Becoming Determinant - Tobias' Story

Divergent Chapter 39 - Leaving Dauntless

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story so far, and to my fantastic beta reader, Rosalie! I really appreciate all of your time and encouragement! This is the last chapter of "Divergent."

"Divergent" Chapter 39 - Leaving Dauntless

I can't shoot. This doesn't make any sense. She's not acting like a soldier, let alone an enemy. She stands there with her hand on my chest, almost caressing me, as if she's trying to connect with me. To show me she's human.

It strikes me hard how much her slight build is like Tris', and I swear I hear her voice saying my name. But she's gone. I know she is, even if I still can't make myself believe it and can't even begin to accept it.

I close my eyes, trying to clear my head. I'm still holding the gun firmly, but I'm no longer focused on it. Instead, my thoughts are shifting. Something isn't right here.

The soldier steps closer to me, carefully, and wraps her arms around me, embracing me like a friend. Like a lover. Like Tris.

My heart is racing now, because suddenly everything makes sense. Suddenly, I understand. I'm in a simulation. Jeanine put me under it when I was on the floor, when I thought they had knocked me out for a moment. And that means that everything since then was fake, and this is....

The gun drops from my hand, and I'm grabbing her by the shoulders, pushing her back to see her face, my breathing rough and uneven. She cries out, and I know the voice, and then I can see her, finally see her face. The life returns to me so abruptly it's painful.

"Tris."

I kiss her hard, pulling her fiercely into my arms, off the floor, holding her so close there's no room for anything between us. She's here. She's alive. Somehow, she survived, and found me, and brought me back to her.

I set her down, my eyes taking in every inch of her face, desperate for reassurance that it's truly her. My fingers trace her forehead, her eyebrows, her cheeks, her lips. God, those lips. It's really her.

Some primal sound of relief and pain and joy and love comes out of me, and then I'm kissing her again as my eyes burn with tears. I haven't cried since I was nine, but I don't care in the slightest right now. All that matters is that I'm holding Tris.

She pulls herself against me again, burying her face in my shirt and pressing into my chest as she cries. Her body sags a little, and I hold her close, supporting her. In my joy, I forgot that she was shot – forgot how much blood she lost. I can't imagine what she went through to get here.

And then I almost killed her. The thought is so horrifying that I have to push it away – can't even admit to its presence.

"How did you do it?" she asks, talking into my chest.

"I don't know," I answer honestly. And then I realize that the whispers I kept hearing, that kept making me pause, were her. "I just heard your voice."

For a long moment, we stand there, holding each other. She may be having trouble supporting her own weight – I wouldn't know, because I can't let go of her enough to see. But finally she pulls back, and I manage to release her. She turns toward the screens, and I see them, really see them, for the first time. They look much like they did before, but now I don't know what I was doing when I thought I was trying to disable the program.

"Was I running the simulation?" It's a terrible thought.

"I don't know if you were running it so much as monitoring it," Tris says softly. "It's already complete. I have no idea how, but Jeanine made it so it could work on its own."