AN: Hey guys! So now I'm all graduated and on summer break, and I have been procrastinating with the writing, and it's been a struggle to continue this. Too much writers block coupled with laziness does not do wonders for the fanfic. But now, as I sit down at the computer for the night, I will try and try to continue writing! I'd like to take a moment to recognize all of my reviewers, because your praises have been so encouraging and your criticism has been well received. I'll try my best to take whatever you review and put it into the story, so I welcome more and more, no matter what it is! Thank you so so much for your support through this, and I promise to have more written soon:) Enjoy~

When Districts Collide

Chapter 6: Tobias

After she left my apartment, I couldn't help feeling that there was something she wasn't telling me. She was about to do something big, and it was because of Peter. I think if she didn't see what was happening at Erudite, she would have been fine. But because she was brave, almost too brave, she would have to find out what happened. I always thought that selflessness was equivalent to bravery, but it seemed in her case, curiosity was as well.

Minutes later I heard a voice storming down the hall that I recognised as Peter. That was suspicious, even more so than Wren leaving me. I was going to stay up all night anyway, but now I had to, I wanted to see what was about to happen. All I knew is that I would have to wait, but waiting was nothing when it came to curiosity.

I sat on the couch and read until about midnight, when I put it down. I was kind of tired, but I wasn't about to fall asleep, so I went to make tea. When I got a cup from the side, I saw the gun lying there. Not my gun. Mine was in my holster, as it always was, and the only other person who was here was Wren. Why would she leave her gun here? My only answer was because she had knives, which she only took out when she was leaving. So she was leaving the compound.

That conclusion made me listen even harder for her footsteps, because I was not about to miss where she was going. So when I finally heard her tiptoeing through the hallway, I grabbed her gun, my gun, and went out the door, making sure to let her have the lead.

She was through the doors by the time I had gotten to the bottom floor, and I could see her running to the trains. I thought that maybe she was going to Erudite, so I ran and caught up just as she got on. She hadn't seen or heard me, which was a good thing, but now she would get fifteen minutes more to move ahead.

As the next train came, I jumped the first car and waited until I could scout her figure. I looked over at the Amity gardens under the train to see plants out of whack. She was headed out of the city, not to Erudite. But surely by now she was past the gate. What was out there that she would want to find? Oh. My stomach sank as I knew the answer. She wanted to see where the simulations were coming from, the airport. I had to make sure to follow her now, before she got too lost. It was hard to find for someone who had never been.

I leaped off the train and followed her tracks through the gardens, and made more noise than she would have liked to hear, because by the time she was over the fence, she turned around to take a look at her surroundings and heard the noise that I had made. Luckily, she ignored it and went back to walking, so her figure became smaller and smaller as I tried to keep up with her. By the time I got to the fence, she was almost past the Amity farms. That didn't stop her from seeing me, as I saw her, small but darker than the black sky. As I climbed and jumped, she ran.

"Are you kidding me?" I had to sprint to even try to catch up, and she had half a mile on me. What she didn't know was that I saw her duck in the grass, so I knew her location. I slowed down, taking my time, now knowing where she was. I could hear the sound of my own heart beating, and I saw the black of her jacket peek through the grass. She probably assumed that the grass would be tall and thick enough to cover her. I tried that once, it wasn't.

My breaths came out strong, and I knew she could hear me, so I went on a little further, lulling her into a sense of safety, but I snuck behind her as I turned a sharp left, looping around where she was. As she stood up, I came closer. She wasn't in trouble, of course, but I was about to make a threat to her, she left me out of this plan of hers. I clicked the trigger into place and put it against the back of her neck.

"Hello, Wren."

"Four." she muttered., turning around and meeting my gun with one of her knives.

"Do you really think a knife is going to do something?" I laughed and shot the bullet to the side, a warning shot.

"No, but it will injure you at least. Why haven't you killed me, you seem to be in a sadistic mood." she lowered her weapon and I lowered mine. I didn't think that her first instinct was to think that I would kill her, but it didn't surprise me once she said it.

"I don't want to kill you. I'm upset at you, you never told me where you were going."

"I didn't feel the need to include you in my death wish."

"What death wish? Don't be reckless." I chided.

"You said that's an abandoned airport, there's gotta be something deadly there. And I don't want you to die with me."

"You didn't tell Theo either, did you?"

"Not at all."

"He doesn't need to be included." I nodded. We were still standing face to face, cautious of each other. "But you should have told me, at least. I can't trust you if you can't trust me."

"I do, but I really just wanted to do this alone."

"Okay. Then tell me where the airport is." I crossed my arms.

"Um..." she didn't know, obviously. "Fine, lead on."

I smiled at her. "Come on, let's go." I took her hand and we walked on. She may not have been my girlfriend, but she was my best friend, and that was worth something, however reckless she may be.

We walked for a while, I wasn't sure how long, until we got to the edge of the empty fringe. I was here once before, and it looked probably less desolate than it did now. There was no one, not one scavenger here. They had all moved on, some coming back to Chicago, others moving to different cities. The airport had a working plane for the first six months, but after that, they retired it to the Capitol, so they had control of all the air carriers.

