A/N:

I'm sorry this took forever, I went on a little break. :)

I hope you are enjoying this story, and that you have a great weekend!

Big shout out to the Beta !

After jogging with Laura for a good half an hour, Kate had slowed to a pace where she could catch up on the latest gossip, but only having to find herself lingering back to Erudite earlier that day and hearing nothing her friend was actually telling her.

Dauntless is directly ahead of them as they slip through the patrol units crossing their paths, along with groups of civilians every so often until they reach the main steps. Laura's linked arm through hers pulls Kate forward. Whether it be from their run or the fact her thoughts were lost and a strain Kate couldn't get rid of, she feels exhausted, her feet almost stumbling to keep up.

"There's a group of us going and you should totally come too." Laura stops her before they move up the steps, "Like, really. And some lame excuse why you can't won't be accepted."

"I'll think about it." Kate pleads internally that Laura will drop this subject quickly, she was zero percent interested. "Maybe I'll skip this one and go to the next after I'm a little more settled. The last thing I'd want is to turn up to work looking like Harvey most days."

"Oh, that doofus…" Laura rolls her eyes. "And didn't I just say, lame excuses won't be-" A heavy hand lands on Laura's shoulder, and slowly she turns, her words lost as she cranes her neck up to Eric standing behind her. "Oh."

"Kate, what a coincidence." He sets his hands behind his back, letting a foul-play smile linger for the sake of Laura.

"Hi..." Kate frowns at him. "Eric…" They had plenty of time together in the day so she fears whatever is the reason for him to go to such lengths to find her out of hours had to be bad.

"I'm Laura," her friend blurts out, beaming a grin that had plenty of young Dauntless men usually swooning for. However, Eric barely bats an eye, his sights firmly set on Kate.

"Yeah…" he drifts off from Laura's unnecessary introduction. "Can I speak with you for a minute, Kate?"

Kate crosses her arms, shrugging slightly. "I was just heading home."

"It won't take long."

"I'm Laura from the last-"

Eric's eyes snap to Laura, uninterested at the most. "Yes, I know who you are. Give us a minute." He seems to purse his lips, fighting his own inner words. "...Please."

Laura's bubble seems to burst as she blinks multiple times. "Oh, yes, sure. I'll text you later." She waves, turning back on the last step of the entrance for one last look before scooting quickly inside.

As Eric checks she's gone, Kate slips her fingers through her ponytail, checking for flyaways, and then wipes the corners of her mouth before he turns back around, smiling innocently when he does. "Is there a problem?"

"No." A group of people jog past and he traces them until they are out of earshot. "Messaging felt impersonal and from experience I knew where you'd be-"

"So, you're following me now?" she asks suggestively. "I thought you'd have better things to do."

Eric's eyes narrow ever so slightly, his mouth twitching upward. "Better things to do?"

"You know, being a Leader, your own physical fitness, appetite...demands. It makes for a very busy man, usually."

"What can I say? I'm good at timekeeping." His teeth show with his smile and Kate can't help but coyly grin back.

"I'll take your word for it."

"You do that…" Eric breathes in deeply, his posture loosening. "...Your dad might be held up tonight and Lorraine's not fixing dinner."

"Oh, right." Kate bites her lip, trying to look at anything other than him as a flush begins creeping up her back before the thought hits her. "Are you here because my dad ordered you?" She meets his eyes now, the familiar gray she'd gotten used to falling into, so much so, that they never took her by surprise anymore. It was something much more fulfilling; something comfortable, something far greater, something easier that didn't make her pause for a moment but for a lengthy time, and quite happily.

"To make sure you ate something?" He gives her an incredulous look that wrinkles his brow. "No. I'm pretty certain you're not that incapable."

Kate steps closer to his unmoving form, shifting from one hip to the other nervously. "So, are you asking me to have dinner with you?"

"As in a quick sandwich from the canteen before I walk you home, I suppose," he shrugs. "If that's what you want to call it."

"Ah, there might be a problem, I'm kind of busy…"

"No, you're not." He shakes his head, chuckling at the flirty way she twists on her heel.

"I haven't got my points card."

"I'm sure I can buy you a sandwich."

"So, you are asking me to have dinner with you?"

