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Octavia leaves the Hub in a blur, a speck of black in a sea of red and yellow. She’s not sure she’s seen anything quite so bright in her life. Everyone talks happily around her as they head out to the train, but she stays silent, just watching her new faction.
As they head out to the train platform, she begins to chase after the train. It felt good to run and it was so ingrained in her, that she didn’t know quite what else to do. She’s almost caught up to the train, she does so easily, until she feels someone catch hold of her arm.
Harper gives Octavia a gentle smile, one that is warm and friendly. “You don’t have to do that anymore.” She says calmly, leading Octavia back to the others. She can’t imagine running to catch a train. She doesn’t know if she even could and the idea of missing terrifies her. She feels like it must terrify Octavia too. That it must terrify everyone. That some people can overcome it is amazing to her.
Jasper smiles at her as well, sticking close to Harper’s side, “We usually just, you know, wait for the train. Then get on.”
Octavia stops, staring at the both of them, letting out a breath. She was hyped up there for a moment, excited to be moving, but maybe she was just nervous. “Oh...right. I just...that’s what we usually do.”
“It’s okay. We’re just a lot more laid back here,” Jasper says, as the train slows to a stop and all of the doors open for them. “I’m Jasper, by the way.”
Harper leans into Jasper, kissing his cheek, admiring his kindness and his ability to say what she maybe didn’t say well.
“Yeah, it’s not that we don’t run, we just...take things as they come.” Monty tries to explain, introducing himself too. “Monty. And the train it’s come...”
“I’m Harper.” She introduces, moving to the train, taking Octavia’s hand in hers. “Come. You can sit with us.”
Octavia takes a deep breath and nods. It makes her feel better to have made some friends. At least she hopes they might be able to be her friends. She allows this girl, Harper, to lead her onto the train, sitting down next to her. “So...what can I expect at Amity headquarters?”
Jasper sits down across from them, “Well, it’s outside the gates. But you must already know that. Lots of fields, lots of orchards, green houses. I hope you like farming.”
“It’s very peaceful there,” Harper adds, imagining after being Dauntless, she might need some peace. “We sing and play music and dance. We have art.” She says as if it is a coveted thing. But only people in Amity ever truly become artists, make art. “I like working in the orchards the best.” It is the most free of all the sharp tools, it feels most comfortable for her. “I’m sure you’ll love it. It’s a good purpose, providing everyone with fresh food.”
Monty grins. “And tonight there will be a party. To welcome all of us, all the initiates.”
“Music and dance,” Octavia says with a nod, weighing the words on her tongue. She’s never really had the opportunity to do either. Most of the parties they’ve had at Dauntless just consist of running somewhere and jumping off things. She wonders if she’ll like dancing. She thinks she will.
“Do they have parties in Dauntless?” Jasper asks curiously. He knows technically that once initiates choose, they aren’t supposed to ruminate on their old faction. But they don’t take things too seriously in Amity, so sometimes that rule is bent a little at least at first.
“We do,” she says firmly, “But...not with music and dancing.”
“It’ll be fun,” Monty assures her. “Even if you just watch and hang out. Eat something, drink something. It’ll be fun.”
Harper smiles. “I’m sure you’ll love dancing.” She didn’t really know anyone who didn’t. She especially liked dancing with Jasper. “If not with music and dance...then what did you do at parties?” She asks, curious.
“We would sometimes go running around the city,” Octavia says with a fond smile, “We would climb buildings, jump off buildings. There’s a zip line through the city that we would go to if we wanted some real fun.”
“A zip line?” Jasper asks curiously, and a little disbelievingly - that sounds like a terrifying thing to do. “Like you...hooked up to it and…?”
“And basically flew through the city?” she says with a teasing smile, “Yeah, basically. It feels like flying. It’s...amazing.”
“That sounds amazing,” Monty says, feeling lame for not having a new word of his own, but that is how it sounds, it does sound amazing. To fly through the city. He wonders briefly if he’ll ever experience something like that. But then he looks at his friends. At their smiles. And he’s not sure he cares. It’s peaceful here. It’s easy.
