A/N: Ain't insomnia just a peach! So here is a chapter for you since the only sandman that will be visiting me is the one Metallica is growling about to me. Enjoy!

Chapter 38 - If I Told You

Eric

I honestly didn't think sleep would be possible for me at all considering how worked up I was by the time Kat had had her exploration session with me. I thought I had known and felt desire before with her but I found out how fucking wrong I was.

I didn't know what to expect when I agreed. Considering how fucking innocent it had turned out to be maybe anyone else wouldn't have gotten as turned on. But she isn't just anyone and those simple, affection filled touches nearly had me coming undone right there.

What stopped me was something I think she tried to hide from me, but she isn't very good at hiding the things she is feeling. One of the things I love so much about her, she isn't afraid to feel or let it show. But besides affection and desire when touching me, there had been sadness.

I didn't know what was causing the sadness and again there was something that stopped me from asking. Something that told me I didn't want to know and now wasn't the time to ask. Something that told me there would be no way Kat wouldn't tell me on her own when she was ready.

It had plagued me as she relaxed into me and drifted to sleep. The soothing warmth of her pressed against me along with her breathing had me falling asleep despite my worries.

*****Page Break*****

It seemed like the alarm I had set on my walk to her dorm was going off much sooner than I would have preferred. But I had set it early for a reason.

I couldn't give her the sunset she had mentioned but I could give her the full moon and sunrise. It was also why I had thought to bring the thermos of coffee. So that we could have coffee and watch the sunrise together. It didn't mean that I was anymore anxious to wake and end the time I had in being with her like this.

At some point during the night we had shifted and were laying faced to each other, arms wrapped tightly around each other, legs threaded together.

I felt Kat coming awake as she stretched, arching into me with soft sighs. Like they had a mind of their own my hands started to move along her body, stroking softly as my muscles flexed themselves awake as well.

Our bodies moved against and with each other, as if this was something they had done a million times before this day. It felt like we had, like this was the most natural thing in the world. This is where we belonged and always had.

"Hmmm." She sighs as I feel her head tilt a little and then her lips brushing against my jaw.

My own seek her out, needing contact again and looking for the heat of her skin. "Mornin." I rasp out against her skin until I brush dangerously close to her mouth.

Kat gives a slight gasp and stills for a second before pulling back a little, leaving me frowning at the loss of contact. I blink more awake and look down to see her eyes wide and focused on my mouth. She doesn't seem aware I am watching her because she is in some kind of debate. Whatever it is, whatever she was thinking; isn't anything good because she frowns before shaking her head and that look of sadness comes over her face again.

It leaves me frowning and I can admit hurt. I feel like there is some kind of...veil...or something that has been put between us. Something hanging over us but I don't know if that is my own shit and I am projecting it or not.

Better not to bring anything up right now. I can't lie to her, I will eventually have to tell her. It isn't like we are together or anything though.

Seriously? Trying to justify that shit? Cause that is going to go over well, right?

I inwardly sigh and clear my throat out loud, thinking that wherever the hell the inner good guy had drug himself from, he could just go right the fuck back.

"Morning." She says finally with a smile at me and a blush.

She hasn't pulled out of my arms yet so maybe all of that was me and my own thoughts or guilt. I smile back and pull her a little tighter against me.

"I brought coffee." I smile wider at her little moan of pleasure as soon as I said coffee. "I thought we could have a cup up here and, if you wanted to, watch the sunrise?"

She blinked a few times, maybe in surprise at my suggestion. Then a slow smile spread across her face and she nodded. "I would like that, thank you."

It was worth feeling like a sap to see that smile of pleasure on her face. The smile that was the first thing to pierce me to my core. Pierce through the darkness and made me know without a doubt in those first days that I didn't just want her, I fucking needed her.

She let out a musical little laugh when I sat up and then before she could move fully I had her up and in my lap once again. I ignored the extreme discomfort I was feeling from my morning wood, adjusted her and myself discreetly and then pulled the blanket over us again. Once that was settled I handed her a cup and together we got the coffee poured into the two cups I had.

Luckily the thermos I had was pretty damn good at keeping shit hot so while it wasn't piping it was still good.

"Mmmm." She hums after she has had a few sips and lets out a sigh. "I feel like it has been weeks since I last had a cup of coffee."

I roll my eyes and chuckle after taking a few big drinks of my own. "Yeah that one day of no coffee must have just been fucking torture."

She looks up at me with a playful scowl on her lips. "I would like to see how you would function without your own daily dose of caffeine."

I laugh a little. "Nah, you wouldn't. You wouldn't want the blood on your hands that might result in."

She smirks a little and nods. "Exactly. You need your caffeine to prevent homicidal sprees and I need mine to prevent mass outbreaks of sarcasm and sass."

"I like your sarcasm and sass, so that may just be incentive for me to withhold then." My smirk gets wider when her eyes go wide then narrow at me.

She snorts a little and shakes her head. "Shh. I am trying to watch the sunrise."

She turns her head out towards the view, resting it back against my chest where I have her pulled tight against me. I kiss the top of her head and go back to drinking my coffee. We sit like that in comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching as the sun's rays start to burst from behind the mountains.

"Have you ever been camping, Eric?" She asks in between her sips of coffee.

I frown into my cup and shake my head. "Not camping as in real camping. I did a bit of survival training where I was…" I paused and thought of the safest way to put this "...placed in an area for a certain amount of time on my own."

She turns her head with a raised eyebrow but something in my expression must tell her that I am not going to elaborate more than that. She nods to me in understanding. "Why? Did you ever do the camping thing?"

