So I've been away for a while. Haven't been in a writing mood. It happens. I know people want more for my other stories, especially "Killing Four," and those updates are coming, I promise. I haven't abandoned them. In the meantime, you get Marcus instead. And a whole lot of Natalie! One of the longest chapters I've ever written. Hope you like Tris's badass 16 year old mom.

If you read, PLEASE review. I know this story isn't exactly the whipped cream and cherry on top of a delicious sugary Fourtris sundae, but I appreciate each and every review. They are the only thing that keeps me writing. Love to all, and thanks for reading.

peace,

~wk

The Abnegation houses were dull, squat, and dreary – the inanimate equivalent of the chubby, quiet, mousy girl that no one ever notices at school. The people seemed lanky and drawn, swamped in loose grey fabric. They smiled at Marcus as he walked into his new faction's headquarters for the first time, but their smiles were tight-lipped and formal, their faces gaunt above their high collars.

Maybe it was the food. He had heard bad things about the food.

The initiates filed into the center of the meeting room, and for the first time, Marcus looked at the other teenagers who had made the same choice. Even without looking at the color of their clothes, it was easy to tell who the Abnegation-born were – they seemed content, serene, at ease with their surroundings. The transfers were another story. There were just five of them, including him – two lookalike Amity boys with untidy brown hair, a tall, dark-eyed Erudite girl, and a slim blonde girl from Dauntless, tugging her sleeves down over the edge of a tattoo. He was the only Candor.

He guessed he had the same expression as most of them – trepidation coupled with very un-Stiff-like curiosity. Everyone except for the Dauntless girl. She was staring towards her feet, her head slightly bowed like the members behind her. Her face was a placid mask, except for her eyes. They were a clear green, piercing, and desperately sad, as if she was standing there watching someone die – the person she used to be, the family she left behind.

Marcus scowled. He wasn't going to comfort her. Unlike him, at least the girl knew who she was this morning. At least she had something to mourn.

"Welcome to Abnegation."

The deep, commanding voice was familiar. Arthur Locke spoke from a bench towards the back of the room, choosing not to stand in front of his fellow members.

"We salute you for your choice, to forget yourself and think of others, to embrace community and service."

The room was filled with the sound of quiet applause, the small smiles of the members genuine, warming the stark space that surrounded them. The initiates felt their hearts lift a little. They had found a place to belong.

"You may have heard that our initiation is easy, that the selfless never reject anyone. What you've heard is true. The bulk of Abnegation initiation consists of community service. We won't quiz you, interrogate you, beat you, or drug you. We will guide you, and we will help you. We will teach you our deepest held values - how to turn away from your own needs, to rely on each other, and to project always outward, until the self disappears."

The members murmured the last words of Arthur's speech with him – the final line of the Abnegation manifesto. Even Marcus had to admit the idea was rather beautiful. If only people really acted that way.

"This will not be easy," Arthur continued. "In fact, the next thirty days will be some of the most difficult of your young lives."

The Abnegation-born nodded their acceptance, but the transfers looked sideways at each other. They had expected to have trouble adjusting to life here, to the plain food, to the quiet, to the constant emphasis on others. But none of them had thought that initiation itself would be hard.

The council leader finally stood, his eyes roaming over each of them.

"To lose yourself you first must find yourself," Arthur said, his eyes landing on Marcus, still in black and white.

It was so quiet you could hear each initiate's sudden shallow breathing, as if sucking any more oxygen out of the room would be too selfish.

"Be warned. You may not like what you discover."

The young man who led them to their dormitories walked with easy confidence, his gaze more direct than the other members. He looked familiar.

"Learning how to be selfless is a lifelong journey. It's my job to help you find the right path. For the next month, I will be your community advisor. My name is Andrew."

Marcus realized how he knew him. This was Jeanine Matthews' former lab partner, the traitor that abandoned her at the altar of her ambition. He sat across from them in physics last year.

"Didn't you transfer from Erudite?" The words flew out of Marcus's mouth before he could stop them.

Andrew glared at him. "Unlike Candor, personal questions are not welcome here. Curiosity can be inconsiderate. Wait to ask until you are invited to do so."

"Sorry."

"It's fine," the older boy said tightly. "You're here to learn. All of you are. Time for your first lesson."

Andrew set them to making beds and folding clothes, dolling out three sets of grey clothes to each of them. Marcus pulled on the loose trousers and jacket, feeling the last shreds of his Candor identity disappear. As he shaved his dark hair short, a small smile crept onto his face. Here he could lie, and no one would ask for the truth. When it came to his past, his present, or his future, this faction was the perfect place to hide.

