CHAPTER 22

SASHA POV

I walk into our apartment with Jed on my hip and Charlie is walking next to me and I see Four sitting on the couch with his elbows resting on his thighs and his head in his hands. He looks up and he appears to have been crying.

"Four!" Charlie squeals and runs over and gives her brother a hug. "What's wrong you look sad?"

"I'm okay Charlie, I just need to talk to mum," he says.

"Charlie take Jed and go down and see daddy at work. Tell him you have to stay there until I come and get you," I say.

Charlie takes Jed's hand and I let them out of the apartment. I walk over and sit next to Four.

"What's up?" I say. I have no idea what is going on. I've only ever seen Four this upset after one of his nightmares and I know he hasn't been sleeping because I just saw him in the dining hall with the new initiates.

"It's all my fault. She is here and it's my fault. She loves her family. She wouldn't have left. I caused this. I don't know how to fix it. She will find out. She is going to hate me even more. It's all my fault," he says. He isn't making any sense. He is just rambling. There are tears in his eyes. His breathing is heavy. I am wondering why he came to me and not his dad. I may even need to get him to Simon.

I put my arms around his shoulders and give him a hug waiting until he has calmed down a little. When he finally seems calmer I pull away and say, "What do you think is your fault Four?"

"Beatrice," he says.

I've only seen him with the initiates today and we don't have a Beatrice. I always go through the files of both transfers and Dauntless-born after the Choosing Ceremony. I do this for Max he likes to know who each initiate is, their background, parents, interest's things like that. It saves him time, I know the information he wants and I make up a list of information for each one so that he doesn't have to go through the files himself.

"Who is Beatrice?" I ask.

"It was Tobias' best friend in Abnegation." I turn to see Max in the doorway. I didn't even hear him come in.

"I just wanted to check everything is okay. Charlie said Four was here and upset," Max says.

"Where are the kids?"

"Still in my office, I have Sam watching them," says Max.

Four has his head in his hands again and he is just shaking his head. "Want to tell us why we are talking about Beatrice Four," says Max.

He looks up and he says, "She is here. She transferred. She changed her name to Tris."

I am rubbing my hand up and down his back, I can see he needs comfort but I'm not entirely sure why. I know the story of how he ended up here in Dauntless. I know what bastard parents he was given but I have never heard about Beatrice. "I think someone better fill me in on Beatrice or Tris if that is the name she is using now," I say.

"When I lived with Marcus, Beatrice was my best friend. We were always together. When I moved here I had to cut all ties with Abnegation and so she thought I was dead. Today I was hoping I would see her again. Neither of us ever fitted into Abnegation even when we were little. We were always in trouble. It was one of the many reasons Marcus used to hit me. But I haven't seen her for nine years and after everyone jumped I thought she must not have come. Although Tris reminded me of Beatrice in so many ways, especially her eyes but when there wasn't a Beatrice I just had to resign myself that she hadn't transferred."

"So I gave the usual tour of Dauntless, and then told them to go and eat. I was sitting with Zeke and Tris and Christina came and sat with us. We were talking about food and somehow Zeke asked her why she transferred," he says. He lets out a groan as he puts his face back in his hands and starts shaking his head again. He sits like this for a minute and then he raises his head again and starts to speak.

"She told us how she had left Abnegation because she wasn't selfless enough to be there. That when she was seven she had a best friend and she had said something horrible to him and before she could say sorry he had died."

Four has put his head down again and so I look at Max. "I think mum is the best one to talk about this too. I need to go and rescue Sam from Charlie and Jed; they have probably turned my office upside down by now. Four I will come by later and check on you," Max says. "Who did you leave the transfers with?"

"Zeke," says Four.

"Well when you feel up to it you better check on them, god knows what Zeke will have done with them. We will probably find them zip lining or playing Snakes and Ladders. And they are our the best case scenarios," Max says with a chuckle.

"Ok dad. Thanks."

I walk to the door with Max and he whispers, "I'm sorry to leave you but I think you are the best to handle this. I really need to get back to Sam. You should know that when that all happened back in Abnegation Tris didn't take it very well. It was really bad."

"I'll look after him. I think half the problem isn't why she is here it is just the fact she is here. He's never shown any interest in girls and I think that is all about to change. I think we are in for a rollercoaster with these two. And there are going to be more lows than highs for a while," I say.

With a kiss and a wave to Max I shut the door and go back and sit with Four. I'm not sure exactly what I am going to say. I don't really know even where to start. But I suppose that is part of parenting isn't it, I just have to do my best and hope it helps. Four turns and looks at me. "What should I do?" he asks.

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I feel like I should tell her the truth. But I don't want her to hate me even more than she already does."

"Why do you think she hates you?"

"Those last five words she said to me were 'I hate you Tobias Eaton'."

"She was seven. What did you do that made her say them in the first place?"

"I don't remember. We were always fighting. We both had short fuses and we spent every moment we could together. It used to drive our parents crazy. I remember her yelling at me and then she slammed the door in my face. Then her mum came out and I talked to her and then that was it. I didn't get a chance to see her again because Marcus kept me in the house. He was angry with Evelyn and so he wouldn't let me out, so I couldn't see her."

"Well you said that neither of you were ever cut out for Abnegation. Do you think if you had stayed would you have chosen Abnegation?"

"I think if I had stayed I would have ended up dead. So I hadn't ever thought about it. But I would have had to escape if I had lived. I couldn't have stayed."

"So really if you think about it, if you had stayed in Abnegation and made up with Beatrice. She probably would have found out about Marcus. Even if she didn't you two were close she would have known you would transfer. And you said she wasn't very suited to Abnegation either. I think that you both would have transferred out. I also think you would be having this conversation with maybe not me but with someone even if you had both come from Abnegation anyway. Because you would be trying to hide your relationship with her until after initiation."

Four looks at me now, like really looks at me. Like it has just dawned on him, it doesn't matter what brought them here they were going to get here eventually anyway.

"You can't help who you fall in love with. And there really is no rule on how old you are when you fall in love with that person or what is going to happen when you do."

"But what do I do? Dauntless initiation isn't easy. Do I tell her who I am? Do I walk away from training the initiates? Do I give the job to someone else?"

"Four you are a great instructor. You aren't going to be able to let anyone else train her; you would be worried about her the whole time. For now go and do the best job that you can. The rest will work it's self out when it is supposed to. Just don't try to force anything; I don't think this is going to be easy for either of you. But if it is meant to be it will be."

Four sits there nodding his head and then he gives me a hug and whispers in my ear, "Thanks, you're the best."

I hope I am. I have no idea how this will work out but I think we need to be ready for the tornado we will need to call Tris. Because I think when these to collide we are going to see a path of destruction left in their wake.

"Go and check on your initiates. Your dad is right, you don't know what trouble Zeke may have caused them," I say this with a laugh.

I decide to go and rescue Max from Charlie and Jed. I walk into his office and he is on the floor with Jed and Charlie playing. His office looks to have survived the visit.

"How did it go?"

"Thank you for leaving me with that," I say. I'm not angry with him.

"I'm sorry, I just thought that you would be better at the girl stuff than I ever would be," says Max.

"It's okay. I'm not upset with you. I just don't know how this is all going to work out for him. I feel like he has been through enough pain and I don't want him to have to experience any more, plus we still don't know about Marcus. I know he can't take him from us. But he could cause problems for him and I just get worried."

"I know, I feel the same way," says Max.

"Mum can we go home now?" Charlie asks.

"Yes we can. Let's leave daddy to his work and we can go and have a play before your bath," I say. I give Max a quick kiss and take the kids home.