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“You know you shouldn’t trust her.” Tris opened her mouth to argue, but Tori continued over her. “I know you don’t. But I also think that it wouldn’t be that hard for you to get involved with her.”
“”Involved”? What does that mean?”
“It just means you need to be careful. And maybe stop googling her every day.”
“How do you know about that?”
“I didn’t, but you just confirmed it for me.” Tori smiled. “You could just go visit her, see that she’s still evil, and then this whole infatuation will be over hopefully.”
“It’s not, I’m not,” Tris spluttered, and then she sighed. “There’s no way I’m going to go see her.”
“Why not? You don’t even have to go see her in her cell because you got her moved to her own living quarters. You could take over buying her groceries,” Tori teased, smiling.
“Shut up,” she shoved her lightly, smiling despite herself.
She’s drawn back to wandering outside of Jeanine’s building, too far away from anything else for her to have an excuse, and she knows that the only people in there are Jeanine and her guard, that she has no reason to be here but she is. No reason sounds a lot like she’s there because Jeanine drew her there, but also she tries to excuse herself in her head, that she’s just still angry about everything that happened, that she can’t stop thinking about her because she just hates her so much. It sounds like an excuse even within her own head, and it almost feels like she hates Jeanine for that instead, that she hates her for the way she can’t stop thinking about her.
“You disappeared to go stand outside Jeanine’s again, didn’t you?” Tori asks with a smile when she shows up in the hall for dinner, and Tris knows her eye roll is betrayed by her own slight blush.
“When are you going to drop this?”
“When are you going to stop blushing whenever she’s mentioned?”
Tris resolutely plays with her food, not looking at Tori, and doesn’t respond for a few moments, long enough that Tori turns back to her own plate. “I just, I should hate her,” she mutters.
“I know. But you’re going to have to face your feelings at some point, however lame that sounds.”
“I do know that,” she sighed. “I’ve just been putting it off.”
“It’s been a year Tris. Everyone else has forgotten about it, has been obsessing about what everything we’ve learned means, has been trying to fit back into life without factions, and you’ve just been drifting.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” she shrugged. “I can’t stop thinking about everything that happened, and this, this doesn’t feel like a victory.”
“All these other people have forgotten about Jeanine, are taking the time to luxuriate in being able to be reunited with their families, and you barely even talk to Caleb. It’s time to actually make an attempt to fit back in with everyone else, even if that means that you have to actually talk to Jeanine, even if it means you have to talk to her a lot,” she smiled. “Even if that means you embark upon some sort of relationship with her.”
Tris blushed and shook her head. “That’s not - I’m not, like, interested in her.”
“Your blush says otherwise, but okay,” she shrugged. “It’s time for you to actually speak to her.”
“You’re probably right,” she pouted. “Why is it so hard?”
“I don’t have an answer to that.”
A week later and she’s back outside Jeanine’s and she’s been trying to come back since her conversation with Tori, but each time she tries she doesn’t get much further than her own front door, or she ends up somewhere completely different because she doesn’t want to face her yet, doesn’t want to face her ever. She finally walks up the stairs, nods to the guard who doesn’t stop her but nods back, doesn’t even look surprised, and she wonders for a moment who else knows about the year she’s spent thinking about this woman that’s responsible for so much pain. She knocks, then she opens the door. Jeanine is the same as how she remembers her, but her hair’s longer. She’s even wearing a variation on the dress that she was wearing when Tris last saw her.
“I would have thought if you’d come to get revenge you’d have been here much earlier than this.”
“You don’t sound surprised.” Tris shuts the door behind her but doesn’t move further into the room, just warily watches as Jeanine sets her datapad down and stands, coming to her full height (which is added to by the heels she’s wearing even though Tris doubts she gets many visitors), and moves closer to Tris, but still leaves a gap between them, heels clicking on the hard wooden floor.
“I had expected you’d have done the same as Evelyn, who appeared in my cell with a gun not long after I was put there. If anything I’m surprised it took you so long.”
“I’m not armed.” Tris shrugged and tried to relax, could feel that her shoulders were up around her ears. “You can search me if you want.”
“I’ll decline,” her smile was tight-lipped, like she didn’t know what to make of this interaction. “I’m sure you could kill me without a weapon regardless. I would invite you to sit down, but you look uncomfortable enough in the doorway that I doubt you would accept.”
“No, I think you’re right,” she paused. “I think this was a mistake.”
“What were you hoping for?” She stepped closer. “That I’d be a changed person? You wouldn’t even know from these two seconds.”
“You’re still wearing Erudite blue,” Tris pointed out.
“And you’re still wearing black and red, even though Dauntless was never truly your faction.”
Tris looked at her for a long moment, almost turned to go, almost resolved to never think about blue eyes and blonde hair and those goddamn dresses ever again, to never think about that particular shade of blue for the rest of her life. “Why did you do it?” She muttered, finally, and she half wished that Jeanine didn’t hear her.
“I thought it was the right thing to do,” she said simply. “I was wrong.”
“Is this you apologising?” Her voice was harsher than she intended, but she couldn’t see how she couldn’t be, how Jeanine had gone so long without apologising to any of them.
“Admitting I’m wrong should be better than an apology. It certainly means more from me.” Her face was expressionless apart from a small frown, and her posture was as upright as Tris remembered. The bandage on her hand was finally gone.
“You still killed people.”
“Technically I didn’t actually shoot anyone, but yes, I was responsible for the deaths of many. I was protecting what I thought was the only way in which our society could continue to thrive. I can apologise for being wrong, but at the time I didn’t know.” Jeanine’s voice was flat, like she’d been expecting to have this conversation for a long time and had imagined all of the ways in which it could go.