"You're not going to stop until I say yes..." Kate grins as she steps past him, bumping his shoulder to coax him to follow her. "That's manipulation."

"I must be learning?"

She's up two steps when he decides to follow her, biting his cheek as his eyes slip to her ass. Those small, black shorts should be illegal.

"...It's not that I don't like tomato. I like it cooked in stuff but raw it's just too bitter and overpowering." Kate takes another bite of her sandwich, chewing quickly. "Did we really need these fries, though?" Her voice almost echoes in the dimly lit and mostly vacant canteen. They sit opposite each other on the end of one of the long generic tables.

Eric's devoured his within a few minutes, swallowing his last piece and watching the loathingly-slow way she maps out her next bite. "You could've told the kitchen staff that before they made it."

"It said chicken and salad, I thought it meant just lettuce." Finally looking up to him, he still seems tense, shoulders broad as he sits leaning on his arms. Kate stops eating, smiling as the thought hits her. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Do you have to kill me with a plate afterward?"

Kate snorts. "Depends on whether you can keep this embarrassing secret of mine."

"Depends on how funny it is."

Kate throws a piece of leftover lettuce at him. "I'm being serious here!"

"I'm ninety-five percent serious most days."

"I'm just going to come out and say it anyway and if you laugh it is definitely death by dishes." Eric gestures for her to continue. "This is the first time a guy has treated me to… dinner." She smiles, "Even if it's just a sandwich."

"Honored. But I hate to break it to you, your dating life, or lack thereof, is hardly a secret."

Kate groans, whispering to herself, "Why do I suck at secrets?" And Eric tries to suppress a laugh at her genuine concern.

"Since we are having an honest moment, it's not the only reason why I came to find you." Kate lifts her head, her frown of self-disgust warping to suspicion. He leans further across the table, keeping his voice low, "I'm not going to tell you, though."

"But-"

"No," he exhales and leans back with a smug smile. "It's a secret. Once told it's not a secret anymore, and you suck at secrets anyway."

Her mouth drops open and she picks up the left and cooling fries on the table, launching one at him. "Now you are potentially being a jackass. And that… there…" she looks him up and down, stumbling over her words while trying to remain annoyed at his pleased face. "...is the opposite of honesty."

"Compared to others, I'm honest with you… Most of the time." She rolls her eyes at him. "You want honesty?"

There's something sharp about his tone but she glides over it. "It's a huge thing for me. Try me."

"This is honestly nowhere near considered 'dinner with a guy'." He breaks into a condescending laugh. "It's just a sandwich with your superior." Kate shakes her head at his audacity, suddenly feeling mocked in his shift in attitude and scoots her chair out to leave, but he's too quick. Throwing his leg out underneath the table, he drags the chair back by the toe of his boot until she freezes, her palms flat on the surface of the table. "And as your superior, I can tell you, after this course, you will be an officer, and I'll still be a Leader, fulfilling our duties."

"Okay, Eric." Though she felt she had suddenly turned white. "I-I don't understand where you are going with-"

He scrunches his face up and exclaims angrily, "God, why are you so thick sometimes? In fact, you seem blind or deaf to whatever I try to say or do, palming off with 'It's fine,' 'It's okay,' when it's not."

"What do you want me to say?"

"I want you to tell me what you want." She opens her mouth but nothing comes out, blinking around the room for a form of relief as he doesn't once look away. "What you honestly want," he interrupts her as she flails on the spot.

Kate's heart in thrumming in her chest, the blood pulsing in her ears. For the first time, someone had offered her an option; to truly choose something she wanted personally, not to make do, and it was overwhelming. She knew the hidden meaning behind his words. It was obvious now that their conversation earlier had been following him all day, and Eric did what he does best, he waited until his duties were over and got straight to the point. She wonders if Mick being busy wasn't entirely a coincidence.

But it leaves her mulling over something far more significant, that she had once or twice created in her mind, and that on its own left a bitter taste in her mouth. Could she watch Eric eventually be with someone else for the rest of her time at Dauntless? Could she intentionally go against her father's wishes?

And as per usual, she is never good with moments like this that she has to inwardly swallow down the sudden urge to cry.

"Kate?" Eric prompts her, studying her closely for however long she had sat motionless.

