A/N: Here's the final chapter...

"Insurgent" Chapter 10 – Candor

I wake up early, despite not getting to bed until so late. Tris is still asleep, but I'm too restless to remain on the pallet any longer. So, I rise, careful not to disturb my girlfriend, and then I find myself wandering the building.

It's an old warehouse, and everywhere I go, there are large rooms filled with the factionless. Many are sleeping, but others are clearly on guard duty, watching me with curious eyes as I pass. The recognition on their faces is obvious, and it makes me wonder just how quickly word spread that Evelyn's son had arrived.

There's no doubt that she was telling the truth about their resources. In fact, the more I see of this place, the more I realize what a threat these people truly are. They're probably capable of carrying out my mother's plan and ending the factions just by themselves. And yet, if she was being honest about the role she wants me to play, they need some amount of help from the Dauntless.

It takes my tired brain a while to figure out why. It's because my faction is divided. If we fight ourselves, and everyone else stays out of it as they undoubtedly will, she can overpower Erudite easily. If we instead unite against her, she can't beat both the smart and the brave at the same time.

Slowly, it occurs to me that no one else can, either. If Edward was right, and the Candor have sided with the loyal Dauntless, then the city is effectively at a stalemate. With the Amity neutral and Abnegation destroyed, that leaves a faction and a half on each side. No one can win without shifting that balance.

The question is how to do that – and what type of government we end up with as a result.

What do I want, really? On a personal basis, I still hate the thought of allying with my mother, and I definitely don't trust her to be in charge afterwards. But at the same time, she's not wrong that things need to change in this city. The factions have failed too many people for far too long.

And what is the alternative? We can't just leave Jeanine alone, with her quest to eliminate the rest of the Abnegation and the Divergent and place everyone else under mind control. Even if the Candor can help us maintain the status quo, that won't last forever. Eventually, the Erudite will come up with a way to expand their simulations to even more people, and the power will tilt in their favor.

Either we find a way to stop them soon – before they can finish their research, or we side with the factionless. I stop walking, leaning wearily against the wall as I realize that those are the only two choices.

The irony is that both choices lead us to Candor – now. We need to see what resources we have at this point in order to come up with any type of plan. And if there isn't one to be created, then I need to find a way to do what my mother said last night. I need to become important to the Dauntless.

Edward insists on talking as I try to get myself clean in the cold water from a men's room sink. It's a primitive way to bathe, at best, but I'm dirty and smelly and I need the icy water to wake myself up. Besides, there's no need to hide my tattoo here, in a place with so many Divergents, so I ignore my discomfort at undressing in front of others and take my shirt off as I wash.

"There are a bunch of Abnegation in one of our other safe houses," Edward begins, before I dunk my head under the faucet, scrubbing at my hair and face with a bar of soap. "Your friends, Susan and Caleb, want to go join them."

I nod in acknowledgement as I start on my torso, noticing how dark the water is when it runs off me. I must have picked up more dirt in Amity than I realized.

"We're signaling our leaders there to let them know to expect company, and then we'll escort anyone who wants to go." He shrugs indifferently. "Evelyn wants to know if you plan to join them."

It doesn't take me long to decide, between my earlier realization and what Tris will undoubtedly want to do.

"No," I tell him firmly. "Tris and I will be heading to Candor."

He doesn't seem surprised as he hands me a towel and a clean black T-shirt. Presumably, my mother told him to expect this. But as annoying as that reality is, I take the shirt anyway. If I'm going to be rejoining the loyal remnants of my faction today, it's better to look the part.

Tris and I don't talk much as we walk the battered streets toward the faction of the honest. There's potential danger around every corner, so we stay silent in order to remain unobserved – and to hear anyone who might be coming.

The city is eerily quiet, though, and we don't encounter a single person before we reach the front doors of the Merciless Mart – the wide cement building that houses Candor headquarters.

We pause there, glancing at each other as we steel ourselves for whatever is about to come. This is our last chance to turn around. To hide ourselves somewhere and let the war proceed without us. But I know that Tris will never do that, and really, I won't either.

So, I take a deep breath and say, "Here we go," as I push through the glass doors.

The lobby is large and bright, with a black marble floor and copious lighting overhead. In the center of the room, white tiles form the symbol of Candor, with its unbalanced scales showing how truth outweighs lies. But my eyes don't linger on it, moving instead to the swarm of soldiers in Dauntless black who have already spotted us.

It's strange that they aren't patrolling outside, but at least they're guarding against intruders here, and we wait for them as they approach.

"Identify yourselves," a young woman demands. She's aiming a gun at my head with one hand, while her other rests helplessly in a sling. Behind her, more soldiers gather, staring at me and Tris. There's recognition in more than one set of eyes, but I answer the question anyway.

"Four. And this is Tris. Both Dauntless."

My name is well known in my faction, so I'm not surprised when her eyes widen, but I don't expect the fear I see there. "Some help here?" she asks the others, and I watch as they step forward cautiously.

"Is there a problem?" I'm careful to keep my voice solid.

"Are you armed?"

