Just to address some reviews about how Avery and Eric's relationship still isn't 'legal' as she still isn't a member of Dauntless, while this is true I haven't based the illegality of their relationship over the fact she isn't a member, as there is no member-initiate relationship law in my version of Divergent. The problem was that in physical, Eric ranked the initiates himself on his own opinion of how good they were. Now in mental stage rankings are based on their times in simulation, which is not influenced by Eric's opinion, so his bias to her wouldn't be a problem with Dauntless leadership. Hope this clarifies them being able to 'be together' although I agree if their relationship were to become public now, there would still be a lot of disapproval...anyway, here's another chapter!

"Avery!" I shoot out of my seat and end up collapsed on the floor, and all of a sudden, I realise I can feel my hands, I can move my body, I can see.

My breathing is still through the roof, and as Four kneels next to me, securing his hands on my shoulders to steady me, I have the strength of mind to look into his eyes.

"What the fuck happened?" I ask, my thoughts completely incoherent. It was a simulation… a simulation. Initiation. Mental Stage. Dauntless.

"It's alright, you're back here. It was a simulation." Four says steadily, and the shock of his dark blue eyes bore into me. He's panicked too.

"What happened? Did I calm down?" I ask confusedly. The only thing I can remember is thinking I was falling.

"Can you stand?" Four asks, ignoring my question. I nod lightly, and press against my feet, but they wobble, and I only get up with Four's help.

"Come on." He says, leading me out a different door to the one I came in.

We are back in the corridors of Dauntless, but I don't recognise it, until we take a few turns and are back into the populated areas.

"Where are we going?" I ask him, as he keeps a supporting hand under my arm, pulling me onwards. Did he do this to all the initiates? It's taking a while to get wherever he's taking me, and the other initiates were never gone for much longer that a quarter of an hour. "How long was I in there for?"

I had no concept of time in there… It could have been a few minutes, although it felt like…

Four looks at me momentarily, his eyes hard as he once again ignores my question. I finally recognise the pattern of corridors he's taking me through.

"The infirmary?" I question softly, and sure enough we turn the corner and we are walking into the fairly empty infirmary. Around the corner I catch Jen's eye, and she frowns and hurries over.

"What are you doing here, its mental stage now right?" Jen says shaking her head at me, although she still greets me with a smile.

"She needs a check-up." Four says, his voice hard, and as Jen meets his eye her face frowns confusedly.

"Alright… follow me." She says, leading us down the white walled corridors and into a small room.

"What exactly does she need? What's happened?"

"Sustained high heart rate and breathing rate." Four says shortly.

"How high, for how long?" Jen asks with her eyebrow quirked as she types things into the computer.

"Averaged around 250 bpm, 40 minutes."

My eyes snap to Four and he refuses to make eye contact, and the only noise in the room is Jen rapidly typing, the keys clicking irritatingly.

"I don't understand." I say softly.

"Neither do I." Four replies.

We stay in silence whilst Jen fusses around me, and before long she's sat back in her chair.

"Well, you're all normal now… I can't say what would've happened if you'd have stayed in simulation for any longer." Jen says.

"Her symptoms at the time I pulled her out were similar to that of cardiac arrest."

"Well that would make sense, which means she really shouldn't be in that state for any longer… 40 minutes you say?" Jen's brow is furrowed. "Make sure you take her out by then next time if necessary."

"I will." Four says, and Jen leaves the room.

"What's the average time?" I ask as soon as Jen leaves the room.

"Around 10 minutes. I've never seen anyone go longer than 15 minutes before though." Four answers.

"But then… how do they get out of it? With no way of calming the heart rate, or changing anything in the simulation-"

"Most people can." Four says. "For instance, if someone's afraid of heights, they'll be standing at the top of a really tall building, and if they jump, or calm their heart rate, they'll leave the simulation. I've never seen anything like yours though, are you afraid of the dark?"

I meet his eyes questioningly.

"No."

"Heights?"

"No."

"Anesthesia?"

"…potentially?" I question. I don't know, I don't remember ever being under anesthesia so how would I know?

Four starts pacing the room uncontrollably.

"Did you have any control over anything you did?"

"None. I couldn't move anything, I couldn't alter my breathing or speak or anything. I thought of calming thoughts and my breathing and heart rate stayed high, I thought of frightening things and my heart rate didn't get any faster." I say. "It doesn't make any sense."