“Flying through the city?” Harper asks in almost disbelief. “Do you see the whole thing from up there?” It’s an exciting idea. And… “I bet it’s beautiful up there at night...looking out, at all the lights…”
She smiles at the memory and nods, “You can see the lights of the buildings in the distance. Most of the buildings in the city aren’t lit up anymore, but they’re still...they look so unbelievable in the moonlight.”
The train eventually stops at the end of the line, somewhere she’s actually never gone before. The rest of them get up to get off and she follows. They’re still in the city, but she doesn’t see any houses or anything. “Where are we going?” she asks, following them towards the fence.
“Trucks,” Jasper answers, reaching out to take Harper’s hand. “We take them when we go in and out of the city.”
Harper grins, trying to imagine it for a while before speaking. She knows the orchards in the moonlight are romantic, the rolling hills, the trees, the flowers, the moonlight, and stars, her body and Jasper’s moving perfectly together. “I bet it’s really romantic up there.” She squeezes Jasper’s hand when he takes hers. Ever since she can remember being with Jasper, they walk hand in hand until they can’t. And he always gets into the trucks first and helps her up. “Don’t you think Jasper? Alone in the moonlight…” She hopes he’s thinking of the same thing that she is and that he thinks it’s romantic too.
Monty good naturedly rolls his eyes when Harper mentions it being romantic. That girl was all about her and Jasper’s love. Or just love in general. Sometimes it’s annoying to be around, to listen to. But she makes Jasper so happy that he never says anything.
“Romantic?” Octavia says, pausing to think, “I never really thought of it as romantic. Just as an adrenaline rush.”
“I think I’d prefer being alone in the moonlight on the solid ground,” he says with a chuckle. Jasper climbs up onto the truck and holds his hand out to help Harper up, as he always does. And even though he’s sure Octavia is more than capable of climbing up onto the truck herself, he sticks out his hand for her as well. He’s glad to have made friends with her today, but he’s also sure she’s probably just as glad to have met them too.
Octavia gives him a little smile, accepting his hand as she climbs up into the truck, “Thanks.”
Harper bites the inside of her lip to keep from frowning slightly when Jasper helps Octavia into the truck. It makes her nervous that he’s doing these things. Things he never did for her until they were dating. But she tells herself it’s silly. He loves her. And they have plans.
Even still she suddenly feels unsure if she should sit next to Jasper. And she doesn’t like that uncertainty. And it kind of makes her not like Octavia. And she doesn’t like not liking Octavia. While she’s worrying, she tries to assure herself about everything, Octavia sits between Jasper and Monty, leaving the only spot left, across from Jasper. She sits down in the seat and bites the inside of her lip again.
It was a nice thing to do to let Octavia sit with two of the only three friends she had, to not ask for the seat. It was the nice thing to do for her friend. Which made it the right thing to do. When the other girl laughs and says that she thought of it as an adrenaline rush, it makes her feel like she’s laughing at her, making fun of her...and like Jasper agrees.
Monty gives her a smile across the aisle and she smiles back at him, wanting to be happy, as she began to hum softly when someone else began singing to distract herself.
Harper feels like she should be kinder to Octavia, as if the other girl knows what is going on inside of her head. She tries to think of something to say. If she were next to Jasper instead, she’s pretty sure she’d be whispering in his ear right now about sneaking off in the middle of the party. But she’s not, so instead she only has awkward small talk. “The weather is perfect tonight for the initiate ceremony.”
Jasper smiles across at her, nudging his foot against hers, “It is. Nice and warm. Perfect party weather.”
Harper looks up at Jasper when he nudges her foot, giving him a sweet, shy grin, meant to assure him she was okay. “I love when we have our parties on night like these, we don’t have to wear layers, dancing is easier…” She still feels awkward, so awkward.
“And we can stay out all night,” Jasper agrees with Harper. It isn’t the first party they’ve been to, not by a long shot, but he always loves being able to dance with her.
Jasper says they can stay out all night and Harper feels a little bit better. They’ll stay out all night. It feels for a moment like any other day, any other party.
