Sorry for the wait! This is especially dedicated to Speisla Cartoon Cartoon and LittlePenguin93 because I didn't actually think of making this, but I like making people happy, so here it is!
"Ms. Matthews?"
She couldn't bear to be seen like this. She's supposed to be cold and bitter, emotionless. But here she is, shedding tears for a girl that is supposed to be just a test subject, a girl that is supposed to be just another Divergent.
She looks away from them, to the tiles at her far left that don't reflect Beatrice, because they can't see her like this, and seeing Beatrice limp will only make things worse. So she looks away, and heaven forbid her voice sounds like she actually cried.
Jeanine Matthews feels nothing. She doesn't cry.
"Yes?"
"We will have to dispose of the body now."
Yes. The sooner Beatrice's body goes, the sooner this pain will be over. But after years and years and years of keeping this all inside, the pain that devours her feels all too familiar, all too good to be thrown away. And besides, could she really even get rid of the body of Beatrice Prior? Or Tris, as the girl liked being called? She had to get rid of it. There are no other options.
"Keep it preserved for further examination on her body."
"Yes, Ms. Matthews."
She feels herself stand up and walk away, and the mask is on again, and her tears are gone, but all the while she stares at the floor trying to forget the fact that Beatrice is gone, dead, and it's all her fault.
She tells herself it's Natalie and Andrew's fault, because they were the ones who kept the box, because they were the ones who couldn't just have hidden it from the rest of humanity so she would never have been able to find it, because they couldn't have brought it with them to death. Yes, it's their fault.
Because Jeanine Matthews did nothing wrong. All she did was try to unlock that god forsaken box with a hundred percent Divergent that just happened to be Beatrice Prior, and it seems like even Beatrice couldn't open the box. She'll just have to keep looking, and maybe that boy could come in handy now.
Yes, none of this is her fault, and her tears are just of anger. Because they were so close, just one more faction close, and that box would finally be unlocked.
But deep inside, she knows the truth she tends to keep from herself, because the truth is she's in pain, she's hurting, and she couldn't bear the thought of Beatrice Prior's death to have been caused by her.
It's soft lips. Soft, warm lips that reminds her of when she was still a little kid, when mom used to kiss her good night.
Soft, warm, gentle lips that reminds her of strength and Dauntless and Abnegation, and the Tobias that would hold her through the night to protect her from whatever wanted to kill her.
Soft, warm, gentle, heavenly lips that reminds her of everything crumbling around her, everything shattering into a chaotic mix of what looked more like glass than anything, and it suddenly struck her that she's probably dead. And that whatever it is she felt, it isn't real.
It's nothing but an illusion after death. If that even exists.
If she really is dead, though, then she guesses she's successful (or maybe not) in her mission to save the Dauntless. Hopefully, the last of her hazy memories aren't the last of her moments when she was awake and alive because she needs to have finished that Amity sim and aced it, because if she didn't, well then why isn't she beating someone up to get back to living again? If she died without fulfilling Jeanine's twisted wishes, then she died in vain. Just great.
"Goodbye, Beatrice," the voice is soft, gentle, and sweet like honey, but it wasn't her mother's voice, or Tobias' voice, or her father's voice. It's a voice that comes from a woman she can only remember as cold and more machine than human, with watery gray eyes. It's a voice that breathes on her skin, sending shivers throughout her body. "I love you."
It's too heartfelt. She must never have had a chance to go to heaven after all.
Jeanine Matthews would never say that. Maybe she's being tortured this way.
But the voice sounds all too real and she still feels the wires piercing her skin and her clothes sticking to her like a second skin (why is she this sweaty) and the voices from a few meters away that speak like Jeanine's guards would speak.
The Dauntless that turned to Erudite guards? Probably.
Still, it all sounds too real to deny.
"Ms. Matthews?"
"Yes?" Suddenly, all the warmth is gone, and all that's left is authority and power. But the regular edge is gone, and Tris wonders why that would happen. Jeanine would never speak without even just a tiny bit of bite in her voice, because why would she? She gets her power from making people fear her, and obviously she could've never made people fear her if she didn't threaten them, even just a little bit. But now, the venom that's supposed to be there is gone, and Tris couldn't help but wonder why.
