Thank you oh so much to Bamberlee for editing! 💙

Have a lovely weekend everyone! Thank you for being so supportive over these last few years. Take care!

Oh, and for those who asked, yes, I will leave the stories uploaded on this site :)

"Look!"

The world ends and begins on a Tuesday, on a dark and stormy afternoon, when the snow threatens, and the skies are black. The outside is harsh; the snowfall has been lingering in the skies for days now, promising to storm at any moment's notice. The air is freezing, biting and sharp and painful to be outside, and it's forced almost everyone inside.

In Dauntless, the faction is shutting down and preparing to be trapped inside for at least a few days. Soldiers had been sent to outposts; the few who were working rotating patrols at the furthest positions would stay put, monitoring things from afar, and the ones who worked inside would prepare for the impending power outages.

The other factions would do the same.

Candor had closed all offices and courts. Jack Kang had released a statement saying all trials would be put on hold for the next week, and if needed, even longer. Abnegation had taken in all the factionless they could. They'd converted an older, abandoned building as a makeshift shelter, and the sprawling space –while still cold –would provide much needed shelter from the storm.

Erudite would be fine. They had more backup generators than they could ever need, but most would be used to power the hospital. They, too, were closing down the stores and shops, and only one brave coffee shop was remaining open.

Here, in Amity, the faction had wound down early this morning. The kitchens were closed, the general store was dark, and almost every member had returned home. The Amity army, a team created by Harrison, would man a few posts, but it was unlikely there would be much trouble.

Things were very different these days.

"Do you see daddy?"

I sit in the giant window with Evan, watching the first snowflakes fall onto the patio.

He's almost two now, tall and impatient, and he's waiting for Eric to return.

My life was nearly unrecognizable from when I'd left Amity for good, but in the best way possible. I'd moved to Dauntless to live with Eric, a decision I'd been forced into making for the sake of wanting to be with him. Amity held nothing but my family, and while a huge part of my life, I wasn't willing to stay here on my own.

The thought of raising Evan by myself was enough to solidify my move. I'd watched my mother struggle while Hank was gone, and I'd experienced her struggling to raise Forrest and myself while Harrison was gone. My sacrifice wasn't entirely selfish; I wanted to be happy, but I wanted Eric to be happy as well.

We are.

Life in Dauntless was far from what I expected. I was given a job as the Dauntless Ambassador to the Factions. I was nineteen when I accepted it, and despite a few funny looks and some expected missteps, I enjoyed it. I got to visit Daniel whenever I went to Erudite, I got to know the Candor courts and witness all sorts of cases imperative for keeping the peace, and I became friendly with Tris' family in Abnegation. The only struggle there was Four's father. Marcus did not like me from the day he met me. I found him strange, like he was hiding something, and he knew it. He immediately dismissed me as being too young to add any real value to his council, and when I refused to give up, I uncovered all sorts of allegations against him. Eric willingly led the hunt to take him down, and as Four watched with his lips pressed together when I had enough to prove who he really was, I was able to have a secretly violent and terrible man removed from power.

That move helped further my reputation. I found myself bringing awareness to those who couldn't speak up for themselves. In Erudite, I found cases where children were pushed to the breaking point to be smart, and teachers who were willing to overlook everything and anything to make sure they were held to impossibly high standards. In Candor, I sat with Jack's assistant, going through cases where the victims were wrongfully prosecuted, or mistrials where things were manipulated. In Amity, I sat by my father, and listened to him talk about farmers needing a break, and the slow integration of willing factionless to help out.

Things were good.

Really good.

I spent a weekend at Four's wedding, a quick ceremony in front of a small group of his friends and an even smaller group of family, and I celebrated by eating oddly bland food. I officially married Eric in our own ceremony, large and extravagant and in front of so many people my head spun. I was given a dress so dark it seemed to be made of dreams, and so elegant it was hard to imagine someone had thought of me while making it.

I kissed him in front of the Dauntless faction while everyone stared. The conquering of Eric Coulter was an impressive feat, and even more impressive was his happiness. I'd caught a few snippets of conversation around the faction, whispers of how I was hardly who they imagined he'd end up with. There were a lot of reasons why we shouldn't work: I was younger, far less experienced, far softer and more naïve than him, and I hadn't chosen Dauntless.

