Dec 14th - I met you on Christmas but haven't seen you since, until today. Are you an angel?

"I can talk to my brother in Erudite about that. When last we spoke he mentioned being on the transition team for the journal, so he should be privy to the official figures and how they're going to be reported," I offered. It felt good to finally have something to contribute to the weekly meetings. I'd turned a corner from Leadership-trainee-awkwardly-listening-from-the-corner-of-the-table to Leadership-trainee-hesitantly-participating-in-inter-Factional-discussions.

Corporal Melanie gave me a subtle thumbs up, furthering the satisfaction I was feeling. I looked down at my notebook and scrawled a note to get in contact with Caleb. "Excellent," Valerie said. She nodded to herself, and scanned the agenda in front of her. We were at the end of the meeting and I was thankful when no one had anything to add when the Leader opened the table up for open discussion.

I tucked my notebook under my arm and slipped out of the conference room. Lexi looked to be shooting daggers at me with her eyes. She was an Erudite transfer, I remembered on the stairwell back up. Oh well. It wasn't my fault that I'd spoken up. If she had a contact back in her old faction, she should have spoken up.

My office was blissfully empty - Kyle was manning the front desk as usual - and I could set about to finding the comm line to Erudite. It would be better to set up that meeting now while I still remembered to. I was sure Caleb wouldn't have much more than a few minutes to talk which was fine by me. It still rubbed me in an odd way that he had been on Jeanine's research team even if he was just following his PI's orders.

A soft knock on the doorframe caught my attention. "Yeah? Oh hey Eric," I chirped automatically when I spotted him there. I went back to pulling up the comm lines on my desktop and copied down the extension that would be most proper to reach out. Calling Caleb's direct line would be convenient, but being just a few months out from Initiation I wanted to avoid anything that looked too much like familial closeness. I found his department's line and wrote that one down.

Eric still hadn't said anything. When I looked up again he was sitting in Kyle's chair, frowning and just staring at me. "What's up?" I asked tentatively. This was not normal, even for Eric.

"You have a brother," he said simply. The frown deepened as his brow furrowed.

"That is correct. His name's Caleb and he's an ass. But he's my brother," I added. "Older brother."

Eric's eyes flicked away for a moment as he blinked. They returned to scan my face. "Do you remember the Christmas Eve airstrike?" His change in topic was sudden and utterly confounding.

I clicked my pen shut and moved to sit on the corner of my desk facing him. "Of course I do. Everyone does. It was a mess. People died. They talked about it for years afterwards. 'Worst damage to Chicago's infrastructure of the last century,'" I parroted back the phrase that was slammed into our heads every year in Faction History.

"Right but do you… remember the actual- Nah, never mind," Eric quickly stood up, running a hand through his hair. "It's dumb. Forget it."

He tried to walk out of the office. For once I was thankful for how freakishly tight it was because I could just reach out an arm and block the doorway. "Eric, what is it?" I pressed. Anything that had him this worked up must have been important.

"I just… something reminded me of that day, that's all. But I'm sure it's just co-incidence," he murmured. "You can go back to whatever you were doing."

I may be ex-Abnegation but I was certainly not a pushover. Eric was trying to backpedal away from a conversation that I now made my mission to get out of him. "Everyone evacuated the schools and public buildings to the airport," I said. "It took hours and not everyone got there at the same time. Dauntless kept all the kids together until their parents could come get them."

I couldn't read the emotion on Eric's face. Still, he wasn't stopping me from talking and I plowed ahead. "The Lower Level classes - mine in particular - took forever to get there. We got put with the Mid Level kids. My brother and I got there together. Not everyone was that lucky."

"Caleb," Eric echoed. I nodded.

"Yep. He-"

"You thought he should have been tougher because he was older," Eric said quickly over me.

It was my turn to frown. "I, yeah. That's exactly what happened. I remember because-"

Before I could keep going Eric pulled me into a bear hug. His chin dug into my collarbone from how tight he clung to me. "I knew it was you. It was so obvious but I didn't think it was right," he mumbled into my hair.

I threaded my hands under his vest and hugged him back. It was a relief, somehow, to take that memory and put a name to the boy. Not just a name, an identity. Emotion filled Eric's voice as he choked out his next words. "I thought you were an angel. An honest to God angel," he said hoarsely.

Finally he pulled back, just enough to look over my face with complete wonder and bewilderment. "You talked and talked and it made me forget how scared I was."

I didn't know what to say to that. It didn't matter to Eric though. He was more than caught-up in his elation. He kissed me. This time wasn't about desire or romance or the budding something between us that we were both ignoring. His kiss was tender, ending as gently as it began.

"Thank you," he breathed.

"For what?"

Eric laughed. I could feel it through his chest as he continued to hold me. "For being you."