Zip-lining as it turned out was a lot of fun. Abagail and I often went after the first time we'd tried it, though sometimes it was hard to find a spare moment to do so. Between my working hours and visiting Liam on days off, Abagail got a job as the psychologist Eustace Lorne's intern and admitted to me a couple weeks later they were also intimately involved, something I'd already known from her covered up hickeys after she came back to the dorm and hear her sneak out at night sometimes to meet him.

"I just hope he's not using her and will leave her with a broken heart." I admitted to Liam when we met up on the roof of the Erudite building after Abagail's "confession".

"I doubt you'll have to worry about that, Eustace was a year ahead of me and had a steady girlfriend the whole time till she dumped him and left Dauntless with some Factionless man. It's actually nice to hear he finally moved on and by the sound of how you describe your friend, I'd say it's with the right girl."

"Abby is pretty and sweet. She'd make a great wife and mother if Eustace is that serious."

"He was never one to mess around and already had a ring for Candice before she left. Probably is looking for one for Abby." Liam nudged me. "You want one too?"

I would have laughed if I that he was joking, but his expression told me he wasn't. "No one has ever married outside their faction before."

"So? We could be the first."

"We barely have time for each other as it is, you really think doing something that serious would be a good idea?"

He kissed and hugged me close. "We're making a relationship work across factions now, so I really don't see the difference. I'm not expecting an answer right away, but will you promise to think about it?"

I smiled as I kissed him back. "I promise."

I thought about our conversation the whole way back to Dauntless after reluctantly parting with Liam, my heart wanting to say yes while my head told me it wasn't logical. Even if we did get married, we would never be able to share a house unless we became Factionless and that wasn't something either of us would want for our children. If we did have children, they'd be considered Dauntless-born, yet caught between our factions like a pendulum swinging from a rock to a hard place repeatedly and if we didn't have children it might drive a wedge between us. Then again, a study done by Erudite recently had showed married couples now weren't having as many children or deciding not to have any, so we could cross that bridge after discussing it.

I jumped off the train and entered Dauntless's compound. I could hear everyone having dinner, but I didn't feel hungry and went to the Chasm instead. I found I wasn't alone down there, Marion sitting on a rock and nodding to me in greeting. "Not hungry either, huh?"

"No." He looked at my windswept hair. "You just get back?"

"Yeah. Got a lot on my mind." I sat next to him when he patted the rock invitingly. "Your son more or less proposed to me and said to think about it."

He smiled faintly. "Doesn't waste any time any more than I did."

"I just don't know about the inter-faction dynamics involved." I sighed. "Not to mention the fact that it would attract a lot of unwanted attention unless we went Factionless."

"That's true. There were times over the years I wished I had thought of marrying outside of my faction." He took a drink of his beer and offered me some. "Don't get me wrong, I was madly in love with Jenna and it definitely wasn't her fault she died in childbirth with what would have been another son, but I often wondered if the whole tradgey could have been avoided."

"Did you ever regret not going after your Candor girl?"

He chuckled softly. "Laura? Yeah, when I first got here I did. She ended up marrying my other childhood friend Gavin not too long after I left and there is no way I would have traded having my two boys with Jenna for anything in the world, but I did catch myself thinking of what might have been if I had chosen another path."

"That's the other thing I can't quite wrap my head around is the idea of children. I know Liam and I need to decide together, but if we choose to have them they could be in danger from the moment they're born, or an outcast no matter what factions they go to when they're grown, or we won't be able to agree on the matter and split up."

"Look Emma, I don't have all the answers and I'm not going to tell you and Liam how to live your lives because you two are perfectly capable of making your own decisions."

I smiled. "You know, I think you're the closest I have ever had to a father, Marion."

"That means a lot coming from you." He finished his drink. "Well, I'm going to bed. Good night, Emma."

"Night, Marion."