#meadowrosewrites

***

Grace opened the door and immediately froze. 

Felix was standing across the room from her in front of an open window. He was dressed in dark clothes with boots that reached up just below the knee. In his hands he was holding a helmet with a dark visor. 

He turned when he heard the door, and for a second their eyes met. It was only for a second.

“Wait! Dauntless!” Grace shouted, taking a step forwards before stopping herself. She didn't want to chase him.

Felix froze halfway out the window.

“Please…” she said gently. “Just stay. Talk to me?”

He made no response, but she watched his shoulders droop before taking his foot down from the sill and turning to face her.

Even with all she'd put into schooling herself to read faces, she couldn't quite tell what he was thinking. His face was mostly blank, was it resigned, maybe sad?

He just looked at her, waiting for her to speak.

“I'm not going to tell anyone, I… haven't told anyone. I've known for a while now actually.”

Felix tensed and confusion crossed his face.

“What-” he started. “How did you know?”

“Well, I didn't know,” Grace took another step into the room and reached to close the door behind her back. “But I had a pretty good guess.”

He spoke his next question by furrowing his brow and tilting his head.

Grace gave a short laugh. “You're a terrible liar, Felix.”

He bit his lip and looked down at the floor.

“I just wanted to know, why… why didn't you tell us?” 

She gave him a moment to stare at his feet before adding on, “and tell me the truth- please?”

He turned and leaned his back against the wall with a defeated sigh.

“The truth? I… I'm not sure I even know the true answer myself. I guess… I was afraid.”

He looked down at his gloved hands and awkwardly slipped his fingers together in front of him.

“I don't know exactly what I was afraid *of*, just that I was. I wasn't afraid of you guys-” he rushed to add, unlacing his hands and lifting one up to gesture. “-but I was afraid of what would happen to you guys if we were friends.”

“And that's why you're planning on leaving?”

“How did you know I was-?”

Grace shrugged.

“You really think you can save the world by yourself?” she added, crossing her arms over her chest.

“No, I can't save the world. I’m just a mechanic wearing a bicycle helmet!”

“Who also has superhuman abilities and a lot of inside knowledge,” Grace pointed out.

Felix didn't respond. He hugged his arms around his chest and looked to the floor again.

Grace sighed and put her back against the door, mirroring Felix’s pose across the room. 

“It’s not like I can stop you,” she said at last. “You could pick up your helmet and jump out that window and I would never see you again no matter how hard I looked. We both know how well that worked for me the last several months. But I guess- you can keep running away from everything you're scared of and everyone who’s gonna call you out and just stay afraid, or you can stop trying to run, and face those fears. The biggest lie you've ever told is the one you're telling yourself right now that you have to be alone.”

Felix’s face remained blank as his mouth drew into a tight line.

“You aren't alone, Felix,” she continued gently. 

“And if I stay, and they find this place, and they kill everyone here- either the government or the [gang]. I don't-” his voice cracked along with the mask on his face and he reached up to scrub his hand over his face before resuming with wavering composure, “I can't let that happen. I'll still be around, like Dauntless has been, but Felix can't stay here anymore.”

“That’s the stupidest thing you've ever said!” Grace stood up from the door and took a step towards him. “What are you going to eat? Where are you going to sleep? You're basically dooming yourself to get caught by all those people looking to kill you. You should stay, and help us fight! You don't have to pull away to protect us from a distance. Let's work together to make this place safe.”

“I don't want my life to come at the cost of anyone else's!” Felix shouted, arms still crossed over his chest, but she could see he immediately regretted it.

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled.

Grace groaned and rubbed her hand down her face. “It doesn't have to be your life or all of ours. Do you really think we're so bad at protecting this place that you're the reason we're still here?”

“That's not what I-”

“Yeah, the government's going crazy right now. Yeah, the [gang]s are pressing closer. I'm not saying you haven't been helping a lot, but we could be so much more effective if we worked together. We could save more people, Felix. You don't have to go out there and die like some sacrificial dumb-dumb.”

She shook her head and walked across the room to stand in front of him. A breeze came in through the open window, catching her loose curls and sending them waving across her face.

“I know you know I'm right.” She said gently. “And I know you're scared. I'm just asking you to trust me.”

She held out her hand to Dauntless, and hesitantly, Felix took it.

“On one condition. You guys aren't allowed to die.”

Grace grinned and gave him a firm shake. “You've got yourself a deal.”

After an awkward stretch of silence, Felix spoke again.