"We will have to dispose of the body now."
If this is real, why isn't she dead yet?
If this isn't real, why would they still need to dispose of her body? They could just throw it in the eternal inferno or whatever that's supposed to be and watch her writhe in the flames while she burns agonizingly slowly for the rest of eternity. So, what, is being incinerated better torture? Tris honestly didn't even care. She just wants to know if she had done what she came to Erudite for or not, and if no one would give her an answer to that, at least help her differentiate reality from death.
What's so hard about that?
"Keep it preserved for further examination on her body."
Okay, well maybe whatever examinations Erudite would pull off would be better torture for a useless, dying soul like her. But if this is real, why does Jeanine sound like she didn't say what she said because she wants to do research on Tris' body? Why did it sound like Jeanine means something else entirely?
"Yes, Ms. Matthews."
But of course, whoever feels like something is off would probably never mind it because they're probably scared of Jeanine, but as Tris feels her body being brought down from the wires and lied down on what feels like a bed, she wonders if anyone even wants to question how off Jeanine sounds.
But everything feels a little too cold and she can't even here anything anymore because of how cold she feels. It's like she's been put in a freezer, and the mattress beneath her feels more like ice than cotton.
Then she remembers the warmth of those lips on her forehead, so warm and so soft, such contrast to the bitter cold that seems to want to eat her alive. Maybe, in this reality, Jeanine Matthews might not be so bad after all.
Suddenly, having whatever this is as a reality didn't seem as bad as Tris thought it would be.
Those were soft, warm, gentle lips that touched her forehead just a few minutes ago, and it's already like they're Tris' life support, even if a part of her knows that those lips belong to none other than Jeanine Matthews.
What had Tris been thinking? What had he been thinking when she sneaked off to Erudite? Why was he even asleep?
He didn't even know what to think. He doubts he was even thinking or even conscious when she slipped off into the night, bound for Erudite. And now, there is absolutely nothing he could do, other than just hope she's okay.
But this place being Erudite? Okay is a long shot. If anything, he just hopes she's alive.
He sits in his cell facing the glass door, waiting on her return because of course they'd let her sleep. Jeanine isn't stupid enough to overstress her test subject to the point of death. Besides, Tris is like gold among the Divergents. She's the best one of them all, and with that kind of value, Jeanine would obviously not want to lose such an important thing.
To be honest, he didn't even know the difference between an hour and a minute now. It's both long and lengthy, and he didn't even care if it takes a whole day to wait for Tris.
He just wants to see her, even just through this glass door.
Even just for a moment. To see her alive and breathing, and he could almost see it happening, and it's like seeing her isn't enough anymore, with those bright eyes and pale pink lips that really need punishing. She should have never left the compound; they would've found another way around it. She's supposed to be safe in his arms, and if only this is all a sim, it would be so easy to just smash open the door and she'd be in his arms again.
But she never passed by his cell that day in a desperate attempt to get through the door and hold him close, or passed his cell alive and breathing.
No, she passes in a mobile bed, pure white and blinding in all its medical glory, her eyes close, her chest level. She isn't alive. She isn't breathing. And heaven forbid they're going to play around with her with their Erudite examinations, and if they are, so help him.
He didn't even care if he's currently executing his glass door, or if he's already gone through, or if his fist really did collide with a helmet or a head (because it collided with something hard, that's all he knows). All he cares about is getting to Tris, because she can't be dead, she can't be gone, not now, not like this.
And if Tris really is gone, he had to at least be able to feel her again, even just to touch her face one last time, to kiss her for the last time. Just one more time, one last time, before they take her away from him forever, before she's taken for real and there won't be anything left.
"LET ME NEAR HER! JUST ONE LAST TIME OR I SWEAR YOU WILL GO DOWN TO HELL WITH ME, YOU ERUDITE BA-"
A sharp object pierces the flesh in his neck, then a liquid as cold as those bitter cold walls is injected into him. Four feels his eyelids grow heavy, and he swears on everything existing in this horrid world that he isn't going to get knocked out, but soon enough, all he sees is darkness.