A/N: Hopefully I didn't confuse anyone too much with the last chapter. And maybe this one clears that up a little. The request was to have Ronnie taking care of Eric while he was sick, but this is what came to me. Anyway, I hope you guys are ready for a few more glimpses into the private world of Eric and Ronnie! :)

And as always, please R&R because your support keeps me going! :D


I wasn't sure how long I slept that night after Doc and Four left. It wasn't an easy thing to do while Eric was laying there in the hospital bed, hooked up to both a blood transfusion IV and a clear med pack IV and looking so awful still covered in dried blood. Honestly, I didn't even know I had fallen asleep until I felt his hand suddenly clamp down around mine and my head jerked up from the bed beside his knee. His eyes were open and he was looking at me with a mixture of emotions. Fear, anger, worry, relief. Love. That one had me scooting closer and pressing my lips to his fingers while I tried to keep from crying.

"You're okay."

Two simple words. But coming out of his mouth as rough and weak as they did, they were more than enough to break open the floodgates. I nodded, kissing him again and letting the tears roll down my cheeks. "Yes. I'm okay. And you will be, too. They had to pump you full of sedatives so they could work on you because you were fighting them so hard, but they got you patched up."

"I didn't know where you were. I don't even remember how we got back here." He frowned, looking down at our hands. "I just remember not hearing your voice anymore. It scared the shit out of me. I thought something had happened to you."

"No," I told him, getting up to kiss him softly on the lips. "No, I was outside the room the whole time. I was kind of in shock, but I was okay for the most part."

He lifted his head off the pillow to press his lips against mine again for a moment, biting back a hard grunt of pain from his effort to move. Then he leaned back with a sigh and looked up at the ceiling. "Fuck. I feel like shit."

I couldn't help the little laugh that bubbled up. "You look like shit."

He narrowed his eyes at me for a moment, but I could see the corner of his mouth turn up just slightly. It was good to see him in fairly decent spirits after what had happened the night before. They must have put some good pain killers in his IV cocktail. I honestly wasn't looking forward to when they wore off. Nine weeks of being around Eric had clued me into his behavior pretty well. He got nasty when he was hurting. And since they were going to try to stick him on bed rest or light duty so his injuries could heal, this was not going to be fun at all.

"You need to get some sleep," I said softly. "Four's coming by in the morning to get your statement for the reports, and I'm pretty sure Max is going to chew both of us out for this."

"Fucking hell," he growled. He shifted around a little and sighed. "Last thing I want to deal with right now."

"Four said Max is pretty pissed about the whole thing."

"I don't doubt it. It's one thing for one of us to get hurt, but when it's an Initiate that gets attacked, he tends to lose it. You should have seen him after your incident at the bridge."

I frowned. I remembered when Gabe told me about how Max had thrown a fit over the accident. How much trouble Marco had gotten into over the whole thing. It made me wonder if he was going to come after Eric for this one. Or me, since it was technically my fault we had left Dauntless territory in the first place.

"What?"

I shook my head, trying to clear the images of an angry Dauntless leader screaming in my face over pulling something so stupid and dangerous that it not only put me in danger, but nearly got one of his leaders killed. "Nothing."

"You're not that good at lying yet, Ronnie," he replied, his eyes narrowing. "Especially not to me."

I sighed and leaned back in my chair, letting go of his hand for the first time in hours to run my fingers down the sides of my face.

"He's going to kick me out," I said softly. "I nearly got you killed, and he's going to kick me out for it."

"No, he won't. You're too high in the rankings, and you've got a lot to offer Dauntless." He shifted around again. "Besides, I'm not going to let him. You're staying here with me where you belong."

I smirked and reached for his hand again, giving it a small squeeze. "Get some sleep, Eric. Before the pain meds wear off too much."


Word of what happened had gotten around the compound pretty fast. As soon as I walked into the mess hall for breakfast, I found way too many pairs of eyes locked onto me and heard too much whispering and murmuring for me to eat comfortable. Thankfully, though, the details of the story were fuzzy enough not to have people asking if Eric and I were an item. They were more concerned with the Factionless being on our turf than anything else.

