His jail cell is cold and damp. His bunk is hard and the blanket that is supposed to keep him warm is as thin as his patience for the situation.

He rolls over to his stomach and lets his arm dangle off the edge of the bunk. His finger swirls in a small hole in the concrete and he stares blankly through the plexiglass of his jail cell —he's their zoo animal. He's been counting the sunsets, so he knows it's been 228 days since he's seen the outside of that cell. It's been 232 days since he put a bullet in the back of Jeanine's skull. He's pretty sure he's being held on the outskirts of the city, away from any sort of civilization, waiting. Just waiting for the new city officials to decide what to do with him. Or maybe, just maybe, they're terrified of the day he breaks out of there and their safest bet at keeping other people safe was to have him away from everyone. Either way, he's decided that seclusion sucks, even for him.

He has a toilet, a sink and a toothbrush.

Chicago is rebuilding, trying to understand how their system, their attempts to create peace, have failed. And of course he knows it's because of greed and ignorance, maybe some megalomania on Jeanine's part, and fear. But he solved that problem with a bullet. But did he get a thank you?

No.

He rolls his eyes, smiling to himself because he knows that he's getting what he deserves. He's smiling with bitter acceptance. There's no reason to think that one good deed — as good as murder can be even when necessary — could ever change that he's done more harm than good. Nevermind that he was an impressionable teenager when it was forced on him and many others. It doesn't matter because others haven't done what he has. He's actually killed innocent people.

They call him a sociopath, a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. But he's not a sociopath, he can feel for others, and he had, but it didn't outweigh years of being told that divergence was a disease. But someone has to take the fall, and it's going to be him because Max and Jeanine are dead. He's going to take the fall because he's an adult now, never mind that he's the reason The War is over. The other Dauntless soldiers who were loyal to Erudite have already been executed for their crimes, they were lined up at the fence and shot, dumped into mass graves because, how else do you show the rest of society that power still does not belong to them? Nothing has changed, that fact is just overshadowed by the new leaders and their likeability. Abnegation, Amity, Candor, and Dauntless still exist, just under the guise of a united front.

He's been called a psychopath, a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior, crazy, again, so messed up in the head he can't control his urge to kill something. But he's not a psychopath. He's free. And it took him a long while to make the decision to liberate himself —and everyone else — from the ironfist Jeanine would have rule with. No one will look at him and say that the system failed him—and the many other teens they force to make decisions that no one should have to make at such a young age — no one will look at him and ask if he was pushed.

He is not to be excused, he's accepted that too. But damn it, he wanted to die with at least some recognition, the whole truth.

"Am I completely deluded?" He asks himself aloud.

He realized that he'd been following the wrong orders a little too late, he knows that too. He'd been ruthless and went along with believing that Divergence was too unpredictable a trait, because in Dauntless, it was his job to make sure that he fought to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. And was it his fault that he hadn't thought about it from a subjective viewpoint? Absolutely. It was his fault that he didn't sit down and ask himself why being different would be considered dangerous to the rest of society and why it was ridiculous. But he trusted Jeanine, he believed that she was trying to eradicate divergence because she knew that they couldn't be controlled. He was ruthless because he'd be damned if he had to sit back and watch the city he grew up in fall apart. But that happened anyway.

He realized that she was afraid a little too late.

And one thing he detests more than being lied to, is cowardice. Jeanine was a coward who was afraid of what she didn't understand. And one thing he refuses to do, is fight for a cause that is built on fear.

"Four, why are we here again?" Tris asks her fellow leader, stopping in her tracks, not ready to head into the round table room, "We aren't going to get anywhere this time."

He exhales harshly in response to her calling him Four and not Tobias. He gives her a stone cold look, as if he's disappointed but doesn't want her to see it. There's no reason for him to try and hide it, however. She can see it every time he looks at her, she can feel it everytime he touches her. There's no hiding. There's nothing either of them can't read from the other, even when they hope to be blind.

He nods Tori as she walks into the conference room, the woman doesn't spare Tris a glance.