In the cafeteria, the transfers huddled together. The place seemed unnaturally quiet, a meal of polite murmurs and soft laughter. To Marcus, it came as a relief - Candor dinners usually resulted in heated arguments, over politics, the food, even the weather. The blonde from Dauntless looked less happy.

"I don't know how I'm going to survive without coffee," she said, plopping her plate down loudly. A man at the next table frowned at the noise.

"Maybe if you pretend to go through extreme caffeine withdrawal, they will selflessly steal you some."

"I'll keep that in mind," she grinned. "I'm Natalie."

"Marcus."

Natalie started to offer him her hand, but stopped halfway, remembering. She finally gave Marcus an awkward nod.

"It's ok, Dauntless," said the sharp-eyed former Erudite girl from across the table. "He still remembers how to shake hands." She stuck hers out and Marcus shook it. "My name is Evelyn."

He looked the two girls over. Both had shed the clothing of their former factions, and pulled their hair into tight buns. Natalie had washed off her heavy eye makeup and removed her jewelry; he could see the tiny holes that ringed her earlobes. Without her combat boots and tight shirt she looked softer, prettier – there was understated beauty in her new simplicity. But the set of her jaw betrayed her. This girl was a fighter. She cared, too much, about too many things. More than he ever would.

Evelyn was more of a watcher. Her eyes were observant and wary, her body tall and angular. She still seemed suspicious of her surroundings, an attitude Marcus understood all too well. In an odd way, it made him more inclined to trust her.

"Speaking of withdrawal…" she said, jerking her head towards the Amity twins at the end of the table. They were looking more and more depressed as the meal went on, poking at the canned green beans and tasteless meatloaf. One of them picked up a roll and looked at it sadly. "I think the bread here is missing a few ingredients."

Marcus snorted, holding back a laugh. The Abnegation-born initiate to her left tightened her lips at Evelyn's mocking tone. She slid down the bench and joined the brothers, launching into a story about trying new recipes when she bakes treats for the factionless.

"Thank you Cherise," Andrew murmured from behind her. He stopped and turned to Marcus, Evelyn, and Natalie. He stared at them reproachfully, saying nothing until all three of them were staring at their shoes in shame.

"Guilt," he said softly, "is a tool here, not a weapon."

Marcus snuck a look at Natalie and Evelyn. Both of them looked like they wanted to fall through the floor. Unlike him, maybe they actually cared. He tried to compose his features into something resembling regret.

Andrew nodded at him. "Learn how to use it, to remind you to do better next time."

At first, the work was easy – days filled with service projects and community bonding. The initiates fell into a pattern, learning to help before being asked, cleaning before things got dirty, a tranquil world of dreamy predictability. Then Marcus started to notice how the elders were challenging them.

Evelyn was the first to crack. She had been assigned to a group home for the mentally disabled, an overcrowded hive of abandoned faction rejects that only the Abnegation cared for. Her Erudite arrogance bled out of her day by day, but not fast enough to keep her from yelling at a particularly stubborn patient that he was an idiot who should have never been born. She learned how to harness plenty of guilt that day.

James and Doris were sent to Amity to pack up greenhouse fruit for the Erudite, a winter luxury they weren't allowed to have. Despite their placid Abnegation-born expressions, they came home seething with barely controlled indignation at their rival faction's insistence on indulgence. They had the front row shame seats at that night's lecture on acceptance.

The Amity twins, Tucker and Finn, were sent to volunteer at the Candor prison, to teach art and literacy classes to the worst inmates in the city, a firsthand brush with the reality of violence. Every night, Marcus could hear them sobbing in their sleep. After a week, Tucker refused to go back. He got into a shouting match with his brother, who begged him to reconsider, that initiation would end soon, that this was just part of learning what they could take. Without the Amity bread to hold him back, Tucker punched Finn in the face. Marcus pulled him off of his twin and handed him to Andrew, who said he would take him somewhere to cool off.

That's when he disappeared.

Marcus got a new assignment the next day.

"I need you to distribute some donations," Andrew told him, handing him a list of locations. He walked out of the dorm and motioned for Marcus to follow, heading toward the warehouse where the Abnegation stored the canned food, clothing, and medical supplies they gathered for the factionless.

Marcus looked the list over as they walked. They were all street corners in the Fringe, the no man's land between the factionless zones and the Candor sector on the south side of the city. A place he had been raised to fear – a place beyond the rule of law. These were the streets his father had disappeared into three years ago, drunk and disgraced.

This, then, was his test.

"So I just drop a parcel on each corner?"