"No. It doesn't." Four says. He meets my eyes. "I don't know why this is happening Avery, but I suggest you keep it quiet. No one will question it; most people will be extremely rattled by their own fears and won't ask. I'm the only one who saw your simulation, so let things lay low until next time, and we'll try to figure out a solution."

I'm about to nod when I remember him.

"What about Eric?" I ask, and I try not to let my eyes, voice or face give anything away.

"It's fine I'll call for you first tomorrow, and I'll make sure I get there first."

"So, you don't think he-" …should know? Of course, Four doesn't, that's what you think- "-he'll find out? How long does mental stage last, if you keep on calling me first, he'll be sure to know something's up."

Four looks extremely unhappy about something.

"It's fine, Eric doesn't hate me, he'll find out eventually so we might as well not make too much of a big deal about it." I say softly.

"But as soon as he knows, it goes straight to the higher ups. The time isn't what I'm worried about, I have no control about that going public, just about the nature of your fear. It's so… unusual. This isn't just a danger to your ranking Avery, this could… And what's more… you don't seem that scared by it."

His eyes rest on me as he finishes his sentence and I look away. Of course, he hit the nail right on its head. Unsettling yes. Out of my comfort zone, yes. Terrifying…

"There was… I was more scared than I've ever been." I tell him. "But when I imagine what ultimate terror feels like, that wouldn't be what I imagine."

The room is silent once more for a few moments as we both observe each other's reaction. What was left unsaid by Four… he said this wouldn't just be a danger to my ranking, but to something more. What's more?

"Eric is extremely likely to find out Four. Whether he tells leadership or not-" I say.

"He will-"

"He won't." I reply. I mean… I'm not actually sure about that. Can I really say he would put me before his work? I have no idea how 'dangerous' this is as four put it, and yes, he's made it clear he cares about me, does that mean anything more? I mean it's not like sex changed any of that.

"We don't know that." Four says, his brow furrowed. "Avery, I know he gave you extra training through physical, but that's because he's priming you for a high-level Dauntless position. If this is enough to change his mind about that… I think it is."

"We just have to hope next time it's a simulation you can get out of." Four says.

"Huh?"

"The simulation changes, it sifts through all your different fears. Hopefully your other ones won't be like this one, and then Eric can see those and won't get suspicious." Four says tiredly, and I nod.

"Well, we have our game plan. I should go and find the others." I say, and Four opens the door.

"Remember what I said, keep it quiet." Four tells me as we part ways outside the infirmary.

12321

I meant to try and find the others.

The others being Lily, Jay, and I guess Ben too, and then maybe also Leon and Mark. But there was almost no sign of them.

I went back to the dorms, and the atmosphere was stifling. Someone was under the covers, sniffling and sobbing quietly, despite how at least an hour must have passed since they got out. I went to the Pit, expecting to see a few initiates eating their terrors away, and although I did, none of them were ones I wanted.

So now I find myself at the training room, where I would most likely be, letting out some pent out stress after facing a fear, and finally come across familiar faces.

"Fuck, I'm out." It's Leon who's giving out, pinned into a hold by Mark, both sweating from their intense spar. The usually light-hearted and joking duo have an unusual seriousness in their eyes as I get closer, and although Leon still tries to have a smile on his face, its obvious Mark has given up all pretences.

After taking a sip of his water bottle, he puts it back down on the floor, but not a moment passes before he's kicked it in anger, the metal clanging slightly as it bounces and skids to the side.

"Need a spar?" My voice is quiet, but firm enough in the ominous room that I'm easily heard, and I meet Mark's eyes. There's a desperate hunger in his eyes that I haven't seen before, even when we were fighting each other for top spot. He nods simply and moves back onto the mats, and I crouch to take off my boots and socks, impractical for fighting, and then also my thick jumper leaving me in a sports bra and black high-waisted jeans. Still not ideal, but it'll have to do.

I pull my hair up into a ponytail as I walk onto the mat, and as soon as my hands leave my hair I am tackled to the floor.

When I remember my fight with Mark, he was all close and physical, trying to get in my face to secure me in a hold so he could do some serious damage.

He hasn't lost any of the physical, up close and personal approach, but instead of the thoroughly thought out grabs and reaches, its an intense frenzy of attacks, unrelentless.