"Even if you haven't changed your vote, we still have to have the meeting." Four answers her without even a smidgen of warmth. He pulls his wrist from her grip and pushes the conference room doors open, letting them swing behind him.

Tris presses her palms to her forehead, combing her bangs around, pushing her short hair out of her face. She follows after him, her head held high because she refuses to look intimidated. She's grown a lot in the past two, going on three, years. She refuses to appear weak in front of them.

She smiles at Johanna as she takes her seat next to her. She doesn't look across where Four sits at the 6 o'clock spot. The woman with the scar, Johanna, is clearly trying to be supportive without saying it, but that doesn't help Tris. Four's mother, Evelyn, is staring Tris down, telling her that she better had changed her vote. But Tris hasn't changed her mind and she won't.

Jack Kang clears his throat, sitting at the head of the table across from Four, he adjusts his tie — Tris is unsure why he still wears that Candor uniform when the factions are all left in shambles — but others ignore it. "We all know why we're here." He says clearly, his hands folded on the table. "I hope we can come to a clear decision as to what to do with the prisoner."

"His name is Eric." Tris cut in, making the other leaders watch her. Johanna looks away first, but Tori makes sure her glare lasts and burns Tris. "The least we can do is remember he has a name."

"He's a dog." Tori snapped, "He deserves to pay for all that he's done."

"I'll take that as a yes to his execution?" Tris asks sarcastically, giving Tori the same glare.

"You're damn right." Tori slammed her hand in the table, "I'd put the bullet in his skull myself."

"I understand you're angry about George, but-"

"Angry?" Tori snorts, crossing her arms, "I'm not angry, I'm enraged." If she were an animal, she'd be frothing at the mouth, "He deserves to pay for all the families he's torn apart while helping Jeanine with her crackpot science experiments."

Tris stares at her with the same fire behind her own blue eyes, but she doesn't get the chance to retort.

"That is enough!" Four says darkly, strongly. He has his arms crossed over his chest. Tori — in all her angry girth — falls silent. Despite the fact that she's got at least 15 years on Four, she looks as if she's just been scolded by her father. For his part, Four looks equally livid with Tris. "Tris, he led the soldiers that attacked Abnegation." Four added, clearly not going to mention that they stopped the attack on Abnegation, and clearly not above shaming her in front of others. "Hundreds of children could have died."

"I understand that!" Tris argues, her voice squeaks with emotion. "Are you forgetting that he was groomed to be Jeanine's pet while he was still in grade school? Why is that so easy for you all to ignore?"

"That is not an excuse." Evelyn cut in, speaking for the first time. "He knowingly turned a blind eye to what Jeanine was doing." Tris nearly snorts at Evelyn's comment. Tris doesn't call her out on the fact that she kept things hidden about her husband Marcus - that she ran away and abandoned her son.

"You're sympathizing with a murderer!" Tori yells.

"We're taught to follow orders and never question something when it's for the good of the city." Tris answers, her head shaking as she tries to get some sort of sympathy out of them. "No matter what we want to blame him for, he isn't responsible for everything that led us here, and you all know it." If she really believes that, she's unsure. But knows in her gut that she doesn't hate Eric. She can't.

"His rules led to suicides, attempted murder and more accidents than I can count." Four argues back, and it's like a knife to her heart. Of all the people she'd want to hear her, she'd hoped it would be her boyfriend. But it's as though he's incapable of listening to what she's saying.

"You were also an initiate trainer, or did you forget that?" Tris asks him hotly. She's unabashedly angry with him at this point and everyone at the table can see it. There's fire behind his eyes and she doesn't care. "You act as though it wasn't your job to keep an eye on initiates. You pointed a loaded gun at an initiate just for the fuck of it, to intimidate Peter. Edward was stabbed in the eye. Al jumped from bridge because you failed to see that he was depressed from the very moment he got to the compound. But you couldn't be bothered, could you?" She inhales deeply, trying to reign in her emotions because she's being harsh — unfair even — but she doesn't care as much as she thought that maybe she should. "You've said it to me yourself, you were the one wanted for leadership. Eric did everything that was asked of him but they chose you. You were first pick. You declined. But now we blame him for that? How is that fair, how is that even logical?"

