Simulations | "what if it was all a simulation..." | After Allegiant

5.

"Change, like healing, takes time."

Tris skipped breakfast that morning, not a care in the world about what her stomach had to say about this. She decided to take another step forward. Go a bit farther, take the train to abnegation. The first war, where her reality and dreams didn't align.

She jumped onto the moving train, it barely slowing down for her. She grabbed the handle and swung herself around only to be met by a face she killed. A face she remembered as Will.

"You couldn't bear to be in the dining hall either?" He asked sitting down on a crate that sat on the tin colored floors.

When she didn't reply, not wanting face the boy she willingly killed, he said, "Or you're just mute because you didn't know it was breakfast...?" Tris looked at him then shifted her eyes to the city. The train was noisily grinding against the tracks as it slowed down at the abnegation stop.

Will, realizing he was going nowhere with this situation asked, "Do you mind if I join you?"

Before jumping off, Tris jerked around and rolled her eyes, "Yes I do, but it doesn't seem like I have a choice, do I?"

"So the deaf girl speaks!" He said jumping off trailing her. After tumbling onto the gravel, Tris stood up and brushed her clothes off.

She turned around and looked down at Will, "If your deaf, it means you can't hear. Speaking has nothing to do with it."

Will stands up and grins, "Erudite much?"

Tris tries to hold back a smile that was growing on her face, "It's called divergent, ever heard of it?"

"Yea I also heard that I died in an attempt to eliminate them all," He scoffed.

Her mood suddenly turned dark, "Let's go dead boy, before we have to go back." Tris, retraced her steps from the moment she was on the train, to the abnegation raid, to her getting caught, to her mother saving her life... And then to alley where death really hit her hard. She didn't want to enter the alleyway, but the only way to move on was to face her fears.

She closed her eyes and with her hand on the edge of a building, walked around it and then reopened her eyes. Images flashed through her head, the dauntless pursuing her mother and her, her mother being shot then both of them hiding by a wall, her mother bleeding out... Dying before her eyes. 

Forgetting Will was with her, she ran to the spot where her mothers blood was once smeared across the wall. She placed her hand upon the cold stone and cried. Her fingers traced each line and crack on the wall.

Cried.

Tears streaming down her face, turning the concrete below her a shade of a darker gray. She never wanted to leave her mother. Oh why did she leave her mother. Maybe the pain of whatever happened afterwards wouldn't of existed. Why must she be so dauntless at that moment.

But she didn't feel so dauntless anymore.

Standing up, not caring if her cheeks were glistening with tears, she stepped away from the place where her mother's dead body once lay, her mother wasn't dead... Not anymore and she could and should leave that alternate reality behind her. She looked up, and a couple yards away stood Will in the gloomy area between the two buildings. As if naturally, she pulled her gun out from it's pocket that cradled it, and pointed it at the broad shouldered, mop off a mess hair, Will. Without thinking, she went through the motions all over again. 

Aim. Shoot. Fire. The bullet going clean right between the eyes. 

Aim. Shoot. Fire. The bullet going right through the heart. 

Aim. Shoot. An embrace. 

From behind her, Will stood embracing her. A feeling went through her whole body, something real. The first real emotion she felt since she woke up.

Still in shock, she didn't move as Will gently wrenched the gun from her clutch, she didn't move when Will pulled her arm down, but she did move when Will turned her around and whispered to her that he was here for her. That he was never going to leave again. That while she heals to the wounds built from her fears, he would never die again... And she hugged him back.

***