Immediately I'm forced to block with my arms due to the speed of his attacks, and I quickly move into more high-speed blocking tactics. Realistically, this spar's only purpose is to let out energy, so instead of dodging and ducking out of the way, I take as many of Mark's hits as I can, and dish out as much as I can too.

Finally, as he runs towards me ready to push me to the ground and pin me, I swing a fast leg up to his shoulder, knocking him backwards before putting in a harsh blow to his ankle and shoving him backwards with all my strength. Whilst it's successful in putting him completely off balance and he stumbles far backwards, our difference in mass surprises me and I'm pushed back, my feet sliding against the mat until I end up on the cold concrete floor. We're sweating heavily, and completely exhausted, and Mark finally drops to the floor, lying on his back panting.

Leon comes over to me, offering me water, and as I take it he moves over to sit by Mark on the mat.

"Insects. I had millions of these tiny ant-like insects crawling up my body, eating me alive as I was chained to a chair." Leon says quietly, his shoulder's shuddering as the memory crosses his mind. There's silence for a while, and although I know Four said to keep it quiet, I'm sure I can reveal something.

"Darkness." I say simply, and Leon meets my eyes and nods. It's quiet once again, and although it's obvious we are waiting for Mark to reveal his fear, there's another feeling, of support, of how this is almost a shared experience.

"I saw my sister drowning." Mark's voice is empty, and I realise it's the first thing I've heard him say since I entered the room.

The growing silence in the room feels like its eating us alive and I'm terribly aware of the noise I make, sitting down next to Mark just as he sits up.

"I knew we'd be facing fears… I just didn't expect that." Mark's voice shakes slightly, and it seems so ironic. The day after it feels like we're the strongest in the world, we've gotten through the physical training and all come out in the top rankings, we're knocked down to this reality.

"It was some sick person who thought this up." I say, and Leon chuckles at me.

"Well there are a lot of sick people in Dauntless." Leon grins slightly, and the corners of Mark's lips raise. "Oh yeah, I saw Lily and Jay go off somewhere together before we came here, it looked like they were heading to the Pit?"

"Ah… they weren't there but it's fine, I wouldn't want to interrupt them." I say softly.

"So that's properly happening now… took them long enough!" Leon says and I roll my eyes.

"Try spending half your time with them it was sickening how obliviously stubborn they were." I mutter.

"So, you and Ben…?" Mark questions, a small grin finding his face. My eyes snap to him with a sharp glare.

"Not a chance in hell, I've told you before."

"I'm just saying, it's not exactly a nice thing, but Beth is gone now…" Mark says with a slight shrug.

"So now he'll know his rejection was nothing to do with Beth, and everything to do with him."

"Ouch! I almost feel sorry for the guy. Wanna go get some food?" Leon says, and the three of us walk comfortably out of the training room, joking about like nothing had happened.

12321

"Avery!" As Mark, Leon and I are digging into some well-deserved Dauntless cake, a light voice calls my name and sure enough Lily is jogging over, closely followed by Jay.

"Hey guys… is everyone okay?" Lily asks slowly, looking around at each of our faces. Leon is smiling cheerily as usual, my face is passive as usual, although Mark's expression still has a tightness to it.

"We're in one piece." I answer and she sits next to me, Jay sitting next to Mark. "How long has it been since you got out?"

"Ah, about 4 hours? When did you get called?" Lily replies, as I pass Jay my fork after he'd looked at me expectantly.

"Second last. They didn't do it in any order, or at least nothing I observed." I say.

"That's weird, I mean I'd expect first-ranked to last or vice versa." Jay says, his mouth half stuffed with cake. Out of the corner of my eye I see lily smile fondly at him. I hope I'm not going to have to endure too much PDA.

"To me it just looked like whoever Four and Eric liked the look of. Although I wish I would've had Eric instead." Leon says shrugging.

"What? Why would you want Eric to see your fears, omg he was 10 times more terrifying up close." Lily says frowning. Mark and Leon looked at each other and then back to Lily like she was crazy.

"No no no, I'd have Eric, at least he has a more normal number of fears." Leon says.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Lily asks.

"Oh my god. That's why…" I trail off.

"Huh?"

"It's how Four got his name. The number of fears he has." I say, and Mark and Leon nod.

