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"Welcome to your life

There's no turning back

Even while we sleep

We will find you

Acting on your best behavior

Turn your back on Mother Nature

Everybody wants to rule the world"

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -Tears for Fears

After the bullet simulations faded along with the euphoria of winning dwindled down, things went back to the way they were. Only one thing really changed; Eric was less of an asshole after that when Harper was training her initiates. In fact, he stopped coming around nearly as much, and she got more hands on time with her initiates. They were learning fast, and after the game, they all learned to wield a gun before they were even trained in that area, and so that portion of the training flew by for them. Her most promising initiate was still Tobias, and every time she looked at him she saw not only promise but she saw the letter from Jeanine to Eric floating around in her head. The words it said, the accusations against his father and against him, and how they were planning on using that to turn the world against Abnegation.

It was the time of year when the fear simulations wreaked havoc on the initiates. One by one, Harper watched as they fought through their fears. Watching that was not painful, in most cases, but seeing if they were Divergent or not was the most difficult task Harper had to face to date. Finding out who wasn't Divergent was easy, but it was pinpointing the ones who were that she had truly no idea how to start. Carson had gone over it a hundred times, and a hundred times more, and Harper still wanted to believe that all the initiates were Divergent, and that they would all be safe against the serum. But there were far less Divergents than those who were not, Harper was beginning to learn. She only knew one, and that was Eliza, over an entire year of knowing what it meant to be Divergent. People were very secretive about it and for good reason too.

Harper sent out one of the initiates that she was sure was not Divergent, he had spent a solid half hour in the simulation, and had a good handful of fears he would have to overcome. She stepped out of the room and motioned for Mina to come in. The small Amity teen walked over, her head high, trying to hide that she was worried. That alone was a tell-tale sign, but Harper didn't jump to conclusions just yet. She wanted to ask every single person who came in if they were told about the term Divergent upon their test, but that was too easy, she had to infer, to make the decision based on the facts.

"Will it hurt?" Mina asked.

Harper shook her head. "Only in your head, but when you wake, the only thing that lingers is the memory."

She pursed her lips together, and then nodded as she got into the seat. Harper injected the serum and stood back, watching as Mina disappeared into a sleep-like state. Then, she turned on focused on the monitors. There was a panel that displayed her vitals, and everything seemed normal for now. Quickly the adrenaline spiked and so did the heart rate; Harper tapped impatiently on the monitor screen. She was able to get inside of Mina's head, see her fears. They started off simple, basic. Heights was the first one, and Harper was beginning to realize how common that one was. There was spiders, Harper shuddered at that one, and was glad she didn't share that fear, because being in a simulation with those arachnids on her body would make her throw up, but not terrified. A surprising one that Mina had was suffocating, but Harper realized that being in a faction like Amity would make you adore the openness, the free aspect of the world, and then coming to a place like Dauntless, it may seem different. But Abnegation, in Harper's opinion, would be the most suffocating faction of them all.

Mina did about as well as anyone else through the remainder of her fears, none of them were out of the ordinary, and she struggled to get through many of them. Harper knew that she was not Divergent, and so she knew Mina was both safer than some others, but she was also in danger of being controlled. Harper was too, she knew that, but she wanted to put her initiates before her own self. She wanted to protect them not because they were young, as she was hardly a year older than them, but because these were the first people that she was responsible for in her entire life. They were more important to her than she thought when she took on the job to train them. When Mina jolted from her simulation, she was panting, and her vitals went down rapidly when she realized where she was.

Instantly she looked up at Harper. "Two weeks of this?"

"And then it's over, forever," Harper said. "The only times I've been in a fear sim' since the final test was because I was training for this job."

She nodded. "Well that's off the table then."

Harper laughed. "Go on, get me Tobias, will you?"

"Sure thing." Mina stepped out, and a few moments later, Tobias stepped in.

He looked tired, drained, and Harper wondered if that was because he was worried about this test, or because he had been overhearing all the rumours about his life and his father every single day. Had he been pushed to a breaking point? Harper remembered worrying about this test, but she saw something in Tobias' eyes that she had seen in Eliza's on that first day of tests. She was almost positive that Tobias was Divergent, but she said nothing at all.

"Are you the last one?" Harper asked, sliding a new needle into the gun, and a serum.

Tobias nodded. "Save the best for last, right?"

Harper had to laugh; it wasn't often that a Stiff cracked a joke like that. Not that she had spent much time around any Abnegation. "I do not favour any students over the others."