"No," said Andrew, "you need to make sure that they get to people who need them."

"Yeah, but the Fringe – " Marcus paused, trying to find a way to question his orders without sounding selfish or afraid.

"Is there a problem?"

"No, but…well, the Erudite and Candor don't go there alone. They take one of the Dauntless police units with them."

Andrew's posture stiffened, and Marcus immediately realized his mistake. He knew next to nothing about his advisor, except this – any mention of his former faction put him on edge.

"Unlike the other factions," he scowled, "we have no reason to be afraid of the people that live there. They know we're there to help them."

Sure, they know we're there to help, thought Marcus. But that doesn't mean they care. If this is how all of the Abnegation thought, they were dangerously naïve. The factionless were desperate, and desperate people typically didn't care about much of anything. He should know.

"Besides," Andrew said, "you won't need a Dauntless police unit. You'll have your own protection force with you."

Marcus's eyebrows rose in shock. If the Abnegation had their own enforcers, he had seen no evidence of it.

"And who would that be?"

They had reached the front doors of the storage warehouse, huge metal slabs of muddy grey. Seated on a bench next to them was a blonde girl, clothes loose on her small frame. Her eyes were closed, her chin tipped up to drink in the weak sunlight.

Andrew smiled.

"Natalie."

His partner walked next to him in silence as Marcus pushed the cart full of clothing and food toward the garbage-strewn streets of the Fringe. Of all the transfers, Natalie was having the least difficulty with initiation, at least so far. When she was sent to volunteer in a rest home, full of the elderly, senile, and disabled – a Dauntless–born's worst nightmare –the residents had fallen in love with her. Judging from the way Andrew looked at her as they were loading supplies, the old folks weren't the only ones who felt that way. Not that she noticed. If she had, it would have been obvious. Unlike most Abnegation, she seemed to do everything with passion instead of reserve. She smiled more, laughed more, and let her anger show on her face. She reminded him of Johanna, the old Johanna, before she was attacked and everything changed.

"So are you armed?" he asked her, grunting a little from the weight of the parcels. He was only half kidding.

Natalie laughed lightly. "Yeah, definitely. With fingernails. I really do need to cut them."

Marcus chuckled at her joke, but inwardly, he fumed. What was Andrew playing at? They were challenging him by sending him here, that was clear. The closer he got to the factionless sector, the more uncomfortable he became. Did they send Natalie with him as a witness to his weaknesses? To tell him that all of his fear and loathing of what he could become was just another version of selfishness?

Whether she was a mole, or just a tool in the leadership's game, this delicate girl was going to weigh him down. When things got bad, he wouldn't be able to abandon her, or lie, or run. Maybe that was the point.

He bit back his frustration. He wasn't going to be honest with her, or anyone else. "In Dauntless, fingernails were probably a deadly weapon," he countered.

"In Dauntless, anything could be a deadly weapon."

"Do you miss it?"

Marcus looked sideways at her. Natalie was chewing on her lip, her eyes a million miles away. They walked a full city block before she replied, so softly that he almost missed it.

"Every day."

She sped up, ending the conversation. Marcus let her go. The next corner was their first destination.

They didn't have to go in search of people to help. The minute they started to unload the first parcel, figures emerged from the building. There were five of them in all, a makeshift family clothed in grimy Amity red and Abnegation grey. They took the food and clothing without a word, retreating behind their largest member, a wrinkled man with faded facial tattoos, armed with a three foot club. He nodded at Marcus, just once, and left the initiates standing on the sidewalk.

"They didn't seem all that thankful," Marcus said dryly, shoving the lighter cart towards the second intersection.

"I wouldn't be either," Natalie snapped. "A few sweaters and cans of soup don't make up for the fact that society doesn't give a shit about them."

He paused, more shocked by the bitterness in her voice than her choice of words. Her mouth was set in a thin line, her eyes brimming with unshed tears, anger and sadness that she struggled to hide. Yes, this girl cared too much. That, or he wasn't the only one that knew someone who had vanished into the ruined parts of the city. Maybe this was Natalie's test, too.

"Um – "

Marcus cleared his throat. He wasn't the comforting type, but he had to start trying to seem selfless sooner or later. It might as well be now.

"Are you…all right?"

A mask descended over Natalie's features, bleeding the emotion from her face. She nodded. Stiffly.

"Yes, thank you. I apologize for my outburst. Let's finish this up, okay?"

