me. "The Dauntless don't embrace in greeting."
"No, we don't," Tobias says, his voice as cold and hard as his eyes; even Johanna's looking at Micah censoriously.
There's a fire crackling in the grate and a large breakfast laid out on the table next to it, and as we sit down to eat I can't help thinking that this isn't a very auspicious beginning to our stay here, especially as Micah seems to fill whatever Amity's equivalent of Tobias' job in the Control Room is.
I try to keep up with their conversation, but I keep being distracted by how many slices of bread Micah eats as we talk; I have no idea how Tobias didn't punch me in the face when I was subjected to the Peace Serum.
Eventually talk turns to what's going on in the city. "I'm surprised Marcus isn't with you," Johanna says off-hand and both Tobias and I freeze for a second, forks full of food hovering halfway to our mouths.
"Why would he be with us?" Tobias tries to keep his voice even, but I can hear the strain under it even if no one else can.
Her face puckers in confusion. "We were told he was staying at Dauntless."
"By who?"
"A few Abnegation members who have recently joined us here." She looks from Tobias to me, worry etching new lines into her face, and I wonder again if her and Marcus have simply become friends over the years as leaders of their factions, or if the relationship runs deeper. "If you'd like to talk to them, I can-"
"No," Tobias says firmly. "I need to get to work on your computers. Tris can talk to them, try to figure out what's going on."
The rest of the meal is tense and quiet, and afterwards Johanna leads us to our room, an awkward conversation about how she didn't know there would be two of us and whether or not we want to share a bed making my cheeks flare red. It's so common for unmarried couples to live together in Dauntless that it never occurred to me that it might be as frowned upon in Amity as it in Abnegation. If it is Johanna doesn't mention it.
"Tobias," I start once the door closes behind us. Johanna and Micah are waiting in the hall, so we've only got a few minutes privacy.
"Did you see anyone on the way to or from the meeting with Marcus?" he cuts me off.
"No. No one." There has been so much death surrounding us already; friends, family, people whose names we will never know, but who loved and lived as we do. We have already endured so much loss that it should be easy to give voice to the singular thought in my head, but I can't.
"Talk to the Abnegation, see if you can figure out what's really going on with them and the Factionless. When you're done come find me in the Amity control room and we'll send a message to Tori and Harrison."
He brushes a swift kiss to my lips and then he's gone.
xxxx
"Beatrice," Susan breathes out when she sees me, like a sigh of relief. She looks so different in a red shirt and blue jeans, hair hanging loose around her shoulders it takes me a moment to recognize her. She wipes off the hand she had been using to toss feed to the chickens crowding around her feet and extends it to me in greeting.
"Susan, you look... different," I say unthinkingly, and she ducks her face, hiding behind a curtain of hair. It might be the only time I've ever seen her self conscious. "Good different," I add hastily. "Is there someplace we can talk?" I ask, trying to ease the tension. As she leads me out the hen house to a cluster of trees behind it I silently chastise myself for spending too much time with Christina; her Candor habits are rubbing off on me.
"Is Marcus with you?" She asks eagerly as we sit down on a wooden bench under them.
"No, he's not."
"Did he send any messages? Is he okay?"
I hesitate, unsure of what to say, or even how to say it. Maybe there is no good way to say what I need to. "He's not at Dauntless. I don't know where he is."
Her hopeful expression breaks under the weight of fear. "Is he dead?" She whispers as she looks down at her hands in her lap.
"I don't know."
I can see the struggle in her, the effort it takes to subsume her own emotions and disappear into selflessness. There's something beautiful about it, something I envy.
"Susan, I need you to tell me what's going on in Abnegation. When I met with Marcus he said that the Factionless had some information that they wanted to keep from everyone in the city. Do you know what it is? Maybe something about Divergent's or what's outside the fence?"
"Why would I know anything about the information the Factionless have?" Her voice still bears the strain of emotion, but each word comes out clearer and evener than the next.
"Because Marcus knew what it was too."