I almost scoff. "Of course I'm armed. I'm Dauntless, aren't I?"

"Stand with your hands behind your head." The woman's voice is wild, as if she expects us to attack at any second, and I see Tris look at me in alarm.

"We walked through the front door," she says slowly. "You think we would have done that if we were here to hurt you?"

It's a reasonable question, but our captors obviously aren't looking for reason right now. So, I obey the command, touching my fingers to the back of my head and standing still while they pat me down. A man whose name I can't quite remember gives me a wary look as he takes my gun.

"I have a knife in my back pocket," Tris tells the boy who is attempting to disarm her. "Put your hands on me, and I will make you regret it." Part of me wants to laugh as the boy mutters an apology, but this is not the time for amusement.

"What's going on?" I ask instead.

There's a collective pause while the group exchanges looks, and then the woman who first approached us speaks. "I'm sorry, but we were instructed to arrest you upon your arrival."

I know immediately that we won't receive more of an answer than that, so I don't object as they escort us to the elevator bank. Tris tries again, several more times, before giving up, too. The walk is silent after that, as they take us to a holding room on the third floor. It's a small room with a white marble floor and no furniture except for a bench along the back wall.

The enclosed space immediately triggers my claustrophobia, but I force myself to sit on the bench, breathing deeply. This is no time to panic.

Tris paces back and forth, and I listen to her movements, trying to focus on the reasons we're here, and on what our next steps should be. But it's difficult without more information. There's no way to know why we've been arrested – and whose side these people are on. It's entirely possible that Edward set us up, or was misinformed.

Yet my instincts tell me that something else is happening. If these Dauntless were loyal to Max and Jeanine, they wouldn't be in Candor. They would be back in their own faction or with the Erudite. So, it's far more likely that they've been given false information and that they see us as a threat because of that.

That means we should be able to get out of this. The faction of the honest should know when we tell them the truth, after all. So, for now, at least, we just need to stay calm and answer everything that we're asked.

My gaze turns to Tris again with that thought. She's been hiding things – that much is obvious – and I doubt she's going to want to reveal any of that to our captors. But if she doesn't, I don't know how we'll move forward.

She may be thinking the same thing, judging by how worried she looks as she crosses the room back and forth, five steps in each direction. She keeps biting her lip, too, actually wincing at one point when her teeth dig in particularly hard.

For a long moment, I try to imagine all of this from her perspective. Within the last two weeks, she's watched her faction-mates be mind-controlled into attacking Abnegation. She's seen people she grew up with be gunned down. She was shot and nearly drowned. Her parents died trying to help her. She shot Peter, and probably others, given how gun-shy she is now. And then I almost killed her.

In the process, she lost both of the factions she lived in. And when we turned to a third for help, the Amity refused to give it. On top of that, she found out that the factionless – who should have cared most about the Abnegation – are being led by my supposedly-dead mother and did nothing as the slaughter occurred.

And now we sit here, under arrest, in the last faction we could turn to for help. The entire city has crumbled to pieces, betraying and abandoning and attacking everything that Tris has ever loved. She must feel utterly alone.

But she isn't. The thought is almost fierce as my gaze takes her in again. Whether or not she trusts me fully, I'm still here for her. Whether or not she loves me back, I still love her.

As she reaches the wall and turns back again, I find images going through my mind of everything we've been through together. Every moment from when she first landed in the net. She has reached parts of me that no one else ever has, and I have revealed secrets to her that I hid from everyone else.

Despite all the chaos around us, a small smile crosses my face as she starts another lap. She is my choice, I realize now. Not Abnegation or Dauntless or factionlessness or even Divergence. Not whether to help my mother take over the city or keep the factions in charge. None of that really matters.

What matters is the woman pacing in front of me. Regardless of what comes, I will stand by Tris' side. I will be there for her, and I will do whatever I can to see her safely through all of this. And I will love her.

That will always be my choice.

The End

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review, favorite, and/or follow this story! I appreciate your support very much. If you haven't done so yet, please take a moment to review; even guests can do that, and it doesn't take long.

This was the final chapter of this story. In case you missed it in my previous Author's Notes, I only ever intended to continue this story through Chapter 10 of "Insurgent," since Wee Kraken's "Killing Four" story starts at that point, and I like it very much as a version of "Insurgent" through Tobias' POV.

That also means that this concludes my "Becoming Determinant," "Determinant," and "Prior Rings" trilogy. It's been a long stretch between those three stories, since they're all full-length books, but I appreciate everyone who has stuck by me this entire time. Your consistent reviews and PMs have kept me writing. Thank you also to my wonderful beta reader, Rosalie, who has made life so much easier over the last two years!

I'm continuing to write some additional chapters for my "Determinant Additions and Outtakes" story, which is posted under my Windchimed M-Stories account. I may create a version here for the T-rated chapters - I haven't quite decided on that yet. I'm also doing some other writing under that account, and I'm starting some original fiction (that will be posted under fanfiction's sister site, fictionpress, under my Windchimed account there. If you want to be alerted to new stories as I post them, please follow me as an author under those locations.

All the best!

~ Windchimed