On a slow exhale, she moves a clammy and unsteady hand across the surface of the table and touches Eric's fingertips. He instantly reciprocates, his larger fingers moving across hers, pulling her into the warmth of his palm and for a second her eyes close.

Suddenly she pulls away, wiping her cheek as she stands and walks with caught breath as quickly as she possibly could; her mind completely torn in two. She's barely made it through the canteen doors, hearing him call her name, and when she doesn't respond, he pulls her back by her wrist. It's a poor attempt at anything she's learned but easily twists from his grasp, hitting outwards as he grabs her upper arms. "Stop this! Stop!" She's merely thrashing, pushing at his chest, her words hissed.

"If you wanted me to stop, you could stop me."

"You're a Leader. You're supposed to like other girls, bothered girls, available girls!" she stresses.

Eric steadies her head with a hand engulfing the side of her neck, careless by her clammy skin or loose hairs pulled free from her ponytail, and locks her eyes with his. "You are available, as far as I know."

"This-this is trouble."

"It's too late."

"My dad…" Her lips tremble and he strokes her lower with his thumb.

"I'm going to tell him." He pushes his body more against hers and she has to step back until they stand in the darkest part of the long cavernous hallway. "I'll tell him." His breath fans her face, and she wished he would kiss her now - a fleeting thought, closing her eyes as if to subconsciously urge him.

"Oh. My. God!" An all too familiar voice on the verge of laughing suddenly prises the two apart.

"Rose!" Kate pushes Eric further away and he turns haughtily, wiping a hand across his chin in annoyance before facing Kate's half-sister. A second later Regina shows up with another girl behind Rose. And all three of the girls seem to know instantly what was happening, snickering between themselves.

"I caught them kissing!" Rose's voice booms, it seems, through the entire vicinity.

"That's a lie!" Kate tries desperately to recover the situation but Rose merely flicks her hair.

"Whatever, but if you think for a second I'm not going to tell dad - oh, you can forget it!" She begins giggling like a shorn duck. "This is just too good. Mom is going to love this. And you two are going to be in so much trouble."

"Kate, leave it. We'll find Mick now." Eric pulls on her shoulder. But Kate can't, watching Rose fish out her phone from her purse and put it to her ear. From, what felt like, a long state of limbo, things had jacked up way too fast for her to comprehend.

"Dad, I just bumped into Kate and Eric-" With those words, Kate sobs into her hand, shrugging Eric off, and shamefully heading back to the apartment.

Though Kate wouldn't stop and managed to get inside her home, shutting the door on him, Eric waits outside as the minutes turn into twenty. He chews his lip, arms crossed, at the very least his jaw ticks in irritation. After a moment he tries knocking again, leaning into his arms stretched up on the doorway. He pauses, his eyes traveling to the side as he straightens.

"Well, well, well…" Mick takes purposefully casual steps down the quiet hall, coming to a slow stop with his palms showing. "The shit has hit the fan."

"Rose is exaggerating. What she saw was-"

"You kissing Kate, apparently."

"We weren't. We were talking." Eric can't help the spite in his voice, his teeth locked as he takes a step closer towards Mick.

Mick sighs, pouting his bottom lip. "I don't care what you were doing because whatever it was, was against everything we have ever been through. I warned you-"

Eric takes the little distance left between them, squaring up, their eyes level. "Do you know what, I am fucking sick and tired of your bullshit. I'm trying to decide at what point loyalty is perverted into stupidity."

"Funnily enough, I was just thinking the same thing." Mick's eyes darken. "You have two seconds to walk away and we can forget about all this rumor mishap."

"Who is Kate to Jeanine?" Eric's sudden question plunders Mick's anger, his face hinting to one of surprise, his shoulders somewhat shrinking back as his confidence drains right in front of him. "If you won't tell me, I'll ask her myself."

"I told you not to take her there," Mick hisses through his teeth, trying to keep his voice from traveling. "I told you right at the beginning!"

"You once told me that assurances are the only thing we can rely on. Your example was people and bargaining, throwing rewards to save face. Mine comes from knowledge, what is truthful, something that doesn't stand on a pillar of shit waiting for the legs to be swiped out from underneath it."

