Finding The Courage

Part 66

The next morning I was back in the hospital outside Uriah's room. Tris and Cara were already standing there watching.

"It sounds like you know something about the Bureau that made you angry. Could you tell me what it is?" Cara asked Tris. I smiled softly to myself. It was nice to finally see them getting along.

"I wonder. We may never know." Tris answered wryly.

"What if I said please?"

"You know Jeanine's simulation serum?" I spoke up from behind Cara. "Well it wasn't hers." Tris sighed at me. Cara looked between the two of us.

"Come on, I'll show you." Tris offered as she made her way back to the storage room.

"So it was all a lie, when will the deception stop?" Cara asked.

"Is that how you really feel? I thought you loved Erudite?" Tris questioned her.

"I did, but the Bureau made me feel foolish for fighting for it. I don't like to feel foolish."

"You don't think it's worthwhile? Any of it?" I asked her.

"You do?"

"It got us out." I whispered.

"It got us the truth, better than what Evelyn had in mind." Tris huffed.

"I pride myself on being able to see through things, even the faction system."

"You know what Abnegation said about pride?" Tris offered.

"Nothing nice I'd assume." Cara said and we all burst out laughing.

"They said it blinds people to the truth or what they are." I said through a laugh. Tris knocked on the door and waited for Matthew to let us in.

"You know the old Erudite writings said the same thing." Cara said, I shot her a look. "Well more or less." Matthew answered the door and we all slid past him.

"Can you let us into the storage room? We need to show Cara something."

"Sure." He nodded as we followed after him. Cara muttered to herself when she saw the serum, but I was too antsy to stand around and wait for her to say anything so I left the three of them there. I missed my brother, I missed Dauntless, I even missed Eric. I fiddled with the necklace as I made my way down the halls. Chicago had hurt me so much and yet I wanted to go back. I longed for the comforts of home, the simplicity of it all. I found myself in the control room staring at the screens of the familiar scenes of home. Four was standing in front of one of them with the sound on, I glanced at it to see Johanna and Marcus talking.

"Can you promise me you'll try to minimize any destruction we might do?"

"Of course." Marcus answered. I watched as Johanna nodded.

"Sometimes we need to fight for peace, I think this is one of those times. I do think you could be useful for people to rally behind." Johanna said to Marcus. This had to mean that the Allegiant had decided to fight back against Evelyn. Four began to move away from the screen and the small group of people that had formed around us. I watched as he paused to watch a screen that showed Evelyn in her office. I watched him as his mother had a meeting about how his father was still in the city. I moved closer and heard the tone in her voice that sounded like that of a child. I waited with him silently as he watched his mother stare out a window. Finally I moved away from him and began to head back to the dorms. I was homesick for a home I wasn't sure even existed in the first place. As I made my way through the compound I felt truly homeless for the first time in a long time. I stopped and watched the people buzz around me, everyone seemed to have a place and yet I knew the GD didn't really have a place.

I was pulled from my train of thought by a hand in mine as Four led me from the center of everything and to the hotel lobby. We sat among the flowers while he waited for me to start talking. For a while I just stared at him. I didn't say anything. It reminded me of all those nights when we were kids where I would sit in his bedroom with him just comforting him with my presence after Marcus had done something awful. Peter passed us and stopped to watch us, he had gotten to know my body language well enough to know when something was wrong. He sat down next to Four and waited for me to say something.

"I miss the roof." Peter and Four shared a look before they both nodded. They both knew the roof had been my safe place when things had gotten hard for me back in Dauntless. Everything here was restricted and I had been unable to find access to a roof.

"I miss Wayne." I paused. "I miss how simple things were back home. We knew who the bad guys were and we knew how to handle them. This is different. Nita wasn't the good guy, but she is fighting the bad guys. I just want to go home but we have work to do here, we can't let David play with our lives anymore." My voice was quiet and small, for the first time since the choosing ceremony I felt my size. I felt like a small lost child crying in the middle of a crowded room who can't see their mother. Peter moved across the space and wrapped me in his arms and sat with me in his lap as tears began to stream down my face.

"I don't know everything that has been going on but I understand feeling homesick." Peter comforted me as he rubbed small circles on my lower back.

"I don't feel homesick in the same way you do but I do miss feeling like I could trust myself." Four offered in a way of comfort.

"Uriah is as good as dead, I can't lose anyone else but the way things are going we're all going to lose more people." I managed to mumble through my tears. Peter shifted under me a little bit but continued to rub my back to help me calm down. "We have to get Zeke here, somehow, he deserves to be here. I'm going back to bring him here." I said when my tears finally stopped.

"How?" Peter and Four said at the same time.

"I don't know yet but I won't let the Bureau stop me." I got off Peter's lap and headed back to the dorm but Peter grabbed my arm.

"Dinner first." I nodded and followed the two of them to join the others who had already gone to dinner. I had lost track of time when I had been watching the screen of home with Four and sitting in the lobby. While at dinner I decided that I would stay with Uriah through the night and I made my way to the hospital with Peter when we both had finished eating.

"He looks like he's taking a nap." Peter mumbled as he looked through the window.

"He might be able to hear us but the doctors don't think he's going to wake up again." I whispered.

"Wren, I have to tell you something." I turned to face Peter, his face was blank as it had been since we had left the city.

"What's going on?"

"I love you." The words fell from Peter's lips so easily. I stared at him as I searched his face. His eyes begged me to say something, he had just made himself the most vulnerable he had ever been in his life.

"Really?" I breathed.

"Yes, ever since that night in Amity I knew I would spend the rest of my life chasing after you if I had to." Peter had moved so that he was now holding my face in his hand. "We don't have to do anything right now but after seeing you like that earlier I couldn't hold on to it." He kissed me then. Not the same type of kiss we had shared in the library but the type of kiss that showed me exactly how he felt about me. My mind had still been buzzing with the information he had just thrown at me and it was silenced as soon as his lips hit mine. I relaxed into his body allowing him to guide my hands to his neck and bury themselves in his hair. I pulled away from him when my lungs began to scream at me demanding air.

"Stay with Uriah tonight. You're right we have to protect our families and the city. I'll do anything I can to help." Peter kissed me one last time and headed back to the dorms as I settled into the chair next to Uriah's bed.