“So… when was the point- how did you figure it out? That I was Dauntless?”

Grace tucked her arms behind her back with a chuckle. She felt embarrassed all of a sudden, and she wasn't sure why.

“He could have made the names up on the spot,” Grace pointed out.

“So you think he’s lying?” Erin slouched her chin into her palm, folding her fingers around to smoosh into the side of her heavily freckled face.

“No,” Grace tightened her arms over her chest. “I’m just, worried I might miss something and end up regretting all this. I don’t think he would betray us, but I haven’t known him for that long.”

“Well,” Erin kicked back in the chair and spun back around to face the collection of monitors. “If you’re that worried about it, why don’t you take him to meet Grandma, see what she thinks of him. It’d be hard for that to go wrong.”

Grace sat down on the edge of the desk, her face illuminated blue by the computer screens. “I guess so,” She said, after thinking the suggestion over.

The dark room, lit only by Erin’s computer screens and the light coming in through the open doorway from the hallway, was suddenly no longer dark. A blonde man very much in need of a haircut was standing just inside the door, his hand still on the lightswitch. “What are you guys doing in the dark?”

“Tychus, turn that off!” Erin moaned, throwing her hands up to cover her eyes. Grace laughed at her, blinking in the sudden light.

“If you keep this up you’re going to ruin your eyesight,” Tychus said, coming up behind Erin’s chair and leaning over the back of it. “Oh wait, you already did.”

“You’re so mean to me,” Erin said.

She tried to scowl disapprovingly but a treacherous grin pulled at the edges of her mouth. With this comical expression she turned in her seat to shove his arms off the headrest. Tychus laughed and sidestepped her chair, taking a seat on the desk in front of her and putting the keyboard up in his lap.

“Wow you just came in here to pick on me, didn’t you?”

Tychus shrugged playfully. “You’ve been in here all day and I got lonely.”

“I’ve been working,” Erin said, reclaiming her keyboard.

“Would you two just get married already?” Grace said, laughing and shaking her head.

“Hmmm, how’s two months from now sound?” Tychus said with a wink in Erin’s direction. “Maybe the 15th? To choose a completely random and not at all specific date.”

Erin shook her head at him, unable to keep herself from smiling broadly as her face turned red. Tychus chuckled and the two exchanged a quick kiss.

“So when do I get to meet your boyfriend, Grace?” Tychus asked as Erin resumed her typing.

Grace gave a quick laugh. “Erin’s been running a background check on him.”

"Ooo, you girls are getting a little serious now. I don't know if this qualifies as a misuse of your hacker skills, Babe, but, what'd you find? Nothing too shady?"

“Nothing at all,” Erin said. Her eyes remained fixed to the screen as she spoke, her fingers continuing without slowing their dance across the keyboard. “He’s just a perfectly normal guy. You know, aside from the weird things.”

"Weird is good," Tychus nodded in approval. “Only the best for our Grace. She’s pretty weird too, after all.”

Erin snorted. “Speak for yourself, you weirdo."

"We're not running an investigation so I can date him," Grace said. "I was thinking about asking him to join the team."

"Oooh, you're not spying on him, you're just spying on him." Tychus smirked and tapped the side of his nose as his fiancé rolled her eyes.

"Sure," Grace shook her head with a smile. "He passed all of Erin's tests, but I still want to be extra careful with all those loose agents lurking around. Erin suggested I bring him over to Grandma’s for dinner.”

“Well that sounds fun,” Tychus said. “Can I come too and pretend to be your cousin?”

Grace grinned. “We don’t look related at all, but sure.”

“You know what would be fun,” Tychus continued, lifting a leg up onto the desktop and propping his elbow on his knee.

“If we got as many people as we can spare to come over. Just say we’re your extended family and it’s a farewell party at your grandma’s so we can see how he reacts. Not being secretly evil or something isn’t the only qualification for the team, it’d be nice to know how well he can roll with unexpected situations.”

Grace nodded slowly. It was a good point. If this sort of a scenario would stress him out too much, he probably wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure of leading a double life. On top of that, she could have more than just her own and Grandma’s opinions about him, he could also meet his potential teammates before being thrown into life-or-death situations with them.

She smiled, one finger thoughtfully pressed against her bottom lip.

"I think I'll just get the same as you," Felix said, breaking her out of her thoughts. 

Grace hummed in approval as he picked up his own menu and stood it up to match Grace's among the condiments. 

"So uh," Felix said, turning the pepper shaker so it fit better into the fold of the menu. "Is everything okay? You seem really quiet today."