"No one underage is supposed to hear anything about initiation obviously, but when Four came through as first-ranked, the whole compound was buzzing." Mark tells us.

"So how many is normal?" Jay asks, now finished with the cake.

"I mean, Kray's older brother has 13, and that's supposed to be average." Mark says.

"Yikes… I'd still prefer Four though. I wouldn't be surprised if Eric came up as one of my fears…" Lily trails off, laughing nervously.

We chat aimlessly for a little, and I add to the conversation every once and a while, until I feel a chill down my spine. Eyes on me.

It's less than a second before my eyes find his, almost boring into me from his seat with the other leaders. He quirks his eyebrow at me, and I realise he's trying to ask me how I am.

I smile back lightly, before Lily draws me back to the conversation.

My mind trails off, and I realise I have an actual dilemma on my hands.

I trust Four, and I trust his words when he said my fear was dangerous, what the serum did to me was dangerous. But he doesn't have a clue about Eric and I's relationship.

There's something in me, pulling me to get up right now and run over to Eric, curl myself under his big arms and ask him what to do. And yet, I'm feeling a painful headache coming on, as if my brain is yelling at me to keep this secret.

"Avery? You want to go shopping with me?"

Lily pulls me out of my thought train, and I blink slightly, rubbing my temples to try and lessen my headache.

"Sure, let's go."

As soon as we're out of the Pit, and away from the boys, Lily's arms link mine and she drags me through the hallways.

"Did you have a nice time with Jay?" I ask, breaking the tension I know she's feeling.

"Yeah… I did." She says, blushing. "We just talked about stuff. He made me feel a lot better about everything that's happened yesterday and this morning… what a nightmare its been." She says. As we reach our go-to clothing store she pauses outside the door.

"I mean, now I'm the one dragging you out here. I'm going to have to now Beth's gone." She says, with a fake smile.

We wonder in and start browsing.

"How did you find this morning? I mean I know it must be bad, but…" I start the conversation, and she looks back at me with a wry smile.

"It was horrible. I had cuts all over my body and they just wouldn't stop bleeding. I mean I knew I had a problem with seeing lots of blood, remember when back home, Adam cut his arm whilst cutting the crops? I was terrified then, and I was terrified this morning… it was just so much. But I guess it wasn't too much of a surprise, I knew I was afraid of blood." Lily says softly, moving through the railings.

"Jay had a massive spider." She says chuckling. "He said he knows it's a stupid fear, but he can't help it."

"Well that's true. We can't choose what we fear. Plus since it's a simulation, it can be completely unrealistic, or something we've actually experienced." I say.

"What… what about you?" Lily asks slightly apprehensively.

"Darkness. There just wasn't anything there." I say simply.

"Really? I'm surprised, since you sneak out at night so much, plus you did so well in paintballing." Lily says, and I stiffen slightly. I should've thought this through a little better.

"Yeah, but there's always some light, some indication of direction and your surroundings. This was just… nothing." I trail off, the memory of the simulation making me frown.

Lily stays quiet for a little.

"I guess we just to hope they get easier. I don't know if I can get through 13, like Mark said." Lily says worriedly.

"Then you can be the next Four." I say teasingly, and she rolls her eyes at me. "Come on, changing rooms?"

We leave the shops with a few bags in hand, mostly full of clothes for outside of training now we knew we'd be spending a lot less time in the training rooms.

"Come on we can go and unpack this stuff in the dorms." Lily says, and I skip a step. Eric made it clear this morning he expected me to stay with him permanently, and although I wholeheartedly want to spend every night in his bed, I have no way of getting out of not having clothes in the dorm, and I have no desire to tell Lily about my oh so secret boyfriend. I mean for heaven's sake she was saying how he'd probably be in one of his fears a few hours ago, how could I just tell her I've just slept with him and he wants me to move in?!

"It's weird I feel like you haven't been in the dorms for ages apart from to sleep." Lily says.

"You know I sleep very little, I'm usually in and out after and before you're awake." I say, and she rolls her eyes.

"You may want to stay around more, now that most people don't stay around. Everyone apart from our lot took after you and we rarely see them around anymore." Lily says, and my eyebrows raise surprised slightly.

"Well, apparently initiates make themselves scares now we've started mental stage. I didn't understand what they meant before but now we know about facing fears it makes sense everyone would want to spend a little more time alone." I say, imparting to her the knowledge Eric gave me this morning.