"Tris…" Johanna mutters to her, bringing her back. Four is just staring at her blankly. He can't believe she just said that to him. For a moment, he looks like the Tobias she'd grown to love — he looks concerned, as if he's actually thinking about what she said — but he turns away and Tris knows that the ship has sailed. His hatred for Eric runs too deeply.

Evelyn doesn't move to look at him. Tori has her eyes trained on the table, but if she had laser vision, there would be a hole down to the first floor of the building.

When Tori looks up at Jack — practically begging for him to just call for the vote — Tris looks down into her lap, suddenly feeling ashamed for feeling any compassion for someone who is seemingly emotionless. But she owes Eric her life. "He saved me."

"What are you going to do when you're done with her?" Eric asks Jeanine as she scrolls through charts on her tablet.

"It's so strange, I don't see how she thinks so differently. Her charts in comparison to mine or yours, or even Eric's are seemingly the same. But… It's not the same… That's a gorgeous brain," she says, holding the tablet out in front of her, talking to her assistant, "A lot of activity. Jumbled, but still beautiful."

That terrifies her.

Eric looks at her with pure contempt. It took him a while to get to this point — hating her — but he's finally at that point and he can't believe it's taken so long. He bites down his urge to tell her that Tris is a person and that she's gone off the deep end.

"What are you going to do with her when you've run all your tests?" He asks again, but with a little more bite in his tone.

"Tell them we're finished for the day." Jeanine looks up at him finally, handing the tablet off to her assistant Alice. "What we always did. Get rid of her. She'll be no use to me after this." He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but the words die on his tongue and he has no idea what he even wanted to say. Jeanine is sick. But he's allowed this for so long, so what does that make him?

He walks out of the room, leans against the wall. He needs a break, he needs to get away from this. He feels disgusting, and he's not used to that feeling when it crawls up his spine. He presses his fingers into his closed eyes, trying to relieve the pressure. But no avail. He has such a heavy headache.

He blames himself for this. The war, the death of so many people. He just, he hadn't made his mind up about what to do and it cost people their lives. When he closes his eyes, in his mind and he can still see the bodies of the dead floating in the chasm. He can feel the power that roared through his body every time he's pulled the trigger of a gun.

Two Dauntless traitors wheel an unconscious Tris out of the lab. He stares at her as she's wheeled away, her head lulls to the side and she opens her eyes. He feels like he'll randomly combust as they make eye contact. He knows she's still unaware of what's going on as she blinks, but that doesn't assuage his guilt. He swears he sees her mouth help me.

There would have been a time when he'd laugh at her for thinking that he — Eric Coulter — would help her but he can't laugh. It's her eyes. There's a glint of an emotion she's never looked at him with before. It's not fear he sees, it's resignation that this will be how she'll die. He can see that she's somehow okay with that.

He hates himself for a few moments before he realizes that at 21, he can't remember the last time he hasn't hated himself.

It's late at night, maybe just past midnight when he gets out of his Dauntless issued truck and walks to the side door of the building. He scans his access card and into the building he goes. He doesn't get a single second glance from the Dauntless who are walking up and down the halls. He counted about seven of them before he left earlier. He works his way to the back of the building where he waltz into the security room. There are two men, Sean and Paul.

Sean waves at him but he doesn't wave back. There's a split second when he really stops to think about what the hell he's doing — that maybe he's the crazy one — but then he remembers that he's tired of this all. He's committed about a thousand crimes punishable by death according to Dauntless Law, so this pales in comparison. He knocks Sean and then Paul unconscious before it even registers to either of them that it's him doing this.

He slips back out of the room, pulling the door behind him. He's not graceful in his approach but that's fine because grace is for Four, Number Boy. There's a silencer on his gun, which is a godsend when trying to kill people without being caught. But it's almost funny, all the technology they have, and they're still using bullets and loud guns.