"So are we near it?" she asked, sensing my familiarity with the region.

"Almost. This is the Fringe. It was..." I didn't really know how to describe it, this place was sort of like factionless factions. But she wouldn't understand, she hadn't interacted with the factionless like I had. "It was for the GD's. Genetically Damaged. They were basically out here, sort of like how the factionless lived. They had leaders and groups formed and everything. Extremely violent though, very loyal to their gangs."

"I thought we were the only place with factions."

"So did I. Seems like that was the best way to live, because before everything got rebuilt, the other cities were nearing war."

"Other cities?"

"This place was off of Capitol radar. They had other cities that were genetic experiments, but they discovered that the factions system was the best way of life, because the rest were being terminated."

"Is that why they wanted to do the memory serum?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I guess we'll never find out."

"No, I guess not." she agreed.

We walked through what was left of the Fringe, occasionally stopping so I could tell a story, or she could look at something. I was surprised that it only took about six hours to get here. Didn't feel like that long, compared to when we drove here with Amar. I wondered where he was. He had obviously left the airport, but I didn't know what city he was in, he had never told me. Maybe Zeke and Shauna knew. I would talk to them when we got back, shoot them a message. Maybe he was crucial to our cause. I actually didn't know what our cause was.

"What is it that you want to see?" I asked as we stepped into the colossal building before us.

"I want to see the simulations, what they were planning to do. Whatever labs they have, I want to get in. Do you think they're unlocked?"
"Most definitely. The locks are all blown up. There were a few...raids...here." I walked through the halls, leading her around the residential side first. I knew exactly where I was going, and she followed, seeing as she had no where else to go. "This was our room. Well, my room, for a lot of the time. It wasn't a good period between us at that moment." I could still feel all the memories, every layer, every secret, every fear between us. There was too much space and too little. We were growing farther apart, but we were so close. We were a living, breathing contradiction. But then, she died. And half of that contradiction was gone, and nothing could replace it.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Tobias."

"Don't be." I shook my head. "I'm getting through it. Every day. Come on, lab time."

I wheeled around and ran through the halls to the other side. I always ran through these halls when I was here, and I was feeling good enough to do so again. She was sprinting to keep up with me since my strides were longer than hers. The first lab was where I found out I wasn't technically Divergent, so I figured it was a good place to start.

"So here's where they test for the GPs. I found out that I wasn't genetically pure, but Tris was."

"What kind of criteria do you have to meet?"

"You have to meet at least three factions. You do."

"So does Theo. But why is it still bad in Chicago?"

"Old habits die hard. We still believe it, because we need order in society. But at least they get better jobs than before, right?" Better than being killed at least. "Is there anything you want to see here?"

"Blood test equipment?" she asked me. I pulled some of the test tubes and turned the machines on.

"What do you want with these?"

"I want to test myself, and you, when I find the serum I'm looking for. See what it does." she sounded Erudite. I wasn't sure if I should be intrigued or scared. Both seemed like a good option.

"On to the next lab then?"

"Wherever you're willing to take me." she left the testing equipment behind and followed me onward.

I took her to the next simulation lab, where they held the memory serum betas. I wasn't too sure if I wanted to be back here with so many memories, so many past arguments boiling inside me. I hoped that during this, we wouldn't argue about the same things. Knowing who she was, we would.

"Do they have any inactive serum available?"

"Not that I know of." Inactive. Maybe she wasn't as dumb as I thought. Or as careless, I should say. Even if it was here, what good would it be to test inactive serum?

"Guess I'll have to use a live tube." she took a vial from storage and went over to one of the electron microscopes.

"How're you going to find out what's in it?"

"Transmitters, right? I'll just find them in the solution and do something Erudite with them."

"Do you have to do it now?" Maybe there was a way to come back. Well, there was, sneaking out. But this was a lengthy and serious experiment, and we couldn't miss too many days at the compound.

"No, why? Scared?" she smirked. "Tobias is afraid of getting in trouble."

"No," I was scared of Capitol people finding us. "But don't you think it would just make sense to do it in several small sittings instead of one large one?"

"Hm." she paused, like my idea was actually sensible. "I guess it makes more sense than missing five days of work. But can we just stay here for the day?" she pleaded with me. As long as we were safe, and she listened to my warnings and judgments, who was I to say no?

After a full day of being her lab assistant, and getting a vial of my blood, it was time to head home. The experiments could wait a few days anyway. I was extremely impressed with her thought process. It was brilliant, everything flowed well. I was constantly amazed by her, but I couldn't help feeling bad that it was me and not Theo helping her, being her assistant, so privileged to be saving the entire country, if it worked.

We packed what little we had and left through the Fringe again, this time getting past the desolate ruins and back to the open land within an hour. I wasn't too keen on hosting a conversation, seeing as we had been talking for the past seven or eight hours about labs and what we were planning to do. All we discussed was when we would come back. It would be about once a week, checking up on what we were seeing, until we finally got what we needed.

I think the best part about the whole experience was that it was completely normal. I was happy, and she wasn't panicking. We were both in our niche. It felt like two friends doing lab experiments. If only we were Erudite, it would have been completely ordinary. But we were not. We were something smarter. We were Divergent.