Mick scoffs, his eyes rolling closed for a brief moment. "You really are a knock off the old block."

Eric stares at him resolutely with the same frown now beginning to set permanently whenever around this dated old man. "No. I'm not." He shifts from one leg to the other. "And your deception proves it... Who. Is. She?" Eric finally demands.

"She's her aunt. She ain't her mom if that's what you're thinking. She's a deadbeat aunt that's had me hoping for a successful assassination attempt for as long as I can remember." He laughs to himself. "I think I may even have a calendar somewhere marking off the days."

"Why doesn't Kate know she's her aunt?"

"It's better this way, believe me." When Mick scratches his beard, the sound makes Eric almost recoil. "Kate's mom and Jeanine were monstrous opposites. And that is why she can't know. She idolizes a woman who has been dead and buried for a fucking long time. To the point, I believe, she would trace exactly in her mother's footsteps if I didn't keep her on the straight and narrow..." Mick realizes he is saying too much, catching himself with a sharp intake of breath, a dazed look forming on his face the longer Eric stares at him. "...This is far beyond your comprehension."

"I understand just fine. You're fucking insane..." Eric barks a laugh, pinching the bridge of his nose before lifting his head back up to Mick's airy expression. "You had me fooled. At one point I saw a leader worthy of heading Dauntless. Now all I see is an obsessed old man, fighting to stay lost in his past while using Kate to do so."

"We'll see who has the last laugh. After all," Mick shrugs, "she's a daddy's girl."

"Has me almost wondering whether you get off on that, Mick."

"Well, I certainly know you do." Eric steps forward, bracing his arm, but Mick throws his hands out to the side, chuckling lowly. "Go ahead. Look, I'll even make it easy for you, I'll close my eyes…" Mick then puts his hands behind his back. "No hands… Give it your best shot, son. You were taught by the best and I expect nothing less."

Mick waits on the spot, his head almost tilted up to mock Eric further. Eric sniffs to himself, wiping his face quickly, and Mick opens an eye to peek at him. "Ah, I knew you'd be a sissy."

Eric tilts his neck slowly to one side on a long inhale of breath, then launches himself forward, fisting the front of Mick's jacket as he slams him up against the nearest wall. He pushes his fists deep into the old man's chest, crushing him further, trying to keep at least one line of reasonable thought in his mind why he shouldn't fracture each individual and brittle rib of Mick.

The vein is back on the side of his head, his breath no more than a drawn snarl.

"Pussy."

Bringing his knee up swiftly, Eric aims for the fleshy part of Mick's stomach, hearing the grunt on impact.

"Ah!" Mick spittles the hall, cradling himself as he stumbles. "There is that delightful…" he hocks and spits, leaning up against the wall. "...Dauntless side I have so greatly missed." He scoffs, groaning as he straightens, "Erudite must've practically thrown you out!"

"Go and play happy families while you can, Mick, before everything turns to shit around you." It takes every fiber of Eric's being to turn and walk away, but he stops short, his breath still staggered in his blinding anger; the effort to keep his feet from finding their way back to snap Mick's irritable face from his aged body. "And if it isn't obvious, Kate and I-"

"You'd have to kill me first," he spits out as a threat, though he's still struggling from Eric's attack. And he meant it.

For what reason, Eric couldn't quite decipher, although he had multiple suggestive ideas in his head about Kate's mother and what possibilities Mick could assume as dangerous if Kate was on Eric's side. Perhaps it was the untimely threat to Mick's position. Eric knew he'd leveled easily with Mick through training, and even as a leader now, he was pushed by the others onto areas Mick usually oversaw. With Kate by his side, with her measured mind and practicality, unafraid to put her hand into work where others probably wouldn't, they could end up being the preferred power couple.

Suddenly he liked the idea far more than before when now doused in measurable spite.

"That can be arranged." Lifting his cheeks and performing a mocking head bow, he leaves. If Mick wanted to be petty, he had no problems in rallying. After all, Mick said he had been taught by the best.

Mick finds that Kate had locked herself in her room. Well, not so much locked as he had banished the girls from having locks on their bedroom doors years ago. But on the act of decency, and a far better solution, he thought, he wasn't going to pull the mad father act and push his way into her room.