“This was a mistake, I shouldn’t have come.” Tris turned, but slowly, as though she was hoping Jeanine would say something that would mean she could stay without it weighing so heavily on her conscience.
“You came here for a reason, and I’m curious as to what that is,” she paused. “It’s been a year and obviously I’ve still been something you’ve thought about.”
“I, that’s not what it is.” Tris floundered. “I just wanted to know how you live with it.”
“I remember that I thought it was right. And Tris, we both know you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been thinking of me during that time.” She was smirking a little, and Tris almost wanted to punch her in her perfect face, but she also knew that a lot of that anger was misdirected, that it wasn’t Jeanine’s fault that she was here, that she had been thinking of her during the past year, and it also wasn’t Jeanine’s fault that she was observant enough to have picked up on it.
“You still killed innocent people to further your own agenda.”
“And you killed people that were under my control, people that didn’t want to do what they were doing. We all have blood on our hands, and you ended up on the “good” side, and I ended up in a cell.”
“That’s not the same -” she tried, but Jeanine was already shaking her head.
“If it’s your own guilt that lead you here I’m not going to absolve it by proving to you that I’m truly evil, that I’m not anything more than someone in a position of power who was wrong.”
“But when you got it wrong it lead to thousands dying.”
“Big decisions have big consequences. Mine just happened to have more consequences than most.”
“How can you be so blasé about this?” Tris tries to be horrified, she really does, but this is the same woman that moved her shirt out of the way to look at her tattoo, the same one that said “Tris, I like that.” The same one that jabbed her in her bullet hole wound and Tris still didn't hate, and it didn't make any more sense now than it had done then.
“Because I have to be, because that's how I deal with things.” She stepped forward again, and Tris only just managed to stop herself from stepping back as a reflex, trying to stop Jeanine from employing her usual technique of getting into her personal space so that she couldn't think.
“That’s not dealing with it, that’s looking at the facts from a far away objective viewpoint.”
“What do you want me to do? Break down and cry about it, so that you can feel better about what lead you here?”
“Stop talking about my motivations, you don’t know why I’m here.”
“Like how I don’t know why you convinced the council to move me out of my cell?”
“How do you -?” Tris stopped herself and looked down. “It doesn’t matter why I’m here. None of that matters, what matters is what you did.”
“Tris, if you believed that you wouldn’t be here.” She looked damned smug and she was closer than Tris had realised she’d got, looking up at her even with the heels she was wearing. “Though I’m sure that struggle is why it’s taken you a year to get around to it.”
“Why are you still acting like you know everything while you’ve been locked up here, it’s not like you’ve been able to communicate with anyone.”
“Because you wear your expressions on your face, Tris. You always did. I could tell from when I first met you, before you’d even started to cause trouble within Dauntless.”
“Oh really? So what am I thinking right now?” She challenged, and then instantly regretted it when Jeanine smiled like she’d fallen into a trap.
“Tris I’m not sure even you’ve come to terms with it.” She stepped even closer, close enough that she properly had to look up to look into Tris’s face, close enough that Tris could kiss her if she wanted to, which she definitely did not.
“Come to terms with what?” she asked, wishing that she didn't once again, but unable to back down.
“The feelings that brought you here, your fascination with me.”
“Fascination? No no no you've got this completely wrong.” This time Tris did step back, blush colouring her features, trying to get out of this line of questioning that she had technically brought upon herself. Jeanine followed her every step, not letting her get away, making her face it, until Tris was almost pressed against the door, their faces even closer together.
“Your blush would say otherwise.” Jeanine was still smirking, still looking impossibly smug.
“So what, are you saying that you want me to act on these feelings you think I have?” Tris attempted to go on the offensive, to turn it around, but Jeanine saw through it just like she knew she would.
“I'm saying that you should do whatever you came here to do. Whether that's kill me or kiss me is up to you.”
“I'm not - that's not,” Tris continued to struggle while Jeanine stood there impassively, which just made her more annoyed, made her want to wipe that smirk off of her face even more. “Are you saying you want me to?” She repeated, trying to get an answer.
“Maybe I'm saying I wouldn't fight you on it, however much of a terrible idea you could argue it would be.”
“That's not an answer.”
“Try something and find out.” Jeanine’s been daring her since she walked in, and Tris wonders if it’s really fair for someone to look that good when they're supposed to have been locked up for the last year. When she pulls her to her, hands rough on her hips, it’s not softly but it’s not too hard either, Jeanine’s smirk wavering slightly as she stifles a gasp, her hands coming up to circle around her neck. Tris leans in, teases her for a moment, her grip tightening slightly before she finally covers the last few inches of space, smirking at the way that Jeanine’s face is upturned, ready for what she holds off of on giving her, and their lips meet in a kiss that's slightly rough but not lacking in emotional depth. Jeanine’s done a lot of things she shouldn't forgive her for, and she doesn't forget what those things are as she kisses her back, but she thinks that maybe she’ll forgive her eventually. Or she won't, but she doesn't think she wants to stop doing this either, especially not when Jeanine pulls back and looks at her, lips pink and her breathing irregular, her eyes bright blue.
“You wanted me to do that,” Tris accuses, and Jeanine just shrugs.
“You wanted to do it.” Her smirk is back and Tris gives into the urge to kiss it away, her arms circling her more firmly, Jeanine's hands burying themselves in her short hair, blunt nails scratching at her scalp.
"You're not forgiven." She says, serious again, when she pulls back.
"I'm not expecting to be."
"Good." Tris smiles, finally, and Jeanine kisses her again.