"You okay, Ronnie?" Jake asked as soon as I sat down.

"For the most part. Eric got it worse, though."

"I still can't believe Factionless came into Dauntless territory," Tara said. "And they openly attacked you guys when you were out on a run. That's just... scary."

"Speaking of," Alex chimed in. "Why were you even out running at that time of the night? Isn't that against the rules or something?"

"Not if we have someone with us," Darcy answered quickly. "It's not common, but it happens. And we all know how Ronnie likes running. I'm sure Eric thought it would be fine to run the sector because it's pretty well-guarded."

I nodded, silently thanking Darcy for her input. She probably had something to do with keeping the details to a minimum about why I was out with Eric last night. Rumors were bound to fly, though. I knew that all too well. All I could do at this point was hope that it wouldn't get too bad.

"It surprised me, too," I said, picking at my muffin. "But he's not just a leader, you know. He's a trainer. He pays attention to us more than you think he does."

"She's right," Tara agreed. "It's part of his job. How do you think they figure out the rankings? It's not just about who wins a fight or gets through their fear sim the fastest."

Alex nodded. "True. I guess it's easy to forget that part seeing as it's Eric."

"I hear Max had a fit over the whole thing," Gabe said. "Chewed both of you out pretty good."

I frowned and looked down at my food. Max had indeed ripped into us earlier in the med ward. I was still convinced he was going to kick me out of Dauntless when he'd walked in, but after his initial outburst of berating us for being out at night was over, he settled down a bit. He commended me for standing my ground with Eric against our attackers, even put his hand on my shoulder and told me he was glad I was okay. Then he dismissed me, and I could hear him and Eric arguing as soon as the door shut behind me.

"Yeah," I finally answered. "I thought he'd kick me out, but he didn't. He's more concerned about the Factionless coming back for revenge or something."

"They might," Jake replied. "But if the group acted on their own, they might not. It just kind of depends."

"Well, let's just hope they decide that those guys deserved what they got and just leave it be," Gabe said.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Come on, guys," Patrick said, picking up his tray and moving to stand up. "We've still got training to do."


"I'm not sure if I like you like this."

I dropped the shirt I was holding into the pile by the bathroom door and turned around. Eric was laying in bed, propped up with pillows, watching me as I moved around his apartment. They'd brought him in some time between breakfast and lunch, and from what the Doc had told me, the nurses were glad to have him gone. My hunch about him being super irritable were more than right. He'd nearly punched one of the male attendants when they told him he'd have to be on bed rest for a couple days.

"What do you mean?"

"All of this." He motioned to me and then to the trays of food on the coffee table, then around the apartment in general. "You're acting like some kind of housewife or something."

I smirked and rolled my eyes. "Eric, you're injured. I'm only helping you out a little bit until you get better."

"I think bringing me food is plenty help enough. You don't have to clean up after me. I can do it later."

"Right. Later. And in the meantime, you have trays of food piling up all over the place and your apartment starts to smell like something died in here. I'm not living in that kind of mess."

He raised an eyebrow at me. "Excuse you?"

"You heard me," I replied casually, though I could hear a lot of my mother in my own voice. "Do you really think I'm just going to leave you alone for the next few days? Think again, mister. You're not getting out of that bed."

I walked back over to the coffee table and started cleaning up our lunch, piling the trays on top of each other so I could take them back down to the mess hall later. I could feel his eyes on me the entire time.

"And just how are you going to pull that off? You're still an Initiate. You're supposed to be in the dorms."

I grinned at him. "Punishment from Max. At least that's the story everyone else is hearing. Get a leader nearly killed, you gotta help him out until he's cleared for duty."

"Max actually cleared that?"

I nodded. "I went to talk to him after training this morning. He agreed with me that it was the safest option for keeping you in bed while you healed up. Besides..." I went over to the side of the bed and sat down, taking his hand in mine. "Who else is going to risk getting their head bitten off all the time? It's not like you're Mr. Popular around here."