He moved forward without a word, letting Natalie lag behind him. They turned onto a wide deserted avenue that ran under the old highway. The buildings on either side were boarded up and crumbling, unmarked by the bomb craters and bullet holes that riddled other parts of the city. This neighborhood had been abandoned even before the End Wars they had learned about in upper levels Faction History. There were wooden crates and old tires piled everywhere – garbage piles, or barricades. The perfect place for an ambush.

Marcus heard the footsteps first, soft squishy sounds that echoed off the concrete pillars, weaving in and out of building walls and vacant lots.

Someone was following them.

He turned back towards Natalie, walking behind him. She paused, her eyes alert, searching among the boxes and trash that littered the street. She stepped towards the supply cart, just as a man darted up behind her.

He was tall, emaciated and filthy, clad in ripped black trousers and a grey hooded sweatshirt so dirty it was hard to tell where sleeves ended and skin began. All they could see was the beak of his nose. But his face wasn't what Marcus was focused on.

The man had a gun aimed at Natalie's head.

Marcus opened his mouth to shout a warning, but nothing came out. He didn't need to say anything. Natalie saw his face and froze instantly, lifting her hands into the air.

"Please, take what you need," she said calmly. "We're here to help people. No strings attached."

The man stepped closer.

"Yeah," Marcus breathed. It was clear the man had nothing to lose - just like the stranger who attacked Johanna Reyes, except that guy was armed with a rusty knife and the lid of a tin can. He was no match for a handgun. "Yeah," he said again, louder. "We have food, clothes – whatever you want."

The man lowered his weapon, ran to the cart, and starting grabbing packages. Marcus stepped back, trying not to breathe in the thief's potent perfume of bad hygiene and stale booze. He didn't even want to look at him, much less smell him.

"One."

Natalie's voice took them both by surprise. Marcus looked up. She was right behind the guy, and she looked furious…and not in the least bit Abnegation.

"What?" the factionless man croaked, turning towards her.

"I said one. You only get one. You selfish bastard."

The man snarled and raised his weapon, but Natalie had already grabbed his arm, forcing it skyward. The gun went off with a blast. The thief stumbled with the recoil, and she used it to her advantage, twisting his arm behind him and bringing her knee into it with a sickening crunch. The gun clattered to the pavement, and the man lunged for her, howling like an animal.

Natalie scooped up the gun, dodged as the man reached for her, and brought the butt of the pistol down on his head. He collapsed to the pavement, knocked senseless.

Marcus stood there frozen, mouth opening and closing like an idiot. "Where did you learn how to do that?" he asked her.

Natalie emptied the clip and stuffed the gun in the back of her loose grey trousers, dropping her jacket over it to conceal it. She handled the weapon almost lovingly, as if she was saying hello to an old friend.

"My mother was a Dauntless leader. I learned young and I learned fast."

He didn't miss the word "was." The Dauntless didn't vote their leaders out of office. Her mother was either dead – or factionless. "You obviously would have aced initiation. So why did you leave?"

The girl looked up sharply, but her expression wasn't accusing or guarded. It was fierce, still Dauntless, telling her story on her own terms.

"I made a promise," she said quietly. "And I became a coward."

Marcus tried not to stare at her. Her answer was pure Abnegation, and pure Dauntless, all at the same time. Arthur had made it clear that he wasn't the only Divergent. Maybe Natalie was another.

She started picking up the scattered clothing and cans, and he joined her. They worked in silence, broken only by the labored breathing of the unconscious man lying near them on the cracked sidewalk.

"Why did you leave Candor?" she asked him after a while. Marcus shot her a look. "Hey, quid pro quo," she laughed. "You ask, I get to ask. Just don't tell Andrew."

"Couldn't take the truth serum. During initiation, they make you take it in front of everybody," he said, for once telling the truth. Sort of.

"Too many secrets you don't want to spill?" she joked, placing the last of the donations back into the cart.

"Not at all," Marcus lied. "I just didn't believe in that much honesty. Plus I always admired the Abnegation. I guess I just decided I'd rather help people than interrogate them."

"You always were a filthy little liar."

The hair rose on the back of his neck. Marcus knew that voice. He thought he would never have to hear it again. He was wrong.

Now he would have to make good on a promise, too.

Natalie looked at the man on the sidewalk. She had belted his hands together, but he was sitting up, his hood down. A small stream of bright red blood was trickling through his thinning dark hair, standing out against the grime of his ruined, sagging face. But it wasn't as bright as his eyes, his deep blue eyes, the same color as the great lake they had only seen in picture books. The same color eyes as the boy who was standing beside her.

"Do you know him?" she asked Marcus.

He turned around.

"Yes, I know him. His name is John Eaton."

Natalie's mouth dropped open.

"My father."