They were always corrected by whoever they were speaking with. Jason and Rylan had done a fantastic job of explaining why their friend's marriage was, according to them –goals. Eric and I shared the same desire to be happy together. I was brave, braver than someone who chose Dauntless because they were bored, and braver than someone who'd never had a person decide they wanted them dead. I understood how Eric worked, I was patient, and my age was always dismissed by saying I could have picked Dauntless, Eric himself could have trained me, and I would have wound up marrying him anyway.

Even better, I was Harrison's daughter.

There was a certain lore to Eric marrying another leader's daughter, especially one hidden far away in another faction.

I saw the raw jealously on the faces of girls I'd never seen before, imagining themselves in my place, or better yet, lusting over the fairytale of Eric rescuing them.

I thought of all those reasons when my hands touched his cheeks to kiss him even longer. His hair was sharp; his dark suit was so dark he looked powerful and otherworldly, and I willingly accepted my place as not only his wife, but a valuable member of the Dauntless faction.

It took some time, but I learned the maze-like layout of the faction. I learned which stores were run by certain members, and I knew the names of the servers at Clyde's. I liked it there best. I learned how to order from Quinten when I didn't feel like figuring out Eric's stove, and I learned all the secret routes, hidden passageways, and spiraling staircases the general members didn't use.

My relationship with Eric was easy, but sometimes not.

While I was the closest person to him, this meant I had to figure out what to do when he, himself, couldn't figure out his own moods. His life of solitude changed forever with the addition of Evan and me, and while it was what he wanted, occasionally, he tripped over a baby toy or Evan and I both wanted him to sit with us, and he looked mildly stressed.

It always worked out. Evan and I gave him space. I didn't need him to be happy for myself to be happy, and this self realization led Eric to realize my independence was something he'd given me. I found contentment in watching our son grow, and some grudging amazement in how much he looked like his father. Sometimes, I caught flashes of Daniel in Evan's expressions, and I knew he was smart.

He quickly learned I'd pick him up the second he cried, and he'd get his way by blinking up at me with large, grey eyes.

Tris had been right.

He was persuasive.

Adalyn, Four and Tris' daughter, was his most favorite person in the entire world. From the moment she was born, he stared at her in total awe. Eric and Four both looked like they might pass out when I held both Evan and Adalyn on my lap, and Evan reached over and grabbed onto her hand. She was pretty, far tinier than him, and her hair was blonde. She stared up with all the seriousness a few day-old baby could, and I knew he'd marry her.

He'd follow in Eric's footsteps to find a way to be with her.

Even now, while waiting for Eric, he's also waiting for Adalyn.

"Addy?"

"They're coming, too." I move closer to him, his soft black shirt untucked and his dark pants soft and fitted. Eric had looked horrified at them, but they fit into the tiny boots easier and I liked how adorable he looked.

"Daddy!"

Addy and Daddy were often mixed up, but I always knew who he was talking about. Right now, he was pointing at Eric, parking the large truck right over someone's carefully cleared out garden. I can barely make out his dark uniform jacket, and I grin when he jumps out of the truck, ignoring someone yelling hello at him.

"DADDY!"

Evan yells through the glass, and I'm surprised when Eric hears him. He looks at both of us, sitting in the large living room window, watching him.

He waves, and his lips turn up ever so slightly.

The night is cold, but inside it's warm.

The family here is one made of both real family, an endless stream of brothers and sisters, mother and fathers, and now nephew and niece, and our friends. Four and Tris sit with Harrison and Kerrie, talking quietly. Hank and my mother work to finish dinner, having taken over my kitchen with the help of May and Jerry. Christina and Rylan are talking with Jason and Meghan, and all four of them are sitting with my brothers and sisters. Forrest interrupts every so often to drop off drinks, and Willow floats around, holding not only her newest baby, but Kerrie's.

I had expected this news to sting. It came on a day when Evan and I both had terrible days, and nothing, not even the chocolate cake Eric brought home made it better.

But it didn't.

Hank called me to talk once I got Evan to bed, and his fifth child was one he was not expecting. His voice struggled with both pride and happiness, for his own youngest was nearly fourteen now, and I immediately decided the news was good news. Fiorella was born in the spring, with soft, golden hair, and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen.

Even now, she sits on Willow's hip, chewing on a stuffed squirrel, and her dainty pink dress is spotless. Kerrie had made it, much like everything she gifted everyone in the family, even Evan's sweaters.

He sits with Zander and Adalyn, both watching Zander explain how you could build a rocketship to the moon.