He takes out the two guards on the second floor, stepping over them when they fall. He scans his keycard again and pushes his way into the room where Tris is being held. The door slides back shut behind him. She's lying in the bed when he looks up and sees her. She looks at him with a mix of shock and pride.

"We need to go, now." He says as he pulls back her bed covers and lifts her out of the bed. She's weak from the drugs they keep her doped up on to make sure she's well rested. It seems counterproductive to him. But he doesn't have time to question it right then.

He lifts her up and she weakly wraps her arms around him without a hesitation, her face buried in his neck. He's certain she'll be ashamed about that later. As he carries her out of the room, he hears a mic check and role call coming in from the receiver on a downed guard. And that's when the urgency of the situation heightens. It's takes him 10 seconds to get down the stairs. He holds her with one arm and points the other to shoot at the three men coming toward them. He's grazed by a bullet but they make it out of the way. The escape is 10 feet away.

There's backup being called for, but that would mean others would be leaving their posts outside, which leaves them a small window to get out of the building and back to his truck. And the make it. He's setting her into the driver's side, and she's scrambling to the passenger seat before he can tell her to. He starts the truck and peels down the street, gunshots blast at the vehicle.

"We were coming for you." Four responds. "We were on our way."

"On your way." Tris snorts as she holds her hands over her face, laughing bitterly. "You were nowhere to be found when he dropped me off at the factionless sector."

"You don't owe him anything." Evelyn told her, making her point clear as she looks at Tris. "He's done unspeakable things. Just because he saved you and killed Jeanine doesn't mean he's able to be rehabilitated."

"Rehabilitated?" Tori scoffed, "He's a murderer. There's no disputing-"

"I've killed people. You and Four have too." Tris sighs before inhaling sharply, exhausted by this conversation. "They weren't even aware of what they were doing and we shot them." She closes her eyes for a second and she sees Will lying limp in the middle of the street. She sees Christina's broken expression when she finds out her best friend killed her boyfriend, "Does that mean we should be put to death?"

Silence encapsulates the entire room. No one knows what to say. It's apparent that they were deadlocked again. But this time, things seem a little different.

Jack clears his throat, and breaks the silence. "We should vote. Is Eric to be executed?"

Evelyn nods, without hesitation,"Yes."

Four looks at Tris as he answers, "Yes." There's an apology in his eyes for a moment — he knows how strongly she feels — but he refuses to change his vote based on her feelings. He'll never say that to her, he'll never tell her that he thinks his feelings are more important... he'll never tell her that he doesn't trust her judgement anymore.

"Yes." Tori folds her arms, "He should be." Her brother George is dead because of Jeanine, and damn it, someone is going to take the fall for it.

"Tris?" Jack probes, "Your vote?"

"I vote, no." she steels herself off and holds her head high. She sits back in her chair and crosses her arms defiantly.

Johanna sighs heavily, but a stoic expression settles on her face. "No." She changed her vote. They all look at her, and she remains emotionless. "You created the monster." it's something she says without venom or malice. But it's still out of character for her — an Amity pledger — to blame anyone for the bad that happens. But the way Tris spoke, the way Four reacted so angrily to those words, Johanna knows that there is truth to it. "The woman responsible for all of this is already dead. When does the killing stop?"

"When his head rolls…" Tori responds, her voice is calm, but they can all see that the gears are turning in her head.

Jack takes his time — ignoring Tori's words — staring off at nothing as he presses his lips together. He swivels in his chair, sighs and shakes his head, "I vote no." Tris looks at everyone's shocked faces, but she inhales deeply in relief. She nods her thank you as her throat tightens with her jumbled up emotions, "He was fighting for the wrong cause, but it was for everything that is stated in your Dauntless manifesto. You did this."

"With what reasoning?" Tori asks, standing, her hand slapping down on the table.

Jack rests his hands on the table, he clearly stares at Four when he speaks, "War has made us all people we don't recognize. This is not a time for blame unless you want to place it on everyone."