“Is there anything else you guys do? Aside from the party?” Octavia asks. She knows in Dauntless she would have had to go through trials, potentially have been kicked out of her own - her old - faction anyway. She feels grateful that she doesn’t have to do that right now.
Monty jumps in to relieve Harper from having to answer the question. “Not really. We have the party. And then we go over like rules and expectations...mostly meant for outsiders...there are different ways we run our community from others. And then we’ll teach you how to do the work of the land. And that’s it really.”
Octavia nods - that didn’t sound so bad to her. A party to welcome her to her new life, going over the rules before she gets to figure out her work position. “Okay,” she says, though she sounds a little nervous, “I’ve never done any farm work. Obviously. Not sure how good I’ll be at it.”
“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Jasper reassures her, “You’re already strong. That’s the hardest part of the work. Being tiring.”
She nods to Octavia. “Jasper’s right. The hardest part for initiates is usually that it’s pretty tiring. But that probably won’t be a problem for you. You’ll probably excel.”
Monty agrees. “Unless you work in the greenhouses. Not that we don’t do any heavy lifting or anything. But some of that is more engineering.”
“Yeah, Monty’s really smart,” Harper agrees with a small laugh at how into water systems he could get and how into school he was.
Octavia gives them a little smile, shaking her head, “Wouldn’t say I’m very smart. So greenhouse might not be the best place for me.”
“You don’t need to be egghead smart like Monty there to be in the greenhouse. So don’t worry about that,” Jasper says to her.
“Yeah,” Harper agrees,”Some of it is harvesting too. And schedules.” She waves her hand as if it is not important. She doesn’t know much about it. When she’d tried it it had been a lot more rigid than she liked.
Monty laughs. “Well we have to care for the plants the way they need to be cared for, some of that needs a schedule. But we all know you’re not a huge fan of schedules, timing in general…” He teased. Harper sort of ran on her own time.
Harper laughed and blushed a little. “I’m not as bad as I used to be.” As a child she was never anywhere on time. And as an extension neither were her parents for a few years.
Octavia smiles over at Harper, “Is it a really strict place for time?”
“Amity? No.” She shakes her head. As far as she knew it was one of the most forgiving factions and she made it to school and work on time. She just sometimes got distracted or overly excited and made it to other things early and later. “The green house? Yes.”
She nods a bit, thinking, “We’re pretty on time. Usually because people are always yelling at you to be on time, but...you know.” She smiles, mostly to herself, as the trucks eventually stop in front of a large meeting house.
Jasper hops out of the truck first, reaching both hands up to help Harper out, grabbing her by the waist as she jumps out.
Harper laughs softly at Octavia’s words. “Easy to be on time with someone always reminding you.” She jumps out of the truck, into Jasper’s arms. She wraps her own arms around his neck and leans up to kiss him quickly as they’re ushered along.
Monty sees that Jasper is clearly going to be occupied for a minute and how out of sorts Jasper’s helping made Harper earlier, so he reaches up to offer Octavia the same help. “If you need it.”
Octavia jumps down with Monty’s help, though she quickly steps away, nodding. “Thanks,” she says happily, as she follows along with everyone else. It’s not that people were never nice in Dauntless, but it was a lot harder to come by - no one helped you with anything that you shouldn’t be able to do yourself. Could she have jumped off the truck herself? Of course. But it kind of felt good to have someone want to help her out.
They get back to their dorms for initiates. Everyone gets their own room. The returning members have some of their own clothes and possessions waiting for them. And the new members have clothes in their new factions colors waiting for them, as well as a basket of fruit and bread to say welcome. The bread with a slightly higher dose than usual of the medicine they use to keep everyone calm, to get it into their systems.
Octavia heads to her room, a little grateful to have some time to herself. And also for the food left there. She hadn’t eaten at all that morning from her nerves. But the more she ate, the more tired she got, so she fell asleep for awhile on her surprisingly comfortable bed.