"The storm is about to hit!" Sophia, honorary godmother to Evan rushes by me, and I glance out the window.

The sky is dark from nightfall but swirling with clouds and snowflakes. So far, it had been amounting to nothing, but it was coming.

"Everly, is this enough?" I turn away from the window, having been watching the scene unfold before me like one of Eric's movies, to see him standing there. He shakes the snowflakes out of his hair, and his thick coat is Harrison's.

Despite being the proud owner of a vacation home in Amity, Eric refused to own anything hinting he had property here. His boots and shirts were from the days he'd spent secretly visiting, and his coats were ones Harrison forced at him so he didn't succumb to hypothermia.

"You chopped all the wood?" I take his hand in mine, freezing and rough, and he exhales heavily. "You're freezing, Eric!"

"Well, it's about to snow," he retorts, but he pulls me along with him. I follow willingly, despite being dressed more for bed than anything, and I find the outside temperature too much for me. "Wait, let me get a coat!"

"Here, take mine." Eric shrugs his off, and I'm immediately encompassed in both warmth, and the smell of him. He leads me down a few steps before he stops, and he gestures at the large pile of firewood he'd chopped. "You know, modern heating is a great invention. And you know where we have that?"

His dark look is all for show.

We'd spent some time here after Evan was born. Lulled by having a tiny baby and a wife who still had family in Amity, Eric had agreed to come back when Evan was a few months old. Our nights were spent in total bliss, curled up away from the family, away from our sleeping son, in a room warmed by a fire. The house didn't have central heating, true, but each room was warmed the best it could be from a furnace, and it worked just fine.

Much like his father, Evan didn't mind the cooler weather, and he kicked off every blanket or sleeper I put on him.

"You promised me at least a week. Maybe two if the storm is bad," I rise up on my toes to kiss him, and his grunt of protest is more at leaving Max in charge of Dauntless with only Tori to help. "I'll make it up to you, tonight."

"Uh huh," Eric breaks away to shake his head, and he's learned my family will stay forever if no one sends them home. "Sure. Rylan is already hinting it'll be too snowy to drive back. Four will probably decide the same."

"They're all staying with Hank and Kerrie," I remind him, and I have to admit, the sight of Eric before me is enough to make me smile.

I was lucky I'd run into him on the pathway.

"Besides, if the power doesn't go out, we can watch a movie. Rylan said he had one you might like. Something about…cats? People as cats who sing and dance?"

Eric raises both eyebrows at me, and his horror is expected.

"I love you, but if you make me watch a movie about cats, or teenage vampires, again, we're getting a divorce and you can marry the guy at the general store."

I laugh so hard I nearly fall off the stairs and he catches me before I slip.

"Pretty sure Judd is too deep into his conspiracy theories to get married."

"I guess you'll be factionless then," Eric dryly retorts, but he kisses my temple, and he stays there. "Are you going to tell everyone tonight? Or this week?"

I shake my head no, and I hold on tighter.

"We'll keep it between you and me for a while."

He agrees. We stay outside to admire his hard work, the pile of wood he'd been chopping and the snow slowly piling up, until it becomes too cold. We head back inside together, his hand in mine, and we only part ways so he can go take a quick shower.

Twenty minutes later, he and I sit down to eat dinner, and no one leaves until the storm officially hits, banging on the windows and doors with such force that for a second, I think the house might come apart.

"I missed you."

Eric bites these words into my neck.

I laugh even though he's dead serious, because he meant he missed me while I put Evan to bed. His bedtime routine was slightly longer since he was wound up from seeing everyone, and he refused to miss a single minute of excitement. I'd put him to bed as his eyes closed, and he clutched the stuffed dog to his chest, now slightly worn and having been sewn back together by his grandfather a few times. He was out before I could shut the door, and not even the occasionally howling wind or crack of thunder would wake him.

"You were gone forever. I was sure someone had come back, wanting to stay here."

I smile as my fingers slide up into his hair, and my back is pressed against the wall. The sounds of the storm pick up, and the air crackles every time the fire pops. Our room is warm, large and expansive thanks to Harrison's renovations, and far enough away from everything that even if someone did stay, they likely wouldn't come this way.

"Desperation isn't cute, Eric," I remind him seriously, and my fingers sink into the shortest part of his hair as he picks me up.

He lets out a bark of laughter against my neck, but he doesn't deny it.

He is desperate.

He'd been staring at me all through dinner, chewing his food like it had personally wronged him.

