A day off from the simulation training is welcomed by all the initiates. Leo is at the front of the pack of initiates as they travel through the city, observing the jobs they may take if they make it through initiation. The higher ranked initiates will have their first choice of jobs, and those ranked lower will fight for the leftovers. Guarding the fence doesn't hold much interest for Leo, but with his scores, he's willing to take what he can get. There are some positions inside the Dauntless compound that Leo would take in a heartbeat, but the instructors have warned them that those positions are highly coveted. Still, the entire initiate class follows and observes the routine of the highest-ranking Dauntless leaders.
They sit in the back of a meeting room, where leaders from Dauntless, Candor, Amity, and Erudite argue their cases in front of a panel from the Council, which is composed of the incorruptible Abnegation. As they listen to arguments regarding districting or something (for once in his life, Leo isn't paying much attention), Leo notices that some other factions are taking their initiates for a field trip today. As a group of Candor black-and-white clears the room, he sees a sea of Erudite blue crowd in to take their places. For a moment, he feels a twinge of longing, recognizing his classmates, people he would have considered friends, now forever separated from him. He rubs the calluses on his hands, reminders of the work he's put into becoming Dauntless. He can't let a bit of nostalgia distract him from his goal.
And then he sees her.
He recognizes his sister's hair, pulled back into a harried ponytail. Jemma always used to leave the house with her hair down, but return home with a messy ponytail. While working on some new idea, she would reach a point where the annoyance of hair in her face wasn't worth the aesthetic of how it looked down, and she would pull it back. Sometimes she didn't even realize she did it; he had had to remind her many times that no, no one snuck in and put her hair in a ponytail while she wasn't looking. Her hands were so used to the motions that she would do it without even feeling it.
Like most of the Erudite, Jemma is taking notes on a small notepad, nodding along to the arguments made by her faction's representative and scoffing at the poorly thought out questions of the Abnegation. She barely looks up at the people speaking, let alone look across the room at the group of tattooed and pierced hooligans whose black clothing looks like an ink stain on the pristine seats of the Council room.
Still, he holds onto hope that she might look up. He remembers that there have been studies disproving the theory of twin telepathy, but then he remembers that that's a problem for the Erudite, and so he fires his hope with Dauntless recklessness. Look at me, Jemma.
She smirks at a sarcastic remark from a Candor representative.
Look at me.
And she does.
Briefly, but she does. Her glance slips to the Dauntless crowd for no more than a few seconds, scanning the group as if she's searching for something.
She's searching for me.
Waving or making any gesture toward her would be inappropriate, of course. He can only stare back at her, hoping that her gaze will land on him. When it does, he smiles, hoping to see the same smile reflected on her face. They both have their mother's smile, everyone used to say. Surely, she should recognize her own smile, even among all these faces. Surely, she must recognize her own brother.
Her eyes pass over the Dauntless, then flick back to the speaker. The Dauntless leader gets the attention of the initiates, herding them out of the room and onto the next part of the field trip. Leo lingers in the room as long as he can, trying to get Jemma to look at him again. The last thing he sees before he's forced to leave by the crowd of Dauntless is the back of her head.
It's not till he gets back to the Dauntless compound and looks in the mirror that he sees, for the first time, what his sister must have seen. He's let his hair grow out since he left Erudite, and now his gentle curls spill onto his forehead and fall down his neck. He wears a T-shirt and black jeans, an outfit far more casual than anything he ever wore in Erudite. But beyond the tangible changes, there's something different in his eyes, in his stance. Before he chose Dauntless, he was always part of a pair. Everyone knew Jemma and him together, as LeoandJemma, said as if it were a single word for a single person. Only since moving to Dauntless has he been identified by himself, without his sister by his side. That new individual identity gives him a new posture, a new light in his eyes.
It's the first time he's ever felt the need to mourn Leo Fitzsimmons, because it's the first time he's ever realized that the old boy is dead.
He understands now why Jemma didn't recognize him.
But the understanding doesn't make it hurt less.