When she woke up, she wasn’t sure what time it was, but when she peeked out into the hallway, she assumes the party is happening now. She changes out of her black clothes, into some red jeans and a bright yellow tank top. She looks at herself in the mirror in her room - she’s never seen herself in anything this bright. It takes her a little by surprise. She’s not entirely convinced she likes it, but she thinks she can get used to it.
Monty doesn’t put much effort in, not even changing his clothes before going down the hall, meeting up with Jasper. “Hey dude, ready to party!” They start to head further down the hall. “Oh, and, man, don’t forget to say something nice to Harper about how she looks or whatever tonight.” It felt weird to tell him that, but he didn’t want her getting all weirdly uncomfortable again, especially if Octavia was all decked out too.
“C’mon, man,” Jasper says, trying to look offended, “Of course I’m gonna say she looks pretty. Cause she’s obviously gonna look pretty.”
Monty chuckles at his friend and pats him on the back. “That’s what I love to hear,” he teases his friend about how stupidly in love he is with Harper.
They head outside to the courtyard, which is decked out with a couple hay bales and a table full of food. A band is off to the corner, playing some music as people all around dance. Jasper scans the crowd to find Harper, but she’s the one that sees him first as he only sees her after she rushes towards him. Harper wears a yellow top, tied up, to show her midriff and a long flowing dark red skirt, her hair done up in braids. Apple blossoms woven into them. She goes outside to wait for the others to walk to the party together. She throws herself into his arms, all the weird feelings of earlier forgotten. “Hey.” She kisses him deeply. “You look really nice tonight.” After all this time, she probably doesn’t need to say so, but she always thinks that he looks amazing and she always wants to tell him so. “Monty, dapper as ever,” she teases.
Jasper puts his hands on her sides, kissing her back eagerly. His fingers run over the exposed skin of her midriff and he’s sure she wore her shirt like that on purpose. “You look gorgeous,” he says, smiling down at her. And he really meant it. He always thought she looked pretty, but even more so tonight with her outfit and her hair.
“Thank you,” she says with a slight blush, looking down, her grin growing impossibly wider that he noticed and liked it. She looks back up at Jasper. “What do you want to do first?”
“Are you hungry?” he asks, mostly because he is starving.
Octavia walks out to the courtyard slowly, feeling a little strange, but mostly happy. She feels light and airy - everything feels a little fuzzy, but she thinks it must be because she’s still tired. She looks around to see if she can find her friends, smiling once she sees them. “Hey,” she says lightly.
“Hey,” Harper greets Octavia, pulling her over to them. “We were going to go get something to eat. Are you hungry?”
She nods slowly, looking around at all the people, smiling a little bit to herself, “Mmhmm. I’m so hungry.”
Monty grins and says. “We can show you all the best stuff. I bet there will be apple pie tonight.” He says excitedly.
Harper laughs. “Don’t eat all dessert just because you can.” but she’s looking forward to pie too. But she’s equally looking forward to real food because she feels like she hasn’t eaten all day, probably because of all of the excitement.
She pulls Jasper with her towards the food, making a plate with some of the kabobs and fruit and of course pie.
“Apple pie,” she says softly, as she looks over all the food they have there. It’s not like they didn’t get food in Dauntless, they did, but it never looked quite as appetizing as this food did. She could tell someone cooked this outside, had spent all day preparing this just for them. And she’s never actually had apple pie before.
“Have you ever had it?” Jasper asks, as he puts some kabobs, corn and bread on his plate...along with two slices of pie.
She shakes her head, as she follows, getting much of the same things as them. “For dessert, we would have brownies or cake. But never apple pie.”
They had tons of good food, but Monty had never had brownies or cake. “Are brownies and cake good? If they’re a fraction as good as apple pie…” then he wanted some...sometime. Though he doubted that would happen. Maybe in his next life he’d be brave, Dauntless even.
“Oh, they’re delicious. They’re like...chocolate baked goods. Sometimes, if you get to dinner first, they’ll still be warm,” she says, smiling at the memory. But as she grabs a piece of apple pie, she’s excited to try this as well.
