Waiting Four You

Chapter Tris (Beatrice)

Zeke looks between the old guy and Tobias. "Grandpa James," he sounds confused. "You and Four look a lot alike."

James sighs beside me, and even though he looks a lot like Marcus, he seems a lot kinder just by looking at his demeanor.

"Perhaps it is time for a little lesson on our family."

"It's visiting day, Dad," the woman says. "Can this at least wait until after we've had dinner?"

"Of course, Hana. This is your home."

Over the course of dinner, I look between Tobias and James seeing a sad look in James's face and a fearful one on Tobias's. Hana had prepared a simple meal for mom and I, but Tobias kept sliding bits of his food onto my plate figuring that I would want to try Dauntless food. At the end she served a sweet food that they called Dauntless cake, and apparently mom couldn't resist the allure of the chocolate because she took a slice for herself and passed one to me.

"Thank you, Hana, for at least trying to give me what I'm supposed to have," my mom says to Zeke's mom. "But you should have known that I wouldn't be able to resist this."

Hana laughs, "I had hoped as much. If you didn't take some, I would have wondered if you were the same Natalie I knew from my childhood."

Mom nods, and James looks to Hana as if asking for permission to speak.

"Go ahead, Dad. I know you've been anxious to talk to him."

"Four," he begins with a wavering voice, "did you ever wonder about your father. Ever wonder if he was born Abnegation?"

Tobias nods beside me and James continues.

"When I was sixteen, I met a woman who I fell deeply in love with. She was my everything until Marcus was born."

Tobias shivers at the mention of his father's name.

"He became my heart and soul in a way that his mother never could be, and she grew jealous of how much more my son meant to me than she did. By the time he turned two, she had practically gone insane and started to beat me. Until the day she became pregnant again. This time it was a daughter, and your father loved his sister more than anything."

James pauses and takes a deep shakey breath. "After Jasmine was born, my wife got worse, but she never hurt the children. By then I had become one of Dauntless's five leaders, and we had a friend of mine watch Marcus and Jasmine while both of us worked. The day before Jasmine turned one year old, she left work early and dismissed my friend saying that she would take care of her own children. I came home that night to find both of them covered in bruises. I rushed them to the hospital as Jasmine was gasping for breath, and asked Marcus to stay with his sister while I ran back home for a moment."

"All that time I had been afraid of that woman and what she would do to me, but I never expected her to hurt them. What she had done angered me so much that what fear I had only fueled my rage. I threw her in the Chasm that night before rushing back to my children, but for Jasmine, I had gotten home too late. She took her last breath just before I arrived. The doctors were trying to remove Marcus from the hospital room so that he wouldn't have to look at his sister's beaten corpse, but he was fighting them tooth and nail."

"Eventually I remarried Hana's mother who had been made a widow and helped her raise Hana as if she were my own. When Marcus chose Abnegation, I was heartbroken, but I still came to visit him understanding that he could never truly forget the image of his baby sister and perhaps thought that if he spent his life caring for others that it might give meaning back to his life. A meaning that in his eyes had been lost when he was six years old and couldn't even protect his little sister."

"The proudest day of my life, though was the day he brought you here. You were about eight or nine months old, and he looked so proud that visiting day introducing me to my frist grandson."

Tobias looks at me like he has just seen a ghost. I doubt Marcus ever even told him about his grandfather  and why would he since you're not really supposed to talk about your old faction.

"You have family here," mom looks to Tobias.

"Did you know?" he asks her.

Mom sighs, "Yes, but I always thought Marcus had told you, but then again, I didn't know what he was doing to you until Beatrice told me the night before you chose."

"What do you mean?" James asks looking to Tobias. I'm sure he noticed the tone the mom used when she made the last part of her comment. "What did my son do to you, Tobias?"