"Oh, yeah?" Grace laughed, trying to not sound nervous. 

Felix's eyebrows knit in concern. "Yeah." He paused a moment. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Actually yeah, I just, didn't know how to start." Grace put her fingertip onto her straw and wiggled it back and forth in the glass. 

Felix reached out a hand and placed it gently on her arm. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yeah! It's nothing bad, don't worry," she hurried to assure him. 

The concern on his face relaxed and he nodded, folding his hands on the table in front of him. 

"I'm leaving on a- research trip, in a couple weeks," she said carefully, avoiding looking him in the face. She found it was becoming increasingly difficult to lie to him when he looked at her with such earnest care, so she settled for a half-truth instead. "I just wanted to let you know."

Felix nodded slowly. "How long will you be gone?" He asked.

"I really don't know," Grace fiddled with her fingers. "It could be weeks, or even a year."

Felix nodded again. He did that when he was trying to think of what words would say what he was thinking. Grace had been taught long ago that a lot of what a person says is not said in only words, that every person has their own unique way of speaking without speaking. Felix, she had found, spoke without words almost more than with. She was still trying to figure out exactly what he meant when his mouth tensed up at the edges when he smiled. Normally she would assume it was just a forced smile, but there was some layer of nuance she knew she was missing. 

"That's great!" He said with that tense kind of smile. "What kind of research are you doing?"

"Um," Grace said. Her mind drew up a blank instead of the pre-planned cover story. She blinked rapidly and said the first answer that came to mind other than the truth. "Frogs! The life cycle of frogs. We're researching frogs." 

She smiled and nodded her head several times, trying her best to pass it off as normal. She reached for her water glass and sucked up a gulp through the straw. 

Felix squinted and drew his head into his neck slightly, an action he did when something didn't make sense to him. 

Grace cringed inwardly. That was a, really, dumb cover story. I might have just botched everything.

"Frogs? That's… really cool," Felix said. He was still squinting, but the smile had returned. 

"Ye-yeah," Grace said, a little too quickly after swallowing her mouthful of water.

Felix watched the resulting coughing fit, alarmed, as Grace tried to get herself under control again. 

"You okay?" He said.

"Sorry," Grace nodded, clearing her throat. "I didn't quite swallow that right." 

Felix awkwardly scratched an itch on the side of his face. "Well, I, hope you have a good time," He said with a hint of confusion to the tone. 

"Thanks!" Grace said, still coughing a little.

Before she could continue, the waitress interrupted to take their order. After the polite exchange of information she walked back to the service desk, leaving the table quiet. 

Felix seemed entirely engrossed in his own thoughts as he squinted intently down at the tabletop.

This was the part where she was supposed to invite him to join her, but who in their right mind would agree to a year long research trip about frogs? She couldn’t tell him the truth, not until she knew he could be trusted with it, but with that kind of a cover story, she was going to have to find another way for the prep team to vet him. 

After a moment Felix spoke, breaking the silence. He sounded like he was choosing his words very carefully, but the words themselves didn’t seem to match the level of care he was using. 

“I didn’t realize you liked frogs that much. What about them do you find so interesting?” 

“Frogs?” Grace said, suddenly feeling like she was missing something very important. “I, uh, you know they are really, uh, important to the ecosystem, and an endangered species and all.”

Felix nodded slowly like he understood something deep. “Endangered, huh.”

“Do you like frogs?” Grace asked, wondering if she’d stumbled on another random interest of his.

“I do.” He replied through his hand placed thoughtfully under his chin. He looked far too serious to be making a joke. 

Maybe she hadn’t blown it after all.

“I don’t know if you would, like to join me on the research trip then?” 

Felix raised both his eyebrows and regarded her silently for a moment. Very slowly, his eye squinted, and he nodded. 

“Yes. I-” His gaze dropped to the tabletop. “I’d like to do that.”

Grace had an increasing feeling that Felix was having a completely different conversation than the one she thought it was. 

“Wait, you… actually want to go on a year long research trip about frogs?” She said, relieving the tension in her pose by leaning forward onto her elbows. “Who would want to study frogs for a year?”

“Don’t you?” Felix raised one eyebrow. 

“Oh yeah, of course,” Grace hurried to cover her mistake. “I was just surprised someone else would.” She laughed nervously and began stirring her water around with the straw. 

The table grew quiet again as the two watched how the ice flashed in many colors as it swirled around the glass. The waitress brought them their food and left the bill, Felix thanking her as she left them alone again.