When they’re done eating, Monty asks Octavia. “So, what did you think about the pie?”
Harper laughs softly to herself. Of course he would be worried about the desserts. “Forget the pie. You wanna dance? Give it a shot.” she offers to Octavia.
Octavia opens her mouth to speak - the pie was absolutely delicious, better than anything she’d ever tasted before - but she laughs, looking up to Harper. “Sure. Let’s go dance.” She and Harper head over to the mass of people dancing. She gets swept up in the dancing, everyone else watching her, looking at her encouragingly. It felt so strange, all this kindness, but she had imagined something like this for her life. Something peaceful and happy.
Harper notices that Octavia seems to be taking to all of this pretty well. If she had chosen differently, she would be missing her family and Jasper and Monty so much right now, she’s not sure she’d take well to anything. And she seemed to be enjoying herself. “Having fun?” she asked as her way of asking if she’s happy here. Okay right now, because if she missed her family, her old friends, they could talk about that too. Just because there was a party tonight, didn’t mean they had to party.
“You’re really good at this,” she twirls. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Yeah,” she says breathily over to Harper. She is having fun right now, dancing and eating, partying. She still has her worries, her doubts, but right now she’s having fun with the friends she’s made today. Octavia spins around when Harper does and shrugs, “Never like this before, no. I used to dance in my room alone sometimes.”
She nods as she dances with Octavia. She’s not sure why, but it sounds a little weird to think of someone doing something that isn’t like their faction, alone, in privacy. She’s never once dreamed of studying more than necessary, or fighting a war, or of being more honest, she knows she’s not a large personality, she’s simply kind and meek and mild, not demanding. She’s never wished long to be anything else. Maybe a little braver when she was first talking to Jasper. She just couldn’t imagine a different life. “It seems like maybe you were always a good fit for Amity.”
“Yeah...maybe…” she says, looking a little melancholy as she dances loosely. She wasn’t sure about anything this morning, let alone where she belonged. She hoped she made the right choice...but she didn’t know about always being a good fit here. When she was little, she always imagined being Dauntless, being with her brother, being with Lincoln. It wasn’t until recently that she had begun to feel differently.
Jasper had been watching the girls dance, as he and Monty had gone to get another piece of pie. But he’s finished and he wants to dance with his girlfriend. He squeezes his way onto the dance floor, reaching out to take Harper’s hand, “Want to dance?”
Harper frets a little that she didn’t make Octavia feel better, just worse. “I just meant to help,” she says softly, glad when Jasper interrupts. She looks to Octavia. “Will you be okay?”
“Of course she will be,” Monty says as he approaches them. “It’s not like she’ll be alone.” He holds his hand out to Octavia, in a playful, over the top, sweeping gesture. “Shall we?”
Harper puts her hand into Jaspers. “I would love to.” She had missed him even if it had been a short while, she pressed close to him, wanting to feel that nearness now, and hoping he would take advantage of her bare skin, of being able to touch it while they danced. “I missed you.” she says gently.
Octavia smiles brighter when Monty comes over to dance with her. She was still feeling a little strange, like maybe she didn’t belong as much as she had originally thought, that maybe she was missing out on something, but she can’t deny that she’s made friends today. “Let’s do it,” she says, giving him her hand as they begin to dance.
He grins and twirls her around. “What most people don’t know about me...is that I have mad dancing skills.” He does a few ridiculous dance moves before being serious again and taking her hands in his as they dance.
Octavia laughs happily, letting him spin her around before taking his hands as they dance. “I can clearly see that,” she says with a small smile.
“If you ever feel like you can’t keep up, just let me know, I can slow it down for ya.” He teases her. He pulls her a little closer, but not so close that they’re dancing like Harper and Jasper. “How’s today been for you?” he asks honestly.
“It’s been...interesting,” she tells him honestly. She knows their faction isn’t known for honesty, but she gets the feeling they tell the truth most of the time...since they have no reason to lie. “I had no idea what I was going to do this morning. Now...I’m here.”