"I don't know what you think he told me, but I wasn't a leader, or even someone he confided in. He asked me to see you because he knew we were friends."
"Are you sure you didn't hear or see anything?"
Her brow furrows in concentration, but a moment later she shakes her head. "You should talk to Thomas and Nathaniel Farlan, Marcus was living with them."
"Are they here?"
"Yes. I don't know where Nathaniel is, but I think Thomas is out tending the cows. Robert can drive you out there," she says as she stands up and leads me around the building, to find her brother, I assume.
"Why did you think that Marcus was in Dauntless?"
"I thought... when he didn't come back... that you had taken him there." Her voice is measured and I know it's to keep the weight of silent accusations out of her words, but I feel them anyway.
xxxx
"So how come Susan is here?" I ask Robert as we bump along a dirt road. Amity is far behind us, and I have no idea how much further we have to go until we reach our destination, but I hope it's close; I still don't like trucks.
"The day she came to visit you I arrived with a small group of Amity to meet with the Abnegation leaders about the war memorial. Anyway, when we got to my parents house someone had torn it apart, looking for something I guess," he says over the rattle of cab as we lurch over dips and humps in the road.
All I can do is gape at him stupidly. There are no locks on any of the doors in the Abnegation section of the city, but there has never been a break-in or anything remotely close to it. It is a crime of envy, but when everyone has equally little there is nothing to covet. More than that any Abnegation would willing give anything they had to someone who wanted it.
"It scared her, I think, though she tried to hide it." His eyes glaze over, remembering events I had no part of. "But a few nights before I was supposed to take the train back here she came home completely terrified; she said someone had followed her the Meeting Hall and tried to grab her."
"Oh my God," I whisper, horrified.
"Of course I thought I would have to kidnap her to get her to come back here with me; 'faction before blood' and all that - as if it matters now." He frowns, looking worried. "I know Dauntless and Amity are not natural friends - it's like the lion laying with the lamb -, but I don't know if she's safe here, with the Factionless keeping watch on us. It might be better if she went back with you."
I look out the window, across the fields brown with dried grass and dirt to the thicket of trees in the distance. When we came here on the night of simulation attack it was peaceful. Not safe, exactly, but now it feels threatening, as if a pall has been cast across it.
"Anyway, Thomas can fill you in on what's been going on in Abnegation better than I can," he says after a minute, his voice slipping into tones that may not be cheerful, but are at least relaxed.
By the time we reach the cow sheds I'm sore from the waist down and dreading the trip back. There are guards here too, and though the Dauntless ones acknowledge me with a polite nod, the Factionless ones eye the knife strapped to my leg with something between apprehension and hostility.
Still, they don't make a move to stop me as I follow Robert into the building. The first thing that hits me is the smell, the overpowering cloying stench of manure in an enclosed space. The next is the gentle lowing of the animals, like they're murmuring little things to each other as they move around the building, from feeding stations to milking stations.
After a minutes searching we find a small group of people and I recognize Thomas Farlan from the weekly Abnegation meetings, but only because even in uniform gray he literally stood out; he and his brother are both extraordinarily tall.
I quickly explain the situation to him, not exactly glossing over the part where no one knows where Marcus is, but not exactly belaboring it either. Thomas seems to bear the news well, or at least better than Susan did. Then again she has a tendency to believe in the best of things whether it's supported by the facts or not.
"So Dauntless wants to know... what, exactly?" He says when I finish.
"I met with Marcus three weeks ago. He said that the Factionless had stolen some information from Erudite, but he didn't tell me what it was. He was trying to use it for leverage; information in exchange for the same refuge we offered other Abnegation."
Thomas' eyes harden at my description of Marcus, but it's gone as quickly as it came, and his expression becomes as passive and calm as the animals around us again.
"Anyway, it was something they were trying to keep from the rest of us, maybe something about Divergent's or what's outside the fence, but it could be anything. Susan Black told me he was living with you before he disappeared and I was wondering if he said anything about it."
