The door to the training room creaks open, and Shauna and Zeke step in, seeming vaguely surprised to see me here already. It is early in the morning, and most sane people in Dauntless are asleep.

'What are you guys doing here?' I ask.

Their relationship became official yesterday. It was no surprise, although they obviously thought that it would be. Everyone who knew them knew that this was going to happen, and that it was just a matter of time; it was obvious, and still is, in the way that they look at each other, the way that they smile at each other. They are perfect for each other, and I am glad that they have realised it.

I try to be happy for them; I try.

Something has already changed in the dynamic of their relationship. The way that they look at each other when they're around other people unnerves me; they share smiles and secret looks that make me suddenly want to leave the room. It makes me feel like an outsider, someone who has no right to be where they are.

I am familiar with the feeling.

Sometimes, I long for the closeness that Zeke and Shauna have with each other. I want to be able to whisper something into someone's ear and make them laugh, I want to be able to show them all of the places in the chasm that have yet to be discovered. I want to be able to walk with them, and feel something other than this heavy aching emptiness that follows me around every day.

But there is no one I know, no one I trust enough for any of this. Not like Shauna and Zeke, not like the many other couples in Dauntless. Who can I trust enough to tell about me? How can I know that they will not be disgusted by the scars Marcus has left, both mentally and physically?

I try to avoid thinking about it.

'Just, um…' Shauna looks at Zeke and grins, and I suddenly feel a rush of… something, whether it's jealousy or anger or tiredness or just a feeling of being somewhere very, very far away. 'We couldn't sleep. What about you?'

'Fear landscape,' I reply shortly. Nothing has changed; I didn't expect it to.

Zeke looks at me worriedly. 'Is that normal? I mean-'

Shauna cuts him off with a warning glance. 'Do you do that a lot?'

How can I tell her that I do it almost every night without fail? I stopped for a few days after Amar died, but it didn't take long for me to fall back into a rhythm. I don't want Zeke's pitying look, or Shauna's sympathetic one. I know that it is their natural response to feel sorry for me; I am the Stiff with the messed-up childhood; but they do not need to know that I go into my fear landscape every night, or that I have injected myself with fear serum so many times that the ache of the needle no longer bothers me.

But then I meet Shauna's eyes, and something prompts me to tell the truth. 'Yeah,' I say. 'Quite a lot.'

Zeke starts to say something, but again, Shauna cuts him off. 'You okay, Four?' she says, and I know she isn't just asking about me being up early.

Well, I have such a messed-up childhood that I can't stop confronting my worst fears; I know Eric's up to something, but telling someone that would reveal how much I know; my mother, who abandoned me and left me with a sadistic maniac, wants me to join her in doing something that can and will tear the factions apart; and Eric has promised to keep an eye on me during training. God knows what that means. Oh, and I haven't slept for days because the voices in my head won't shut up.

'I'm absolutely fine,' I say. Maybe I should stay and say something else, reassure them that I am not losing my mind yet, but Zeke takes Shauna's hand, and they look at each other, and I know that they are happy together, but it suddenly brings back the feeling of being very, very far away.

'I need to go,' I add, and brush past them. The door slams on my way out; I forgot to close it quietly, and I don't want to.

I'm going into my fear landscape again.

'Hey, Four!' Zeke shouts from outside my room. 'You in there?'

I abruptly stop pacing around, standing as still as I would when Marcus would call to me. For a moment, I wonder if Shauna is with him. I debate staying silent, waiting for him to give up and leave. Now that they know I go to my fear landscape more than I let on, maybe they will assume I am there. The Dauntless compound is big enough and busy enough that he will assume I am somewhere else if he cannot find me easily.

But I know that I can't do that. 'Yeah, I'm here,' I call.

The door opens, and Zeke walks in. Shauna follows him. They are holding hands.

I have never understood the point of holding hands. In Abnegation, physical contact is limited; we do not hold hands casually. They do not hold hands casually, I remind myself; I am not one of them anymore, not with their passive half-smiles and quiet selflessness.

That is not a hard thing to remember.

'You've been a bit down lately,' says Shauna. 'Are you sure everything's okay?'

'Everything's fine.' It comes out much sharper than I intended it to. How can I tell her that nightmares of my father have been haunting my dreams? And why would I want to? 'I'm just tired,' I add quietly. It is the truth, though not the whole of it. I haven't slept for days; I have been up all night pacing around my room, throwing possessions at the wall, running to the other end of the city and back, all in a vain effort to stop myself walking up to the fear landscape room. It never works; after everything, no matter how tired I am, my nights end by facing my worst fears.

What would Amar say? He would call me masochistic, explosive, unstable; but I am. What would he think of me now?

I don't care.

Why should I care what he would say? He's dead, and it's Eric's fault. I can't sleep for fear of what will sneak into my dreams; and yet I care about what he would have said.

'Oh, okay,' says Shauna. She doesn't seem convinced in the slightest, but Zeke does. For once, I am grateful for how easy he is to deceive; I feel guilty, but not guilty enough to tell him the truth.

'So we came to tell you that Uri's getting a tattoo; his first one,' Zeke says, 'and we thought you'd want to come along and see it.' There is a distinct note of pride in his voice, and I wonder how he feels; a tattoo in Dauntless is a symbol of growing up, of coming of age. What is it like, watching your sibling grow up? Watching them grow from a young child into a teenager, and ultimately into an adult?

It's not like I would know.

A/N: Sorry about the semi-crap ending; couldn't think of anything else, and am in a huge hurry right now. It's exam month (yes, a whole goddamn month dedicated to exams and tests and ISAs and GSCEs [all mock]) and I wrote this at the end of a chemistry exam. I'm going to update Eric's chapter, but it's going to be shifted so it's the one before this. When I update the next chapter, it'll be chapter 27 rather than 28.

I'll write a proper a/n later - thanks for bearing with me :)