Hey guys! Sorry for the super late update! I know I promised to post at least once a month but August was really busy for me. I'll try to post two chapters (this and the next) this month, but I don't think I can make promises. I'll try my best though, so without further ado, my dear and beloved readers, The One: Chapter 6.
She doesn't dare go past the glass pane. She doesn't dare go to the room on the other side.
She just stands, as if frozen in time, in her place there in the observation room. She doesn't move, not even one inch, and she doesn't even breath for fear of everything becoming real. Strands of her hair are blown by the air conditioning unit above her, and it sways frigidly off to the side.
She doesn't dare move. The truth of it all is already suffocating her as it is.
So she doesn't dare move in her place, but her eyes watch every bit of movement in the other room like a hawk watching its prey; every little detail absorbed, everything in sight counted as significant.
She watches the confused expression on Beatrice's face, the horrified look in those eyes, and the caring touch of Tobias. She watches him help Beatrice off the table, his eyes worried and caring and loving all at the same time. She watches Evelyn talking to the scientists in the lab, the scientists that used to be under her care, but she doesn't care about the power she lost or the glory that used to be, because Beatrice is alive and she's not dead and she's right there.
But Jeanine doesn't move. She should, but she doesn't.
She doubts she has a right to.
"Ms. Matthews?" The voice seems distant, but she is shaken out of her stupor and she looks to her side. The scientist's face is close; just beside her.
She nods to him, for him to continue.
"Ms. Johnson would like to get your permission to run additional tests on Beatrice Prior."
Jeanine wonders if she looks as stoic as she wants to look. Just for the sake of feeling like herself again, even if it's just superficial, a cover, a mask. Whether or not she looks convincing, the scientist doesn't show anything.
She hopes, just hopes, hopes against all odds that the scientist sees nothing she doesn't want him to see.
"Permission granted." Her voice strikes with the same calm but steely sound as it used to have. But if once it felt like it was a weapon, now it feels like someone else's skin.
It doesn't feel right. Not right now. And for all possible reasons, she wishes it would just feel right.
She doesn't move, not an inch, but she can hear the scientist's feet walking away from here, and through the glass panel that closes so smoothly, in such a sleek motion, with no sound at all like a stealthy Dauntless.
Beyond the glass division is Beatrice Prior, alive and breathing, in Tobias Eaton's arms.
No, it's simply Beatrice Prior. Alive, breathing, and as she's always been.
Jeanine makes her move to leave. But her body doesn't budge; she doesn't move an inch.
The distant echoes of "How many fingers am I holding up?" and "Current observations show she may be deaf." resound in her ears. So Beatrice is deaf? How? Is it curable? What medicine is needed for it? Will it need an operation? Questions flood her mind; how could it not? But the other side of her just wants to leave.
So she does. It isn't like she's needed here right now. So she decides that the best course of action would be to get started on research.
So she finally moves and heads toward the glass doors, away from Beatrice and Tobias and Evelyn, and she steps out and leaves. Her breathing's slightly heavy, but she's keeping it even, even, even, at least for now while she is not in her room.
There is no use crying. There is no use feeling hurt. But she knows she's lying to herself again.
Still, at least for now, she has to be unfeeling. At least until she gets to her room.
She's deaf.
Tris is deaf.
At least, that's what he observes. Further examinations that will produce results by later in the day will tell him if it's just long term or short term, or if it'll return to normal by the end of the day.
Then again, she's here, she's alive, she's breathing.
She's okay.
And, more than anything, that's what he wants. For her to just be okay.
He tries to comfort himself for the rest of the time he knows he has to wait, with thoughts of it'll get better and she'll get better and this won't take too long, but still his anxiety builds up and his worries multiply. There's nothing to worry about, he knows that, but he can't risk losing her again.
He just can't. That'd be the death of him.
So he decides to take a walk, as per his mother's advice actually, around Erudite grounds.
Honestly, the outside never looked more like Amity. There were rose bushes and orchids, and the steel structures were replaced with fruit-bearing trees, and there were wooden benches here and there, by rose bushes and under trees.
It looks so different, and yet the glare of the glass buildings makes it feel the same.
His mind wanders to Tris as he walks past the tree that took the place of the enormous steel sculpture, to the strength he knows she has, to the fragile girl he knows he failed to protect. He knows very well she's strong on her own, but he can't forgive himself for the failure. But he has to; she'd want him to.
He passes a rose bush somewhere at the outskirts of the main section of Erudite, and his mind wanders next to Jeanine. Jeanine Matthews, once cold, but now soft-hearted and vulnerable, dare he even say crushed. Devastated, done. Wasted.
