Work Text:
She can't keep up. They are running out ahead of Tris down the train tracks, her mother, her father, Will—all the people she cannot save.
"Wait, please!" she cries. Her feet pound harder, her breath comes sharp and painful in her chest, ragged down her throat, and her heartbeat feels loud enough to hear. "Wait!"
She hears the bursts of gunfire and bright red dots of blood blooming on their shirts and screams and screams and...
"Tris."
Strong hands are shaking her shoulders. She opens her eyes to Four's face and tries desperately to catch her breath.
"I was running," she tells him, "and I couldn't catch up. I couldn't save them."
He draws her against him. "Breathe when I breathe," he tells her, like she told him in the fear simulation.
Tris obeys, drawing breath when he inhales, breathing out on his exhales. She buries her face in his chest and wills herself not to cry. She lost so many people, so fast, and night at the Amity compound feels foreign, another loss upon the rest.
In and out, Four's thumb tracing over her jaw. Stop thinking, Tris, she tells herself.
For a long, long time, they just breathe.