"Alone? I'd hate to be alone right now, I'd need at least you or Jay around!" Lily says with a pained laugh as we round the corner to the dorms, and sure enough Jay and Ben are chatting inside.

"I mean, stage 2 and 3 are only meant to take a couple of months, right? So, assuming we all make it through we'll be in apartments soon enough rather than these stuffy dorms." I say.

"Aw yeah an apartment! Guys we have to room together it would be awesome! That'll get me through initiation, just imagine a nice new snazzy apartment…" Jay trails off and I chuckle slightly.

"You're going to need more than that!" I mock, but he's lost in his own thoughts.

"We can definitely share though! I doubt any of us will have enough points for anything fancy but if we split...?" Lily suggests, moving to sit down next to Jay.

"That's chill with me, I mean I hadn't really thought about it…" Ben says, scratching the back of his head.

"Most people tend to group together with people with similar jobs and rankings, because of the income difference if we pass initiation." I say. "Leon was talking about it a few days ago."

"Oh…well I guess that kind of rules me rooming with you guys…" Lily mumbles.

"Lily I'll room with you no matter what." Jay says putting his arm around her and kissing her cheek and she lightens up.

"Avery, we'll have to keep clear of their sap…" Ben says giving me a cheeky smile and my eyebrows raise.

"Actually, I think I'll try and find some roomies who won't wake me up in the middle of the night." I say shortly, and Lily blinks slightly as Jay blushes for the first time since I've met him, and Ben chokes on his laughter.

"Huh? What do you…" Lily trails of as she finally puts two and two together. "Avery!" She jumps to her feet and I quickly grab my bags as she runs after me as I sprint out the room.

I hear her footsteps stop well before I stop running, and I start making my way to Eric's.

It's going to be harder than I thought to keep up this secret from them. Telling them would be the obvious option, but the more I think about it the more I worry about Lily's reaction, not to mention Jay's. The Dauntless-born seem alright with Eric, but quite obviously all the transfers seem a lot more wary of him.

"I was wondering when I'd catch you." I look up as I hear a familiar voice and smile as Eric holds the door to his apartment open, having just opened it as I turned the corner. Before I get anywhere near inside, he wraps an arm around my waist and presses his lips against mine, kissing me and pulling me into the apartment.

His enthusiasm makes me laugh and smile into the kiss, pulling away for air as he looks into my eyes.

"How was your day?" He asks, pulling me flush against him whilst tangling his other hand through my hair. "What was your fear? How do you feel?"

As I hold his gaze, I realise this is when I can tell him, this is when I tell him I was in there for 40 minutes and I still couldn't get out, and that Four has no idea what kind of fear mine was and he's extremely worried. This is when I tell him I'm confused because what the simulation showed me, it was scary, it should scare me, I know I should be scared… but it barely affected me. The only thing that shook me was that I couldn't get out of it when everyone else could. That I couldn't do something. This is when I trust him.

"It was darkness, not too much of a problem… I wasn't expecting a simulation though." I say lightly. "You do a good job of thinking of interesting ways to test us initiates. How was your day?"

I trust my words, but as our eyes hold, I don't know whether my own betray the truth.

I curl my arms around his neck and thread my fingers through his hair and peck him on the lips.

"Very unproductive, I was struggling to get some images out of my mind. Were you expecting the dark to be a fear of yours?" He asks as I pepper kisses down his neck, nudging the collar of his t-shirt down.

"I wasn't surprised it was a fear of mine, no. What I am surprised about is why you want to talk about what has happened today…" I trail off as my hands move to unbuckle his belt, pulling the zipper down and parting his trousers. "…when we can not talk about what I'm about to do now."

I let myself drop down to my knees, my lips hovering in front of his boxers, eyes looking up into his, darkening every second.

I cannot wait, till the start of next chapter… Oh I get more disappointed with myself everytime I write one of these ffs I should just not make any promises about my updating habits. It's already been 2 months for heavens sake, so I'm going to stop apologising now and just get on with it. Anyway, a couple of main themes introduced this chapter, sorry that there's not much Eric action apart from this little ending nugget, but I can promise some next chapter… I hope Avery's fear creates enough mystery for the story, I can promise you it will not go where you think it will! I hope this chapter's been enjoyable, read and review as always!