How can such a cold soul, the cold soul that nearly murdered Tris, actually care like she has? It doesn't make sense, though as far as he knows about humanity and the complicated sense that it holds, he guesses that maybe Jeanine had cared before. Cared. She couldn't have cared about Tris during the experimentation though, so he wonders why she suddenly started to care again.
Jeanine Matthews is a complex woman. That much is true, and he's concluded that since the beginning.
With a sigh, he sits down on a bench by a rose bush, under a cherry blossom tree, and there he leans back, looking up at the sky and closing his eyes. His arm drapes over his eyes, blocking away all light that could possibly leak in, and all he sees is darkness behind his eye lids.
Darkness, until he sees Tris again.
She'll be okay, he tells himself again, hoping it'd be the last time he'll have to say that to himself.
She'll be okay, and he won't lose her smile, or her laugh, or her strong self that melts right into him.
She's strong, sometimes he sees her without weakness. And so he knows, he just knows that she can't not be okay. She'll be okay, surely, without a doubt.
Still, as he lifts his arm off his eyes and looks up at the now darkening sky, his fears eat him once again, but he pushes them away enough to breathe, enough to remember that Tris will be okay. Dead or not, they'll figure it out, and she'll be okay, and thoughts of Jeanine Matthews invade him too, but he pushes it all away and focuses instead on the sky that he knows will soon give away rain drops. It's dark and gray and heavy; but it's light enough for his messed up mind.
All she can hear is an annoying buzzing sound. Above her, she can see the in and out of people, swerving through the lights as shadows dance in the light that leaks through her eye lids.
She's deaf now, isn't she?
And she knows it won't be temporary.
What now, if she's alive but deaf? How will she live? She has a part of Erudite in her, and she urges the Erudite in her to awaken, to take over, to become more than it has ever been since she had to suppress it for her own good. She wills for the smart Tris to come, but the more she thought of Erudite, the more she thought of her.
If Tris would be deaf now, and if her ears will never hear again, then she'll only ever have a memory of her voice, and how she wants to hear that voice again, with those words, because it doesn't sound like the woman she knew, but it is, it is, it is, and she won't believe it but she wants to.
"I actually wished I could put you in a special program when I noticed you excelling in the Maths and Sciences. You're a smart girl, Beatrice; you should have never been held prisoner by your old faction's traditions."
She made Tris feel like every part of her is worth it, that her intelligence and humility and bravery are all perfect pieces of her. She made Tris feel like she's an actual person, like she can protect herself but sometimes she will need to be protected, and the understanding feels so nice because someone finally gets her. Someone finally understands her, and for the first time, Tris feels like she finally knows the truth in the words when she says it: someone finally, completely, utterly, wordlessly, limitlessly, shamelessly loves her and all her Divergence.
And to think it would come from the woman who most would say is her killer.
But no, Jeanine Matthews is not a machine, is not a monster, is not a living, breathing apparatus that doesn't know how to be human. Jeanine is just a woman caged in so many walls that she protected herself with–though however that started, Tris might never know–and simply needing someone to break through it. Sometimes, and Tris had learned this once before, people only realize what they need after it is given to them.
If before she thought she needed Tobias' love, then now she thinks that maybe it was just to prepare her for something more.
Or is Jeanine the test she has to face? She didn't know. She didn't care.
All she knows is that if her deafness would be permanent then she would never hear Jeanine's voice ever again, and such a thought ignited something in her, and she just knew that Jeanine's voice is too much to lose.
Jeanine Matthews may have been a heartless person when they met her, and maybe she was a heartless person even before Tris' parents fell in love, but surely she was a child once that knew nothing of the world and was completely innocent and untainted; loving, with a heart filled with wonder.
Tris knows that the child, or maybe just completely and utterly Jeanine, is still somewhere in there, somewhere beneath those blue pressed clothes and watery gray eyes, beneath all her steely looks and unfeeling gazes.
Tris knows, and she doesn't know how she knows, but she just knows that Jeanine is not what they think she is. Tris knows Jeanine, and Jeanine can love, can hate, can feel.
Jeanine Matthews is just afraid of being hurt. And of all the things Tris has ever known, she knows how to spot someone who has been hurt in the worst way.
And she can remember Jeanine's words so clearly, so vividly, that she could nearly feel her own lips moving to the movement of Jeanine's words, as if she feels those words too.
Does she? She doesn't even know, but neither does she care.
"I love you. And I wish you wouldn't hurt as much as I do."
Tris continues to watch the dancing shadows that leak through her eyelids. She's nearly sure they're going to operate her, all until she takes a peek and in the corner of her vision, she sees stark blue clothing and blonde hair, and of course, those watery gray eyes.