AN: Thank you for all of your kind reviews. I hope you enjoy this update, and see you all again on Sunday.
Less than two weeks later, Eric receives word from Willard that his ring was ready. Eric talked to Harrison and asked him to specifically send him to Amity for the day for work to keep Tris off his trail. Harry did one better and also sent Tris to Candor for the day, where he knew working with Jack would take most of her time.
Things between them had been great. Even though they both were uneasy with Four being back in the faction, they'd still been making progress with their therapy, both their individual sessions and the sessions together as a couple. After their date night at the steakhouse, they'd decided they needed more time together like that. They were a rather low-key couple, and they admittedly spent a lot of time together, but they had to remember to take care of their relationship too.
Eric saw the ring for the first time in person and he was absolutely floored by it. Willard had been sending him multiple picture updates throughout the design and creation, but seeing the finished result was something else. He thanked the older man profusely and paid him for the ring with a significant tip added for his time. After taking care of the business Harry had asked him to with Johanna, and a quick lunch with his brother, he decided to take the train out to Abnegation to have a face to face conversation with Natalie Prior about marrying her daughter. When he knocks on the door of the nondescript grey house, Natalie answers, surprised at his appearance on her porch.
"Eric, is everything okay?" She rushes out to the porch and he nods his head.
"Yes ma'am, I'm sorry for the intrusion. May we sit on the porch and talk for a bit?" He asks.
"Eric, you can sit in the house with me, this isn't an Abnegation home anymore." She smiles at him and leads him to her kitchen table, where she serves them coffee instead of tea.
He pulls out the chair for her and she sits at the table, and he takes the chair across from her, "I've never properly thanked you for helping me when I was shot. You risked everything to take me in and help with the bullet, the clothes, the medications and even the bath. Thank you Mrs. Prior. Your hospitality has never been forgotten."
"Please, call me Natalie, and I appreciate your kind words. I was so happy to see you that next time, even though it was under terrible circumstances, but knowing you'd lived through that was worthwhile."
"Your daughter took amazing care of me." He smiles.
"And you of her when you moved back to Dauntless with her." She smiles.
"I came out here to ask you a very important question when it comes to being with your daughter. I know she and I were already married once before, but after Jack had to dissolve our marriage we had decided that we actually wanted to be married. Just like everything else in my relationship with her, we've done things backwards, but I would like to have your blessing to marry to your daughter this time. I had this designed for her, and just picked it up today." He places the ring box on the table and Natalie opens it.
"My word Eric, that's beautiful." She examines it closely.
He tells her the story of the ring and she traces a finger over each piece and he explains his thoughts. They have another cup of coffee, and talk a bit more openly. Eric takes notice of the subtle changes that Natalie has made around her house, making it much less boring and drab, but instead showing some of the Dauntless he knows she still possesses.
"Eric, I know you would typically also ask Beatrice's father for his blessing, but his actions have caused you both to understandably turn away from him. I want you to know I never had any idea that he was allowing that woman to experiment on my daughter. I would have never subjected my children to anything from that wretched faction," She realizes her words and she meets his eyes, "I apologize, I know that was once your home."
"It was where I was born, but it was never truly my home." Eric replies.
"I never knew how truly terrible he was. I knew that Andrew wanted to be a great leader, which had been his dream for his entire childhood. I supported him as he chased that dream, and if I'm being honest his almost obsession with becoming a leader does remind me of stories Beatrice has shared with me about how you once were. The differences are that while my former husband dismissed my feelings about how he acted towards me, Beatrice tells me that you listen and do everything you can to learn from those experiences."
"I'm not proud of the way I've treated her at times. I tend to shut down, or speak with anger, and it's always to push her away. I've done that repeatedly throughout our relationship, and I am trying so hard to be better for her, and for me." He sighs.
"She knows that you are. Eric, trust me when I say there are going to be parts of your life that no book, research or even life experience will prepare you for. Falling in love for the first time is one, finding the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and finally having a family with that person. You have been blessed with a woman who is patient and kind with you while you work through your thoughts, however don't forget she still has her Abnegation traits, and she will be selfless to the point of burying her own wants and needs. Remember that when she comes to you to talk, because the selfless part of her will believe she shouldn't even have those feelings. That's the best marriage advice I can give you."
"That's better than marriage advice, that's life advice. Thank you." He smiles warmly at her.
"Eric, what led to you and Beatrice becoming involved? Did you somehow remember her?" She asks.