He looks at me appraisingly, from the top of my head to the tip of my toes, taking in the black clothes and tattoos and knife. "No," he says finally, "he didn't."
I bite my lip, debating. It's obvious he doesn't trust me. The Abnegation don't lie, not exactly, but they use silence to manipulate people and right now - as always, it seems -, it could get them killed.
"I don't blame you for not recognizing me," I say.
He raises an eyebrow questioningly, but doesn't say anything, so I press on.
"My parents are Natalie and Andrew Prior."
"They are dead, as are their children."
I'm surprised, pleasantly, that Marcus and the other leaders lived up to their word and perpetuated the lie of my death even within Abnegation. Of course if Tobias knew I was admitting it to someone we don't know or trust he'd hit the roof.
"Robert," I call him away from where he's chatting with a pretty Amity girl in a yellow dress and rubber boots. "Tell Thomas how you and I know each other."
He looks at me curiously, but does just that. Thomas' expression softens slightly, but he keeps his lips pinched shut and I know there's no way I can badger the information out of him. He still thinks I'm Dauntless through and through, but just because I transferred doesn't mean I didn't learn anything in my time in Abnegation.
"Anything you could tell us would be helpful," I say casually, as if it's unimportant. "Even if it's just something you saw or heard that seemed odd or unimportant at the time."
And then I switch topics, to something safer, seemingly forgetting the last few minutes.
"We've heard that the Abnegation sector has been unsafe, that many of you want to come to Dauntless. We agreed to it immediately, by the way." If the shock that briefly crosses Thomas' face is any indication, Marcus never told him that. "But we haven't heard any specifics," I say, letting the question hang there, baiting him.
"Not worse," he says slowly, "just... weird."
"Weird, how?"
"Little things, mostly. Dauntless better than any faction knows that not all of the Factionless are simply people who couldn't find where they fit into our society; some of them are criminals, and are thrown out of their factions for very good reasons."
I think of Edward, of the anger and instability I saw in him the morning after Tobias and I escaped from Erudite.
"But that's not what I'm talking about. Evelyn is supposed to control those people, and for the most part she does. There are other things though. The leaders - including Marcus - are being followed. I don't know why," he adds, hastily.
"Anything else?"
"Nothing I can prove," he says uncertainly.
"What about what you can't prove?"
xxxx
The ride back to Amity is just as unpleasant as the ride away from it had been, but it does give me time to mull a few things over. It's mid-afternoon by the time Robert pulls to a stop in front of the small complex of buildings where Johanna's office and the Control Room are. I walk on unsteady legs towards it. I look over my shoulder to make sure I'm not being watched and knock on the door softly; paranoia is catching, I guess.
A moment later it cracks open and Tobias peeks out, quickly ushering me inside once he realizes who it is. "Where's Micah?" I ask as he closes the door behind me.
"Still at lunch, thank God. If he had stayed any longer I might have strangled him."
"Maybe you just need some bread," I quip.
"Funny, he said the same thing," Tobias says dryly, leading me towards a large desk made out of the rough wood.
"He knows?"
"Yes. Apparently he uses it recreationally."
The computer monitor in front of me shows a series of progress bars, each slowly ticking from one side of the screen to the other. But Tobias isn't paying attention to it, he's sitting on the floor in front of the rack of servers, tapping on a small laptop computer connected to one of the machines with a fat blue cord.
"So what did you find out from the Abnegation?"
"Basically? They're being watched."
"We're all being watched," he scoffs.
"What do you mean?"
He looks at me over his shoulder, a little furrow cutting between his brows. "What do you mean?"
"They think Evelyn's been watching them. Having the leaders followed, bugging the meeting hall, intercepting messages between them and the other factions..." I trail off. All that is worrying, as are his stories about the Factionless patrols that Evelyn claims are for everyone's safety, but it's not what's really bothering me.
"Tris?" I take a deep breath, and blink my eyes back into focus to see Tobias watching me curiously. "What is it?"