Instead, he takes a step back, inches from the white wood she is hiding behind, and thinks, hard.

Every few minutes he hears the betraying sniffs from her side. There was only ever a few incidents when Mick had ever seen his poetically different daughter cry, and that is how he knew he was in the advantage already.

But weirdly, in this moment, he suddenly peters out on long distant memories of her mother. There was no denying that Kate was the spitting image of her; the dark brown wispy hair just below her shoulder, the dark green eyes, the shape of her brow, down to the slight descent of her nose. Though, Kate's eyes were unknowing, not at all defying, unlike her mother's. And at least, for that, he is grateful.

Mick sucks on his bottom lip, sighing to himself before bringing himself closer to the gap in the door. "I know my girl is in there."

"Please, just go away." Her voice breaks, and he hears something being moved from inside.

"I'm not angry." His voice is soft and guiding, though his expression is pained when he says it. "It's just me and you right now." When she doesn't reply he breathes in deeply. "At least let me do the fatherly act if anything at all. I'm coming in now." Slowly he tilts the door handle, opening the door to her sitting braced on the bed, her eyes still puffy and she can't seem to look up at him.

"Rose is lying."

"Yes, yes." He slips down next to her, the bed dipping, and puts a hand on her shoulder. "I know. Eric told me everything."

"He did?" She looks up, incredibly relieved, or maybe it was hopeful.

"He did. We had a little chat. We worked some stuff out. I learned some new things." He talks flippantly, as if he hadn't been out in the hall moments earlier insulting Eric's entire being; letting Eric's slight of tongue finish with an obliged arrangement of his death. "This is my fault. I take full responsibility for this mess. I put you two together and invited him into my home, of course a sense of attachment was going to happen."

"Sense of… attachment?" Kate's fine eyebrows dip, a bewildered look rising on her face.

"Yeah, I mean, I know he had been looking out for you for a while, on my orders. I got the gist that he's just being overprotective." He shrugs nonchalantly, peeking at her out of the corner of his eye as she drops her head to her lap, twisting her fingers together. "That's just part of the job."

"You're saying he is only doing it because he has to? That I've had special treatment?"

"I wouldn't say special treatment. But he has been monitoring you, so to speak." It's like the nail in the coffin and he could almost smile if it wasn't such a critical situation.

"But he said-"

Mick stops her by turning towards her, stroking her arm as any loving parent would. "Darling, he's a man under my orders, who needs guidance. He was outside just now and we had this conversation. He knows it's a mistake." She's still lost in thought, and he had seconds to stop her troubled mind. Mick flinches, hissing as he turns his body straight again. It instantly has her change from confused to concerned.

"Dad?"

"I let him give me one in the gut for our problems; to let him cool his anger a little. He's always had a knack for violent episodes when he doesn't get his way. Let's remember, we are talking about a boy in leadership here, not some wall-mount you pass by outside in the courtyard. After all, I'm grooming him as much as I can to replace me as soon as I retire." He stands up and stretches with a hand on his hip, favoring his stomach as obviously as he could. "He's a smart boy. I'm not begrudging him. I love him like he is my own. But I love you more, and you are convenient for him." Kate's lips are parted, struggling with such brutal honesty. "He will try to push further, use anything to his advantage, even you, in order to get to this position much faster."

"Eric wouldn't… He said-"

"Funny you pass in the same week he comes to terms with his long-lost feelings for you, isn't it?" Mick leans over her and plants a kiss on the top of her head. "Just think about it."

He offers her a grieving smile as he leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him, and all Kate could do was stare at the place where he last stood.

She wonders whether Eric would be that type of guy. That maybe she had misread him from the moment she had met him. That he obviously had helped her through to the position she was in today, only to get his own advantage out of it.

Her stomach twists sickeningly, a white cold flush spreading through her limbs as her hands tremble. The realization hits her more than anything, that he, Eric Coulter, was totally capable, and it's not like she made it hard for him. She'd stupidly lingered on every small look or attentive behavior and tricked herself into believing that someone like him would be interested in her for anything other than advancement. He'd even spelled it out to her right at the beginning but all she had concentrated on was the fact he'd called her pretty. She was stupid. A stupid little girl.

