seveninches | [gym

After Fight Club, Isabelle made a loose rule not to fight any mundanes anymore, but that doesn't mean she can't train with them. Or in the vicinity of them, anyway. Normally most of her training is done with Alec, but today Isabelle is at the gym, watching the mundanes move around curiously. Her hair is up and off her face and she has her wrists strapped, half concentrating on the boxing bag in front of her.

Her mind is elsewhere, on the job she's hoping to get and the boy she's maybe kind of dating, and for a moment she feels hopelessly mundane. Darrow changes people, that much she's learned, and apparently it's starting to change her, too. When she and Alec had first arrived they'd talked of nothing but getting out, getting home, but then things have started to shift. Now, she's setting down roots and forming attachments to things and people that she doesn't want to leave, and it's odd. Not necessarily in a bad way, but a way that's very different to the way Isabelle has lived her life prior.

Idly, she throws a punch at the bag. She's only half paying attention and it's not the best she can do, but she knows it's still better than most of the mundanes here could manage, so she doesn't feel self conscious. If Alec were here he'd tell her she was doing an abysmal job of training and that she should be focussed, but he's not, so she doesn't care.

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"Shopping?" It seems like an abrupt change of pace from what we've been doing. From what little I know of Isabella, it definitely seems like something she enjoys but an old, nervous part of me doesn't like the idea that I might be inconveniencing her. She came her to work out and practice her fighting after all, not to do this.

But it's also the kind of thing that Christina would have done and the thought turns in my heart a little bit. It makes me miss them all the more and want a distraction more intensely.

"I don't want to inconvenience you," I say, but we both know there's a but that I'm not saying. But please, I can't think about this anymore. But please let's go.

For a moment Isabelle wonders if she's made a wrong decision, but Tris just seems surprised more than unwilling. Isabelle nods, offering her a bright smile. "Shopping always cheers me up," she says by way of explanation. Maybe that's not true for everyone, but she's willing to give it a shot. Retail therapy is the only kind of therapy that Isabelle likes.

"It's not an inconvenience," she says quickly. Isabelle doesn't offer to do things that she doesn't want to do. She doesn't bother with pretence, so if she's saying she wants to go somewhere with someone, then it's because she wants to, not because she feels obligated. Somewhere along the line, probably around the time Tris landed a punch on her, Isabelle decided that Tris is someone she wants to know better.

"If I didn't want to go with you I wouldn't have asked," she says bluntly, hoping that clears it up. "C'mon, I know all the good places."

It's something that Christina would have said too and that makes me smile a little. Isabelle definitely seems like the kind of person who, like Christina, would definitely bring a bag of makeup to a covert mission and I wouldn't judge either of them for it. The thought makes me more comfortable in accepting.

"Right now?" I ask, since that seems to be the only question left to determine. "Should I go put on something a little more...stylish first?"

Isabelle glances down at her own attire and considers. She'd come dressed for the gym, leggings and a crop top and her sneakers. She's not exactly dressed to go shopping, either, but two detours seems unnecessary.

"My place is on the way," she suggests, grabbing her bag from a locker nearby. "You could borrow something of mine?"

A lot of Isabelle's clothing is maybe a little out there and she's spent enough time with Clary to know that's not everyone's taste, but she does have a few things put away that might be more Tris's style. She'd collected a few of them with the thought in mind that Clary might one day actually turn up here. Isabelle had arrived after being in battle and clobbered over the head, covered in blood and grass stains. If Clary does decide to turn up, Isabelle is making sure that she has a change of clothes for her friend. If they come in handy before then, all the better.

"As long as you don't mind letting me roll up the cuffs of your jeans," I say. It's not much of a joke but it's enough of one that I feel a little better, enough to smile at least. Gesturing between us only highlights what must be at least a six-inch difference in height.

Isabelle's clothing always seems so tailored to who she is that I can't quite imagine anything of hers fitting me but her confidence in the matter keeps me from protesting too much.

"Thank you. For...everything."

Isabelle looks her over and then shrugs. "Maybe you'll bring it back in style." Isabelle is all for unconventional fashion, and she's confident that Tris could pull off almost anything if Isabelle convinced her to. Rolled cuffs is nothing, and in the worst case Isabelle can cut the hem off a spare pair. She has plenty more.

"You don't have to," she says as she pushes open the door of the gym, holding it for Tris. Isabelle is just as uncomfortable as Alec when it comes to people thanking her for things she hasn't even done yet. All she's done so far is offer up a distraction, one which Isabelle will probably end up enjoying more than Tris anyway. She doesn't think it's particularly noteworthy, and she's not used to being thanked for anything anyway.

Isabelle's whole life revolves around putting her neck on the line for mundanes and not being thanked for it, so this is new.

"I want to," I say, addressing Isabelle's dismissal rather than her fashion acumen. I didn't really even know rolled jeans are out of style, much less if it's a look that can be brought back. A not insignificant part of me thinks it would be all right to let Isabelle make a doll of me for only a little while. A new outfit, someone else's decisions, might convince me that I'm a stronger person than I feel.

"Did you ever meet Christina, while she was here?" I ask. I can't remember if I ever saw them in the same room, if their time here even overlapped. "I think you'd have liked her."

Isabelle shakes her head. So many people come and go from Darrow that it's almost hard to keep track. She has a small circle of friends that she keeps tight to her chest, and everyone else she tends to be wary of. Isabelle is a social person and she spends a lot of time out, attending the various parties and events this city throws, but for the most part she only opens herself up to a select few.

"No, I didn't," she says. The name isn't familiar and if Tris says she'd have liked her then Isabelle is sure she would have remembered. "Was she one of yours?" She means someone from home, but she thinks Tris will get the picture. If she was, it's sad that Tris has had two of her people vanish now. Isabelle can't imagine losing any of hers, let alone two.

I nod and it surprises me that it's easy to smile when I think of her. "She transferred from a different faction just like me," I say. It's more than that. Christina had been my first and best real friend. Even when she'd hated me, she had been one of my most important people.

"She thought I dressed too plain too. Convinced me to try makeup and to get my second tattoo. She was a good fighter too."

Brave, loyal, and quick to jump to someone's defense, including mine.

Faction. Isabelle doesn't know about where Tris comes from, and it occurs to her that it's an incredible oversight on her part. Isabelle makes a note to know these things about people, and maybe she's starting to consider Tris as someone she likes, so it's extra important.

"What do you mean, transferred factions?" she asks as they walk.

The more Tris talks about Christina, the more Isabelle is a little disappointed that she didn't get to meet her. "She sounds like someone I'd like," Isabelle agrees. She assumes Christina is a mundane, but Isabelle has seen the way Tris fights, and she no longer thinks that means they're weak. She wishes she could have seen them both in action.

"My city had five of them. They had different skills, different jobs, different goals. When you're sixteen, you take a test and it determines whether your aptitude is for your birth faction or a different one and you're allowed to transfer, but only once."

I hunch my shoulders forward to better point out the tattoos on the backs of them, the only two that don't represent specific individuals like the rest of mine. "I was born in Abnegation," I say, tapping my right shoulder and its crest of helping hands. "Christina was born in Candor, but we both transferred to Dauntless. The warriors." I turn then and show Isabelle the circle of flames on my left shoulder.

[gym - tris]

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