"I think subconsciously I may have. She and I have talked, and we recognize things that always seemed to pull us together that defied explanation. I noticed her in Dauntless. We were not necessarily friends, but I respected the way she worked. Her initiation class was the first that Jeanine had stopped our normal cut process. So after the first rounds of cuts, Jeanine demanded we keep everyone. At the time, we were told it was because we needed more people to do the more menial jobs – fence duty, guarding, and patrols, stuff like that, but it was really because she wanted more mindless drones for her war. So we stopped cuts, and the trainees easily figured it out, so most of them just started doing whatever they wanted. They conceded fights, they half-assed their way through our weapons training, exactly what I had feared they would do. Not Tris, she worked harder, and I respected it. I would help her when I'd run into her practicing after hours, and she improved."
"How about after Dauntless? You were gone for over a year, then suddenly you sought out the wife that had turned her back on you once before, did you ever wonder why?" She asks.
"I purposely sought her out, knowing she was very selfless, and I'd hoped she'd help me. First it was the shoulder dislocation, then the gunshot wound. Once I'd started to recover a bit from the gunshot wound, I realized I had feelings for her, and we started spending more time together. I won't lie to you, I did use her at first, knowing she may be the only person who'd willingly help someone like me, but what she did for me when I almost died from that infection and poison… that's something else. I fought off how I felt for as long as I could." He admits, "I didn't want to love her because I knew I couldn't give her a life out there, so I would just bury my feelings for her. We fell in love quickly, something completely different than the way we felt towards each other in Dauntless, and neither of us knew why. It's not like I'd ever loved anyone before, and I certainly couldn't understand my draw to her. It felt like it would come out, when I was at my sickest and feeling delirious from that fever, in those moments I'd felt like I'd known her my whole life. I wanted to change for her, to be a better man, all for her."
"You and Beatrice weren't in love when you married the first time, Eric?" Natalie asks.
He realizes he's been speaking too freely, and his very astute soon to be mother in law has picked up on it.
"No, back in Dauntless things were spiraling out of control with Jeanine. Marrying Tris wasn't an action that developed out of love, it was more out of a need to protect each other." He replies. This much is true, he just has to continue to cover how that 'marriage' came to be.
"You are giving her a wonderful life now," She smiles softly at him. "I can tell how much you love her, and how important she is to you."
"I'm doing my best. I always will. I'm not the perfect fiancé, and I may never be the perfect husband, but I will love her, respect her and always protect her. I promise you that."
"I do need to ask you something else, it's rather personal, but I know it's something that's important to my daughter. She's always wanted children of her own, and based on some of the vague things she's told me it seems as if you weren't as receptive. Have you changed your mind about having children?"
"Yes ma'am." He nods, "I have had some anxiety, mostly because it was incredibly difficult for me to build the bond I have with Tris because of my own personality flaws. I've been worried that I'd have the same difficulties when it came to bonding to any children we'd have."
"While I find it honorable that you're able to have this level of introspection on a decision that this important, I also feel you are terribly hard on yourself. It seems to be a trait for former Erudite." She replies.
Eric realizes she's talking about Andrew and he casts his eyes down at the table, "I've never been able to say this to you, but I am incredibly sorry that you had to lose your husband the way you did."
"Thank you." She says quietly and then takes a sip of her coffee. For several minutes there is silence between them, and he is worried that he said the wrong thing.
"There was a time I loved him, at least the version of him he showed me when we met. We were happy for a little while, and he was so excited to be a father. He loved his children, but I think when he learned just how special Beatrice is he became obsessed, and I never knew exactly why. He said he was taking her for playdates with Marcus's son, and when she came home lethargic he told me it was because they'd played so hard. I believed him. How did I not know what he was doing to that sweet girl? How did I not recognize the hurt in my own daughter?"
"Sometimes we only see what we want to see." He says, "I said those same words to your daughter when she realized that Four had been overtaken by the same type of evil."
Natalie smiles warmly at him "You have my blessing, Eric. I think you'll be a wonderful husband, and that your commitment to each other will just help your marriage blossom and grow." She grasps his hands in hers and he nods.
"Thank you. I won't let you down." Eric promises.
They spend almost another hour talking and having cups of coffee, and a visit that he was apprehensive about turned out to be one he's reluctant to leave. He promises Natalie that he will visit more often, and invites her to visit them in Dauntless at any time. When she reaches for him and hugs him he holds on a little tighter.
He may not have his own mother in his life anymore, but he truly feels loved by his future mother in law.
He's back on the train, texting back and forth with Tris when he's surprised by someone jumping into the car with him. He looks up and finds the toothless grin of Cheyenne.