She smiles at me, her eyes glinting with mischievousness. "I couldn't exactly disappear from home for a few days so I had to be a bit sneaky about it. Amity has times of year were they get volunteers to prepare for the winter. It is for doing various things but the last two years I was able to finally get a choice in what I volunteered at a few times. So I choose Amity and helping with getting their herbal medicine stores and medical center stocked. You know, rolling bandages, filling their little medicinal tea bags; just things like that. But there was the option to stay in Amity for the three days it would take or doing one day. I might have fudged and said I stayed for the full three days and used the other two to do some camping with a few Amity friends."

I smiled and shook my head at her. "Is this when you learned how to shoot a bow and arrow?"

"It was when I got to practice it. I also got to fish or learn to anyways. I learned how to build a few basic shelter structures and they started to teach me just a few things. I guess like survival skills. But I loved waking up early like now and watching the sunrise. It was different than seeing it as I was walking to my volunteer time. But just like then, now...it is like...I don't know…"

I sigh and look out at the sunrise. To be honest the only reason I had even thought of this at all was because she mentioned it. I couldn't have given a shit less about a sunrise or sunset. It was just a measure of time, signifying either another shitty day beginning or another shitty day ending.

But I get it. I do. Here with her, seeing that, feeling like I do and seeing a physical representation of it at the same time; I get it. I can't put it into words either exactly other than "Possibilities." I murmur.

My arm is wrapped around her waist with her arm on top of it. She moves her hand against mine and our fingers thread together. Squeezing she sighs. "Exactly."

"Maybe...maybe we could go sometime? After initiation and you get settled into, whatever job you are offered." I offer, hesitant and wonder if I am going too far here. It isn't something that would normally sound appealing at all but with her, fuck, she could make most anything sound like the best idea in the world. Or I am just that hard up to spend any kind of time with her.

She laughs and looks at me, her eyebrows raised. "Teach you how to fish, or shoot a bow and arrow?"

I smirk and shrug. "Like it would be all that hard?"

She laughs again. "Sure, this I would have to see."

I wink at her with a smile. "It's a date then." She is still looking up at me, her face so close to mine. I feel drawn closer the longer we stay there and am moving towards her.

Her smile falters a little and she frowns before turning away and lifting her cup to her lips. It is on the tip of my tongue, the question I want to blurt out. But the look in her eyes of hurt has me stopping and it is kind of pissing me off to be honest.

If I find out that someone told her something...I don't know that there will be anyone that could stop me from hurting them as much as that brief flash of hurt had shown me she feels.

Clearing my throat I drain my coffee cup. "So what are you thinking as far as a job?"

She pauses before downing the rest of her coffee. I take the cup from her and busy myself packing everything but the blanket back up in the bag. She goes to move from my lap but I tighten the hold I have on her with my one arm around her waist.

"I um, well to be honest, I was hoping something in leadership. Maybe even an ambassador or liaison if any of those are open." Her tone is a little guarded, telling me she is holding something back.

"I could see you doing well in Leadership. What faction would you want to represent Dauntless for if you were offered an ambassador position?" I ask, deciding to ignore the tone she had.

"Erudite. I think I wouldn't mind representing Dauntless for Erudite." She says with a shrug as if it is obvious.

Oh fuck that! There is no way in hell I am letting her anywhere near fucking Erudite much less Jeanine.

"Really? I guess I would have thought you might want to represent for Abnegation." I keep my tone even, almost flat so I don't let on that I am trying with all my might to redirect her.

She tenses immediately and looks to me. "I left there for a reason. I don't feel the need to go back."

I nod slowly, my mind working to try and come up with a way to get her to put Erudite out of her mind. "Trust me I get it. When it came time, I didn't exactly want to have to deal with my old faction either. But I chose to see it as maybe, I don't know, that I could help the two factions have a better relationship."

Kat sighs deeply, a troubled and weary kind of sigh. "Eric…" she pauses and turns to face me "You know I trust you but I am asking you to trust me that me being anywhere near certain Abnegation leaders for any real amounts of time would be the worst possible thing for Dauntless."

I know she doesn't mean her father so who…..

Then it hits me and I remember, her little comments that day when she told us about the incident with the factionless. Her look of pure loathing for Marcus Eaton. My face darkens and body tenses, then she is wrapping her arms around my neck and looking at me seriously.

"I trust you…" I finally get out in a soft voice "..to tell me when you think you can, or are ready. But...I swear to all the fucking gods Kat, if he…"

Her hands start to rub the back of my neck, trying to soothe and calm me. "He made my life difficult for sure and I can't stand him. I would rather not have to deal with him individually again."

My chest was heaving and my anger was calming but only because I was working to hide it better. She was telling the truth of course, in that way she had of telling the truth while still not saying everything. It was all that she wasn't saying plus something that had just reared its fucking head on me. The memory of her and I in the bathroom, those scars on her back.

Those scars had been trying to trigger the memory of another person I had seen with scars all too damn similar, Tobias Eaton...aka, Four.

I give her a tight smile but pull her head forward until our foreheads are resting against each other. Anger like I don't think I have felt since the death of my parents is bubbling inside of me. I don't know exactly what I am going to do...but if it is what I think...someone is going to pay. Maybe the whole fucking faction for letting it happen in the first place.

"Eric, talk to me." She whispers softly and worriedly.

Maybe she really does have me down, knows me so well already. I pull her against my chest wrapping my arms around her tightly, burying my face in her neck and shake my head. "I just need to know...I need you to know...you can tell me anything. I know it might take time before we...both of us...are able to tell each other things…"

She nods into my shoulder. "I will Eric. I know I can and I don't want to lie to you."

Sighing, I just hold her like that for as long as I know we can get away with before we will need to head down for coffee with Chase and Zach. Before we have to head to the training room then the regular day's training starts. Where she will have her last and most worrying fight.

For right now, these last few minutes before we went back to the roles of just instructor and initiate, I could forget all of that and lose myself in her.