Four/Tobias Eaton Imagines

Identically Driven

Tris does not know what is coming for her.

Some time in the future, she may be able to look back on all that happened and realize what she never did back then. She'll connect the dots with far more clarity than she ever could at the time. Hindsight is always easier to understand than the present moment. Tris cannot be held accountable for that, and neither can you.

At the moment that Beatrice Prior became just Tris, your story had already long since begun. She was still in denial back in Abnegation when you made a decision in your own round of the Choosing Ceremony. She would not have been there to see how it all went down, but you were.

Perhaps she heard about what happened through word of mouth. Most new Dauntless come from Dauntless with the exception of a wayward Candor or two that decide the truth is beneath them. You were an exception, then. When Beatrice heard about the sharp-eyed Erudite girl who dashed her blood into Dauntless' vessel, do you think she thought about it later that night when no one else was watching? Do you think she heard about what you did and realized that she could do it too?

No one will know for sure, none but Tris herself. After what happened, you doubt she would ever be so candid as to let you know. You can guess, though. You can take your time and wonder about what might have gone down in a grayed out faction where a girl heard for the first time that she might be able to have a life outside of endless sacrifice.

There is one story that she most certainly did not hear at the time, however, and this one would hit a little closer to home. At the very moment that Beatrice Prior was wondering what would become of this year's round of transfers, another boy was making waves by switching to Dauntless. He was Abnegation too, and at the moment that he let his blood plummet into Dauntless' bowl, he was as good as dead.

Later, Tris will wonder how she didn't connect Four to the boy she had met before, Tobias Eaton. In truth, it's because every step was taken to ensure that nobody else would. Marcus Eaton's son died the moment he got the chance to leave his old life behind. Tobias Eaton was buried in a shallow grave under the cover of night, left to the mercy of scavengers like time and poor memory to make up his legacy. Abnegation did not want its followers to think that escape was an option, so he was covered up.

Perhaps, then, the only one Beatrice heard about was you. Tobias was simply one in the crowd at that point, nameless and utterly without character. Every single facet of him had disappeared the second he chose to step away from Dauntless. The boy standing by your side in the Dauntless section of the Choosing Ceremony was staring at his bleeding palm and wondering whose history he could end next. He was no one, not until he remade himself again upon entering Dauntless.

Regardless of what Beatrice did or did not think of the two of you at that moment, your future was set in stone. You bid Erudite goodbye and ran out of the city center with the rest of the assembled Dauntless once the Choosing Ceremony was over. You had analyzed your decision over and over in the preceding months, so you had no regrets at the moment. All there was to do was run free and wild in the sun, and let your body think that it could do whatever you asked of it.

Like Tris, you also had to leap from the roof and deal with the aftermath of what you found when you fell. Like Tris, your first encounter with the boy who was once called Tobias Eaton and would later be whispered of as Four was life-changing. You were one of the first jumpers, he was one of the second. It was the two of you in an empty hall, lingering by the edge of the net and watching the graduated Dauntless pace back and forth at the edges of the room. The horizons seemed to shift where the black-suited faction lingered to watch, and in the middle of all of it, you found one point of stability.

Four.

You don't remember what name he gave when he first jumped down, if he even gave a name at all. He didn't seem to use one until he progressed into the fear landscapes and was able to be rewarded with his famous nickname. Perhaps he had gone by Tobias all that time before then, but if he had, it had never seemed real. Tobias was a prop to be discarded at a moment's notice. It suited Four no more than the gray cloth still clinging to his back.