The trinket next to her bed she was fiddling with moments before her father came into the room sits positioned on top of the crumpled photo of her mother. She gazes down at it with a hardened stare, the tears welling in her eyes, just as she snaps.

She slaps the painted green, no bigger than her palm, music box across the room. It just misses her full-length mirror and hits the wall, cracking the forever broken lid open.

She regrets it immediately once the reality seeps in, and a small chime from a note inside has her dashing across the room. Cursing, she grabs the music box, suddenly reluctant as an oily liquid seeps from the barest of cracks. She pushes up the lid further, as the softest and simplest song begins to play...

The room is dark. The bed is huge compared to the small girl as she cowers against the wall, just below the window, wedging herself as far back as possible, but just enough to see the passing of feet from the brightly lit doorway.

She watches, sometimes having to peer under the bed to get the full view, as hardened heels pace just outside.

She is cold and hugs her knees tightly, trying to stop herself from whimpering. It doesn't help at all that her favorite dress is tattered and torn. Her shoes, dolly shoes usually bright red, also had blemishes and she eyes them sadly; they are the ones she loved to run in, the ones that made her run faster.

From outside the room, something slams and she is torn from her musings. A woman's voice carries over. "She's been in there all evening. She won't come out. I even offered her candy." The woman sounds tired and her words are too quick to be kind. And she didn't offer her candy, the woman had put her up at the table after pulling her by the arm, dropping sugary treats in front of her without a word. That's when she had run in her fast red shoes and dove by the side of the bed in a room she didn't know, trying to hide under it whenever the woman tried to grab a hold of her again. "She's feral, and she is already causing problems."

"Try and be a little more sympathetic, eh? She just saw her mom-"

"Whatever! We have twin babies next door and I don't want this waking them up!"

Babies? The little girl likes babies. She remembers a young woman letting her help dress one back at home. She couldn't remember the baby's name, ever, so she gave it a name herself - Dandelion.

She pulls herself into a tighter ball when a large shadow blocks all the light. They are whispering far too quietly for her to understand. In fact, she doesn't even care, she just wants to go home.

The large shadow treads lightly into the room, suddenly appearing at the foot of the bed. "Hey, there," he whispers. He has a funny beard, half disappearing by the light. "Katie-Lynn, you wanna come out now?"

Slowly, the little girl shakes her head, still tucked up in her ball of protection.

"I thought not. Everything's a little strange, huh, doll?" He smiles now and it's a nice smile that she suddenly relaxes just ever so slightly to, dropping her legs to pick up her head, looking at him through her lashes. She sniffs, feeling the urge to cry, but she is too terrified to. "Mommy's had to go away for a while."

"Mommy?"

His eyes brighten at her voice, "Yes, so you're going to stay here with us."

"Mommy said, that I… I shouldn't speak to strangers."

"Oh, Katie-Lynn, we're not strangers, we're family. Me and your mommy are very good friends." He smiles again. "I got you a little something."

"My mommy's friend?" Her tinged brown hair bobs in tangled curls as she gets to her knees.

"You wanna see?" Katie-Lynn also likes presents, so slowly she nods, standing up as he plonks himself on the end of the bed. She grips her dress as she warily steps closer, trying to see what he's hiding. "Here, come look." She accepts him picking her up and putting her on his knee. He holds her like she has seen the other Daddy's do, but she is still trying to peer to the hand hiding her present.

He hands her a small box. It's green. She preferred red, but it doesn't matter. Eagerly, she takes it from him, turning it over and over, even shaking it, and eventually opens the lid to a song playing.

"Katie-Lynn," he murmurs behind her.

"Yes?" She turns around, blinking up at him as he smoothes her hair away from his beard. "What is your name?"

"It's Mick. But you can call me daddy if you like?"

"Daddy?" Her brows furrow and she looks down at the box again to play with it, humming along. "I don't have a daddy."

"You do now." She ponders his words for a moment. She'd never had one before but he seemed nice enough. "What do you think? You think you could call me daddy?"

She shrugs. "Okay."

"Can I call you Kate? I like that much better."

She doesn't understand why he wants to call her Kate but bringing the trinket high above her head and swooping it down with the music, she nods absentmindedly.

His hold tightens around her and he chuckles, murmuring, "My sweet little Kate."