“You know, it won’t be that long before you get to see your family. A month or so. And they’ll be here for visiting day,” he says to her. “And it’s not like you’ll never see them again.” It’s not the same as being with them everyday though he’s sure. “And we got your back when they can’t be here.”
Octavia nods, taking a deep breath, feeling the sudden urge to cry. But she holds herself back, not wanting to cry right now, “I’m just gonna miss my brother.” Faction before blood runs through her mind, these people were her family now, but she couldn’t just cut all her feelings from her family now - she’s sure Bellamy isn’t doing that.
He pulls her closer, to comfort her, in a tight hug, almost all dancing gone, other than a little swaying. He can tell she’s upset and that he’s probably a poor substitute for the brother she misses, but he can try. “You two were close?”
“Yeah,” she says, hugging him back tightly. It felt nice to have someone comfort her when she’s upset, instead of telling her to suck it up. “We were really close.”
“I’m sure he misses you too. And like I said. Visiting day is soon. And we have pie.” he jokes. “Can’t be sad when there’s pie.” He rubs her back lightly. “You’re okay here.” He promises her.
Octavia laughs a little sadly, nodding, “That pie was pretty great.” She leans against him heavily, nodding, “Thank you.” It does make her feel better, that she made friends here, that they seem to actually care about her.
Monty holds her tighter wanting to chase away all of her sad thoughts. “Not a problem. What else are friends for?”
“I’m not entirely sure what Amity friends are for,” she says and it’s pretty true. Her friends in Dauntless would be understanding, but tell her to let it go, suck it up, go jump off something to make herself feel better. Sadness was weakness and you didn’t want to be weak.
Jasper runs his hands over Harper’s sides, down to her hips as they dance. His fingers run over her exposed skin, as he pushes her shirt up slightly to let his hand rest fully on the skin of her back, pulling her close, “I missed you too.” He answers her,” “For, like...10 minutes max.”
She laughs airily at how he says it was for 10 minutes max. She knew they hadn’t been apart long, but they had been apart. And after the weirdness of earlier, she didn’t want a lot of apart with him. His hands moved over her skin, one hand moving to her back to splay across her bare skin, pressing her closer. Her eyes slip closed a little as she rests her head on his chest, holding him close. “I love it when you touch me.” And she did, even when he was just holding her hand, or playing footsie with her at dinner, it was a feeling of love and exhilaration and she couldn’t get enough of it.
“I love touching you,” he says quietly to her, grinning cheekily. He was hoping they might be able to do some more touching later. He’d been imagining their night after the party for a couple weeks now, now that they’re officially in it together.
It always felt so comfortable and warm and amazing when he said things like that. She takes the hand that isn’t holding onto her, pressing warm and secure against her back and interlaces their fingers. “I love touching you too,” she said, glad she was pressed to his chest because otherwise he might see her blush at her other connotations. Her eyes dart up to look at him and she sees his grin. “What’s that grin for?”
“Just imagining what we have in store later,” he says with a cheeky grin.
She smiles when he mentions tonight. “I know. I’ve been thinking about it too.” She pauses for a moment before continuing. “More than just immediate later. Now that we’ve done it. Made our choice. There’s nothing stopping us from being forever.” Like they’d been talking about for months.
“Exactly,” he says happily, thinking about more than just tonight now. “We can get married whenever we want now.” He dances a little slower with her, still holding her close.
She looks up at him curiously. She doesn’t want to sound too eager. But she would do it tonight if he wanted. “When do you think you would want to?”
He shrugs a bit, “Next couple weeks? When we can arrange it with our families?”
She smiles happily. It’ll give them some time to talk to their families to make some plans. But she wasn’t worried about what anyone wore or what it looked like or who showed up so long as Jasper did. “That sounds perfect.” She leans up to kiss him again, excited to be starting the rest of her life, with him.
Jasper kisses her back gently, “Perfect.” He pulls her back close to him, dancing much slower with her than the music is being played.
She doesn’t even care that they’re swaying slowly, while the music is fast, she just cares that she gets to be close to him. She gives him a cheeky grin of her own before saying. “Now looks like it might be a good time to slip away…”