"There are things that don't fit," I say uncertainly. "Why did you think Marcus stole the hard-drive? You had Caleb disable the security system for Jeanine's laboratory so the Factionless could access her computer."
"I said that because it was the only way to get him out of a room full of armed Factionless without raising suspicion. He did disarm the security system, but the only people in Jeanine's lab were me, him, and Marcus."
"Did you reset the system when you all came down to the lobby after?"
"No," Tobias says tersely, bristling at the reminder of his mistake. "Marcus was the only person in that room who knew there was something other than the video on the computer."
"At the time, yeah, but how do you know that Evelyn or one of her lackeys didn't slip up there during the fight afterwards? Her one condition for allying with Dauntless was control of the Erudite data."
Tobias and I both suffer with pride, and though I'm not accusing or blaming him for anything his shoulders are stiff and defensive because he hates being wrong as much as I do. He hates it even more when someone points it out to him.
"When it became clear the rest of us weren't going to surrender without a fight," I continue, "it would make sense for her to grab the one computer that had the most important information. Besides, Marcus never said it was information he had that they wanted, but something they both knew and were keeping from us."
Tobias turns back to the tiny computer in his lap, banging on the keys with unwonted force. "What else doesn't fit?" He asks after a while.
"Susan's house was broken in to the day she came to see me at Dauntless, and someone tried to grab her one night on the way back from the Meeting Hall. All the things going on... they only have suspicions, but Susan's house was turned upside down; there was no mistaking what happened. It doesn't make sense."
"Did she know anything about this mythical information everyone but us is supposed to have?"
I scowl at the back of his head, annoyed by his pigheadedness and sarcasm. "She doesn't know anything."
"So she says, but Marcus trusted her."
"Marcus used her," I say firmly. "She doesn't know anything." Caleb was always closer to Susan than I was, but there are no hidden parts of her, no hidden motivations. "Do you think he's dead?"
Tobias glares at me over his shoulder. "If there's one thing Marcus Eaton is good at it's self-preservation," he says harshly. "Until I see a body I won't believe it."
When we thought Marcus was dead before - after we had to flee Amity -, I expected Tobias to be relieved that the man who had spent sixteen years menacing him was dead. It wasn't until later that I realized his seeming indifference was a cover for his grief. Maybe because at the time I was so deep in my own I didn't recognize it for what it was. It seems senseless that he would mourn Marcus, but love and grief are strange.
"Did you know there's going to be a war memorial," I say eventually.
"I heard."
"Robert showed me the slabs of limestone they're engraving the names of the dead on."
"Is he the one you talked to that day we visited the fence?"
"Yes. He's Susan's brother. He thinks she's in danger here; thinks she should come back to Dauntless with us."
"Okay," he says distractedly, closing the laptop and stowing it in his backpack.
"I want to go when they dedicate the memorial," I say as Tobias stands up and stretches.
"That's a bad idea. Someone could recognize you."
"I really don't care," I say flatly.
"Tris-"
I press my hands to my face, rubbing at my eyes and causing a burst of phosphene lights; a dreamscape of kaleidoscopic color surging and morphing behind the dark of my eyelids. It's better than crying again. "We never had a funeral, Tobias. I never got to say goodbye to them."
"What's the point of everything that I've done to keep you safe-"
"You don't understand! And if you're so worried about keeping me safe, why aren't you the one talking to the Abnegation?" I snap and instantly regret it because he does understand, only too well.
Evelyn's funeral was always a half-remembered memory for me, and her being alive so dwarfed it it's easy to forget that no matter how make-believe her death was, it was real to Tobias. Even knowing Marcus is probably dead... it's still too fresh and hard to believe without a body.
There's a knock on the door, but it sounds a million miles away because Tobias is standing in front of me I can feel the anger rolling off of him. I'm not scared of him - I've never been scared of him -, but I am scared of his reaction because there are lines you don't cross and I just did.