He grunted and pulled his hand from mine to give my shoulder a light shove. Then he sighed and leaned his head back on the pillows behind him. I bit my lip, watching him for a minute as the question rolled around in my head. I finally worked up the nerve to ask it after his eyes had closed.

"Eric?"

"Hmm?"

"What were you arguing about this morning?"

"I'll give you one guess."

I brought my hands to my lap and looked down at the floor. "He's blaming you for it, isn't he?"

"Both of us, really. You for talking me into it, and me for letting you. But he's right, you know. I should have known better. Initiates are supposed to stay in the compound where they're safe until after they're full members. And even if we take them out, we don't leave our own territory. Not at night, anyway."

"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "We should have just turned back like you wanted us to. But it just felt so good to keep running. To forget everything for a little while."

"Hey." I heard him shift around behind me before his fingers wrapped around my arm. "Look at me, Ronnie." I turned my head and was met with icy blue eyes that were both firm and soft at the same time. "What happened last night was going to happen regardless of if it was just us out running or if it was with a whole group. Those guys had a problem with our decision over who had the right to occupy the building they were trying to claim, and they came after me because I delivered the order for them to leave. None of that was in any way your fault."

"But we wouldn't have run into them if we hadn't went out."

"True. But you'd be climbing the walls just like when you had your hand in that cast. I had to do something."

I sighed and kicked off my boots so I could join him on the bed. I curled up into his side, laying my head on his shoulder and draping my arm across his hips. He brought his hand up from behind me to trail his fingers up and down my upper arm. But after a minute or two, my left arm started to bother me, so I shifted myself to take the pressure off of it, and the bandage that was wrapped around it tugged sharply on one of my stitches.

"Ouch," I hissed, sitting up to unwrap it.

"What?"

"I think I pulled a stitch or something."

I pulled the white gauze off and looked at the dark pink line going down the inside of my forearm. All the little black threads were still intact, but the one that had been grabbed still hurt. I rubbed around it gingerly, trying to ease out the pain.

"I didn't know you'd gotten cut," I head him say before his fingers trailed down beside the mark.

"Yeah. The jerk with the knife got me pretty good. Doc said I'll be fine, though."

"Where else did they get you?"

I could hear the tension in his voice, but I kept my tone easy. I didn't want him getting worked up over all of it. There wasn't any need for it, anyway. I was in much better shape than he was.

"Couple places on my back and up by my shoulder. But they're superficial. Even the bruises from the chain are minor."

He stiffened beside me. "The chain?"

"He paid for it," I said calmly, looking up at his frowning face. "I strangled him with it."

It wasn't like I was proud of the act. I actually didn't like the fact that I had killed someone. But it was all in self-defense, and I'd quickly come to terms with that. Sometimes, there just wasn't going to be any other way. And I was just going to have to accept that truth if I was going to be Dauntless.

"I would tell you that I'm sorry you had to do that," he said as if he could read my thoughts. "But-"

"But that's just how it is sometimes," I finished for him, rewrapping my arm. "I know. We're soldiers. And sometimes we're going to have to take a life to save another."

"Are you sure you're Candor and not Erudite?"

I smirked, looking back up to see the same expression on his face. "My best friend was Erudite. Bound to have a little of her rub off on me after being with her every day for nine weeks."

He shifted again, grunting and grumbling as he did so. "This is going to get old fast."

"You need another med pack." I patted his leg and slid over to the edge of the bed to put my boots back on. "And so do I, actually. I'll run down to the med ward and grab them, and I'll be back in a few minutes."

I heard him sigh behind me. I couldn't help but smirk. He was definitely not used to this kind of treatment, and he couldn't be liking it much. But at least he wasn't arguing with me about it yet. Maybe because he was still hurting. Or maybe because it was me who was taking care of him. I was actually hoping that it was both that was keeping his foul mood at bay. Otherwise he was going to get to see just how stubborn I could get, too.