"Is there a reason I'm last?" He asked, something in his voice.

Harper shook her head. There was a reason, but she wasn't going to tell him until it mattered. "Luck of the draw. Go on, take a seat."

Tobias didn't ask anymore questions, he wasn't scared about the simulation, he didn't pry into the details like everyone else did. He simply sat down, allowed that needle to penetrate the flesh upon his neck. She turned towards the monitors and realized that Tobias' heartrate was lower than her own, and she took a few deep breaths before waiting on Tobias' simulation to start. Her eyes scanned over his vitals, and then it began. 

Heights was the first one, and Harper had to admit she had expected Tobias to be one of the few people who didn't have that one, but alas, she watched as yet another initiate tackled their fear of heights. His next one was similar, the fear of small spaces. She had seen this one often, and Tobias made it through that one quicker than anyone else had. She felt her own pulse raising as his next fear came into effect. He had a gun in his hand, and in front of him was a woman. She tried to process what this fear was, and it took Tobias a while to get through it. What he had to do, was shoot her, and Harper wondered what the fear was. Killing someone? Surely not. Killing a woman? Unlikely.

She didn't get much more time to think about it before Tobias' next fear appeared. It broke Harper down when she realized what it was, and how it would change the way she saw him. She had hoped the rumours were not true, but this confirmed that they were. Marcus Eaton, the leader of Abnegation, beat his only son. It was no wonder that he left the faction for one that would make him a stronger person, one who could fight back against indecencies like this. Harper looked away, unable to watch any longer as Tobias confronted that fear. She'd spent the entire day watching these youths fight through their fears, and it had broken her down to see this one.

Startled when she heard Tobias move behind her, she turned to see that he was awake. She frowned. "I'm sorry, the serum must have been too small of a dose."

He shook his head. "No."

Harper furrowed her brow, and cocked her head to the side. "Four fears?"

He shrugged. "Could you see them?"

She nodded, wringing her hands together and trying to get out the words she needed to. She remembered when Carson had asked about her father, and realized that her and Tobias were not so different. She never saw them as very different to begin with, but now they had even more in common. She took a deep breath, knowing what she had to say. "It's no... secret about your father."

He tensed, but said nothing.

"We're not so different, you know. My father-" She wasn't sure what she should say about what she knew, she hardly knew Tobias. "Had something on Jeanine, and she had him murdered. She is going to use this to manipulate you and everybody else to turn against Abnegation, because she wants leadership. Tobias, you have to, no matter what, stay strong. Don't let them see you fear him, don't let them know..."

Tobias still said nothing.

"You're Divergent, aren't you?" She had gotten some hints at such throughout his simulation, but it was easier to simply ask him. Something told her that he would admit to it. "I understand if you don't want to say, but I took this job in order to protect the people Jeanine fears. We need Divergent people... to better the world."

He merely looked at her.

"You're in more danger than you can imagine," she said, and before she could say anything more to warn him about what he already knew, he cut her off.

"So are you."

She blinked, what was he talking about? She wasn't Divergent, she had very little to worry about. Cocking her head to the side rather than verbalizing her confusion, she waited for Tobias to continue. She wanted to pick his brain and learn everything that went through it. Every thought and memory, she wanted to know what he felt when he chose Dauntless, and if he knew it was the faction for him. Obviously he had been told he fit in more than one faction, and so the choice wouldn't have been clear, but Tobias belonged here, Harper noticed that with him right away.

Tobias sighed. "You're too close to Eric. I don't know who he is as a person, but I know I don't trust him."

Harper scoffed, brushing this accusation off. She knew how dangerous Eric could be, but she had it all under control. "You really don't need to be worrying about Eric and I."

"No, but you should be," he finished before leaving the room.

Harper stood there, motionless as she realized that a teenage boy could see the reality right in front of him when she refused to see it. She wanted to be blind to the fact that Eric was on the other side of things, that he was dangerous. She realized that her nails were digging into her palm, and she released her death grip along with a deep sigh. Turning off the monitors and leaving the small room, Harper tried to process everything. She tried to understand that Eric was different from her, that she needed to get away from him, and yet another part of her told her again and again that she was safer when she was close to him.

After telling herself that Tobias didn't know everything, and that he only saw one side of things, she went to the one place she knew that she should have avoided that night. She went straight to Eric's, and a part of her knew that it was to confirm that being with him was what made her happy. She just hoped that wouldn't change, she hoped that Tobias wasn't right but she knew that he was.