"Coming to Amity and talking to a few people isn't the same as rising from the dead in front of a crowd of people." His voice is low and tense, a perfect reflection of the way his muscles are strung tight over his bones. "You stood up in front of Candor and called their leader an idiot. Do you think none of them won't notice that you're alive when I was supposed to have buried you months ago?"
He stalks over to the door and flings it open. Micah is on the other side, chewing on the ever present slice of bread, but the look Tobias gives me clearly tells me to get out.
xxxx
It takes a while for my hands to stop shaking, for my whole body to stop shaking. I pace in the barren apple orchards until sundown, alternating between telling myself off for my stupidity, and worrying what I was going to have to face when Tobias turned up for dinner or bed, or if he'd even turn up at all.
Finally it gets so cold I'm forced inside. I sit with Susan, knowing she wouldn't have much to say even if she does notice the stricken look that's probably on my face. And mercifully she doesn't say anything other than 'hello', at least until Robert sits down with us.
"I think you should go back to Dauntless with Tris," he says to her.
Her eyes widen a little. "No... no, I couldn't do that."
"There are a lot of Abnegation there, Susan," he says persuasively.
"But I'd have to learn how to fight, and shoot," she stutters, eyes reeling to meet mine. "Wouldn't I?"
I sigh heavily, tracing my spoon through the dregs in the bottom of my bowl. I believed I wanted to die until the moment it became a reality, but Susan is Abnegation to the core. She simply doesn't have the will to survive that most people have even when they think they don't. It's the same reason the Abnegation haven't kicked the Factionless out of their part of the city, no matter how dangerous it is.
"I know the the leaders of Dauntless said anyone is welcome there - and we have people from Abnegation as well as Candor and a few Amity now -, but you would have to go through training like everyone else does, yes."
She turns her attention back to her brother, expression resolute. "I'm safe here, Robert," she says and pushes herself up, collecting our dirty plates and disappearing into the kitchen.
"Can't you make an exception for her?"
"It's not up to me."
Robert scowls at me, and I know exactly what he's thinking. Susan wasn't in danger until she came to visit me. In a small way it's my fault that she's in danger at all.
I follow Susan into the kitchen, coming to stand next to her as she stands at a big sink washing dishes. It feels normal, natural, to stack each plate she hands me after cleaning it; it feels Abnegation.
"Have you seen Caleb?" She asks once everyone else has cleared out of the kitchen.
"No."
"I heard that he's going to go on trial."
"Yes, he is."
"Do you think he'll be executed?" her voice wobbles, threatens to break, and though I have told more lies and half-truths in the last six months than I have in the previous sixteen years, I have never wanted to lie more than I do in this moment. But a lie won't change reality and I don't want to give Susan any false hope.
"Yes." I try to keep my voice steady, but the word scrapes painfully up my throat on the way out, leaving it raw.
She nods to herself, starting on a basket full of dirty cutlery. "I used to lay in bed at night and imagine how things would be after you and Caleb, and Robert and I all completed Abnegation initiation."
I can't help watching her out of the corner of my eye. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many time I've heard her talk about herself, but never has her voice been so sad.
"I always imagined you marrying Robert," she laughs a little. "And me Caleb." And our children would have walked to school together, my memory fills in, recalling the last time she said something like this.
"Did you love him?"
"Yes."
Unbidden the quote Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him floats through my brain. It was in a book I read once, one I can't remember anything else about, and even though Caleb was comforted by the lie of my death, I'm comforted by Susan's love for him.
"How long are you staying for?" She asks once we're finished.
"Just until tomorrow."
"I won't say 'goodbye' then, just 'goodnight'." She gives me a tight lipped smile and slips out the back door.
I look around the cavernous kitchen. It's the only place in Amity that's more stainless steel than rough wood. I didn't see Tobias at dinner tonight, which means he's still working. Or burying Micah's body I think ruefully, since I didn't see him at dinner either.
He's probably still furious with me though, so I decide to afford him the same luxury I demanded, namely space. I go back to the room we're supposed to be sharing and crawl into bed. And surprisingly, I am able to sleep though I miss the warm weight of his arms around me.