"You would think one of the leaders of Dauntless would have far more patience –"

I'm cut off when he kisses me, purposefully slow, and I find myself the desperate one when he breaks away.

"The Leader," he reminds me, as if I'd forgotten this turn of events.

A few weeks ago, Max had stepped down. Dauntless tradition required him to take another position somewhere in the faction or say his goodbyes and walk right off the chasm into a watery death. After much discussion amongst the others –Four, Jason, Rylan, and Tori – it was decided there was no need or honor in death when Max had plenty of things to offer the faction. Gone were the days of offing one's self like a sacrifice to prove your fearlessness. Bravery ran deeper than overseeing a faction or pounding the pavement as a soldier. Max's value was deemed more important than proving any of this, and he was the first member of Dauntless to officially retire.

It took some convincing of the faction to change their mindset. It was long ingrained that bravery only came from showmanship, and this new thinking, that every single person in their faction was important, took a few by surprise.

In the end, no one really protested.

Once things settled down, Eric became the official Leader. The others were still leaders, but since Eric was the one who made most of the decisions, his friends shirking the heavy responsibility in favor of keeping their lives the way they were, they agreed. Tori didn't want the job, and Four hadn't been in the position long enough to be considered. It was a job well suited for Eric, and he took great pride, and occasional annoyance, at his new responsibility.

He also had taken a few days to convince Max to help out while we all went to Amity. He agreed to help Tori, but really, the only thing they would be doing was making sure the faction was still operational.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sir. How did I forget?" I laugh when his eyes darken, and his hands move up my side. A second passes before he moves away from the wall, and my back hits the bed, carefully.

"Are you feeling okay?" He hovers over me while he works, shoving the nightgown up. I sit upright to help him pull it off, and his own shirt follows. I take a second to appreciate the view before me, the defined muscles of his chest tightening as he nudges me back down, and the dip of his waist as he kicks his underwear off. "Everly, are you –"

"I'm good. Totally fine, I promise. I won't throw up on you."

My hands thread through his hair to pull his head down toward me, and his mouth returns to mine. He returns to me too, pushing inside of me without any further hesitation. I'm pressed into thick cold sheets, warmed by him, until he's covering me completely.

Our second child will be born near the beginning of Spring.

I was expecting to never entertain the thought of a second child, not when Evan was all I ever could have hoped for. But I like the idea, especially now as my hands move to touch Eric's shoulders, the muscles taut and smooth as he moves his hips, and my legs rise up to coax him closer.

I can't imagine not welcoming her into our family, maybe with dark hair like mine, or maybe blonde hair like Eric's, and getting to see Eric cradling his child for the second time. I can't imagine our family being any more complete, but I know it will. Eric had wanted a family long before I did, and I now understood why. He was loved by all of us in a way no one else understood.

Unconditionally.

Evan waited for him to come home, wearing a tiny replica of the uniform his father wore, and he worshiped the ground he walked on. He fought hard for his father's approval, which came easily. Evan is smart and quick, just as fearless as Eric, and sometimes, as terrifyingly brave as well.

Their bond was unbreakable. Eric offered Evan his full attention, combing his hair in the mornings while he brushed his teeth, and never pushing him away, even when he had work to do.

A second child shouldn't fit into this, but she did. When I told Eric, quietly, not sure if he'd be pleased or furious, his eyes widened. He pulled me to him before I could explain there was an error with one of the shots I'd been given, and rather than birth control, I'd been injected with a heavy dose of allergy medicine.

For days, I'd walked around feeling groggy and exhausted, thinking it was a side effect of the birth control. At a certain point, the exhaustion became permanent, sneaking up out of nowhere, and I realized I wasn't tired from chasing after Evan, but from being pregnant.

He kissed me, pressed his nose into my hair, and lowly informed me that this time, we really would have to move.

We'd made the decision to keep it quiet. We'll tell everyone at some point. There will be a party, lots of shrieks of excitement and lots of stares of disbelief since Eric had made it very clear our lives were private. Telling them invited them into our world, one created by a single encounter, changing our lives forever, and it was something we both tried to do as little as possible.

Even tonight was a lot for us. We loved them, our family created out of chaos, but we were very happy with just us.

"I love you," Eric mumbles my name, grunting as he moves faster, closer, and he purposely reaches up to take my left hand in his. He threads his fingers through mine, tightly, and my wedding ring clinks against his.

For now, I keep this secret close, just between us.