I apologize for like....zero updates with this. I've had kind of a dry spell and writer's block with lack of motivation. But here! I'm starting to get back into this again so yay! Enjoy!

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She knows me.

I can't even understand the truth of it, because it's all too unreal. I've lived with the reality of Tris not being here, and the reality of a version of Tris being here. But now the girl who remembers me has replaced the girl who cowered at her own shadow and I can finally breathe.

She's here. Tris Prior, the first to jump into the net, is here.

"Please tell me I'm not imagining this," I ask her, raising my fingers to trace the bridge of her nose, the shape of her eyebrows, the worry line that always used to appear above them. Maybe this is all fake and will disappear any second, so I want to use as much time of this is given to me.

But she shakes her head and smiles, tears slipping down her cheeks. "I don't care either way. As long as we're both here."

"Um," an uncomfortable cough comes from behind me but I don't look away from her. I'd forgotten Caleb is here and I suddenly want him gone. Of all the times to interrupt, he's picked the worst.

I feel his eyes boring into my back. "It's most definitely real in case either of you are really....concerned." Another uncomfortable cough.

"Caleb," Tris says. I catch the slight wariness in her tone as her gaze flickers to her brother and I wonder what she sees there. A traitor or the last living piece of her family. Can both exist in one?

From the corner of my eye, he gives an awkward wave. "I'd hug you but in fairness, you did, well, almost or maybe completely die because of me so I get it if-"

But then Tris is out of my arms and jumping into her brother's and I instantly want to tear them off him. I was not ready to let her go.

"It's okay. It's fine," she smiles again and more tears fall. "Because you're alive. Both of you are and....I am." There's a hint of wonder in her eyes as her gaze falls to her small frame, staring at her hands as if perplexed. "I'm actually alive. How....How?"

I hear Caleb swallow, rubbing Tris's shoulders in what I can only guess is reassurance. "That's what we'd love to know. From what everyone witnessed, we believed you to be dead. Even when Four went to the morgue-"

He suddenly cuts himself off, glancing uncomfortably from Tris to me. Her eyes widen and they fall to me, too. More tears brim there, but it's not from happiness. It's mortification. "You came and....and saw me there?"

A rock suddenly seems to lodge itself in my throat. This was not how I wanted that topic to be brought up. In fact, I was never eager to reawaken that memory; of her on a table meant for the dead, alone and cold. The picture makes my chest throb and I have to remind myself that she's here, and not on that table. The barb of that memory is curbed by the fact that she is here, alive, and for a moment I wonder how I even made it a day, an hour, a breath as I lived in that reality where she wasn't. 

"All we know is that Erudite took you," I say trying to switch the subject. "Injected you with....some type of serum that-"

"That imitates the first physical decompositional stages," Caleb finishes. "It restricts blood flow, which decreases body temperature and flexes the muscles so it would give the appearance that a person were dead. We believe you were taken and then had the rest of us believe you were....cremated." He gaze flickers away from her for a moment before returning. "The long term effects of this serum can cause memory loss and nerve damage which can either add or be the cause of the memory problems. Either way, they created a specialized serum for you, to make you forget who you were so you'd aid them in what they needed."

"And what they needed...." She trails off.

"What they needed was serum 00030 to be directly activated and distributed beneath the city by someone who wouldn't be affected by it. Namely, you."

Tris's eyes widen again, but she already knew this much. She just didn't understand the backstory of it. Now, in her expression, I see the pieces are fitting together, composing the full picture that neither I nor Caleb can fully yet see.

"And what does that serum....do again?"

Caleb doesn't look away from her as he says, "It's direct purpose is suppression. Of any ideas and ambitions that may be a threat to the society. Simply put, it's a serum that produces slaves."

I wait for her reaction and I hear as her breath catches. "That's already been done," she says. "I did it. I know."

"Yeah, their big operation that's been underway for months has been executed by you, your prime usage."

"Caleb," I snap.

He clears his throat. "Sorry. I'm not pointing blame, just stating what we already know, and that's that all factions are under practical autocracy. But luckily for,....well, not lucky; of minor convenience for you, Erudite apparently failed to run sufficient tests on your response to this serum because it seemed to have counteracted some of the after effects of the other, which is why you had that flood of memories when you were exposed to it."

I shoot him a glare at his words, but he just looks away from me, thrumming his fingers together.

"Can it be undone?" Tris instantly asks, the urgency in her voice evident. "Can this be....fixed?"

Caleb hesitates. "I'd....like to assume so, but it depends. First, Matthew and I still have a few more tests to conduct on the possible long term effects and whether or not the serum loses potency over time or causes permanent damage to the cerebral cortex."

"So at best, a definite maybe," a different voice chimes. My attention turns the girl standing in the doorway but before I can even greet her, Tris is there, enveloping Christina in a hug.

"I see you got your brain screwed back on right," Chris says, smiling harder than I've seen her smile in a very long time. "Took long enough. Now you can get this guy to stop moping around." I can tell she's joking but she has tears in her eyes.

"Any form of moping is officially banned from here on out," Tris says with a grin. For a moment, it's as if the months have dissolved and some of the shattered pieces of our lives had never really been broken to begin with.

"So do we have a plan?" Christina jumps right in, hands on her hips, ready for orders.

Caleb gives her a dubious look. "It's in the process of being configured."

Her eyes turn downward disapprovingly. "Caleb, sometimes it's okay to use single syllable responses. Like 'no.'"

Caleb just shakes his head. "I'm not that simple minded."

"You are if you think it's smart to mock me," she backfires.

Despite everything wrong that's happening, I smile; a genuine, real smile. Now that Tris remembers who she is, it has mended something that when broken, had disrupted everything else. When she wasn't here, The world itself was something wrong and foreign to me. But being with her now, nothing needs time to shift back into place. It is already done.

"Stop with the chit chat, Caleb," Chris barks. "Start configuring."

Caleb sighs, exasperated. "I'll call Matthew."