"You're just a sight for sore eyes, look at you." She says squeezing his arm, "All cleaned up and shiny, you were always a pretty little thing, but damn you look good now, sugar. That haircut, that nice little trimmed beard, you even got some weight and muscles on you," She squeezes his arm again and he grins at her, "Boy if I were a younger woman and you weren't a taken man... damn." She smiles at him.
"Hello to you too Cheyenne. How are things?" He asks with a smile.
"It was rough out here with Evelyn gone at first, I ain't gonna lie. You all may have hated her, but she took care of us." She shrugs, "I stayed with my family out in Amity for a little while, but that happy go lucky and peace serum bullshit wasn't for me. I came back out and settled back into life out here."
"So you're not into the sunshine and flowers?" He smirks at her.
"Hell no, I like broody and dark, like you." She cackles at him and he has to join her in laughing.
"What's got you out this way?" Eric asks.
"Went to The Hub," She shows him her bag, "I got some real nice stuff this time. They've been a lot more generous lately, rumor is I have Dauntless to thank for that."
"We're trying. You guys doing okay out in the old train stations?" He asks and she nods, "Is there anything you need?"
"I think we're okay for the most part. Y'all made a real nice place for us with all them improvements down there. Edward kind of stepped in and organized us, him and his girl Myra. Nothing bad this time, we're just looking out for each other and keeping ourselves alive. His girl is going to have a baby though, maybe four more months or so. As long as the hospitals will still see us in Abnegation we should be okay." She replies.
"I'll make sure that we keep those services available. We're trying to make more of a change. Be patient with us." Eric promises.
"You and that sweet little Uriah have been good to us. You two have kept your word since the raid and that goes a long way with us. How's your girl doing, I hear she's been working with you and Uriah as well but we never see her?" She asks.
Eric nods, "She's good. She tends to stick close to home, I think she may be a little nervous to come out here after what Evelyn did to her."
"That's a damn shame, but your girl, she was something else when they brought her here. She protected you, even though it was damn near killing her under that blasted serum. She's a good one."
"Yeah, she's the best person I've ever met." Eric replies.
"You're grinning like a damn fool. What's that for?" Cheyenne asks.
"I asked her to marry me, she said yes, and I'm happy." He smiles, "I'm really happy."
"I'm happy for you. You and that pretty little girl gonna be making some beautiful little babies? You know how I love my grandkids." She grins at him.
"Yeah, I can definitely see us having kids, right now we're just enjoying being together without restrictions. When we first got together, I was living out here and she was sneaking out of Dauntless to see me. Now, we can be together out in the open, and it's so good."
"I heard about what you two went through as kids." Cheyenne says and he looks down at the ground.
"Word travels fast," He sighs, "I wish I could remember it."
She looks over at him and grabs his hand in her rough one, "Eric, trust me when I say sometimes it's better to forget. Jeanine and her goons ran tests on a lot of us, always just thinking that if something went awry no one would give a damn about us since we're factionless. To her, we weren't even people. I remember all of it, because I wasn't worthy of any serum to help me forget it. Baby, it's nothing you wanna know." She says sadly.
"I had no idea..." he trails off.
"You didn't need to know, about me, or really about you either. She's gone now. Let that bitch and everything she did to us die with her."
"How? How do I just get over it now that I know it happened? How did you?" Eric asks.
She shakes her head, "You don't get over it. You just put one foot in front of the other and walk away from it. You got a real good life now, you about to get married, you gonna have a family. You focus on that, and you don't look behind you. You ain't going that way no more."
He nods his head and reaches for the older woman, catching her off guard but she wraps her thin arms around him and hugs him just as a tight, "I always liked you Eric, and you never deserved anything they did to you. You deserve every bit of happiness that comes your way. I hope that girl of yours knows how lucky she is." Cheyenne says as Eric pulls away from her.
"I'm the lucky one. Cheyenne, take care of yourself okay? You're one of the decent ones out here, and I hope you'll be happy when we can finally make some changes for you."
"You too Eric. I'm glad it's working out for you and please bring that pretty little wife of yours out to see me sometime. Don't be a stranger." She grins at him as he jumps off the train onto the Dauntless roof.
This time he finds Tris in her office, going over some sort of paper work when he raps on the door frame, "Can I interrupt?"
"Come on in." She smiles at him, "Where have you been all day?"
"I had a meeting in Amity, then I dropped by Abnegation for another meeting." He presses a kiss to her head and then she pulls him down for a real kiss.
"Abnegation? How'd they rope you into that?" She asks.
"I scheduled it myself." He drops down in a chair across from her.
"What for? You didn't meet with Josiah about the faction proposal without the rest of us did you?" She frowns.
"Nope. I met with your mom to get her blessing to give you this." He drops the closed ring box on her desk and her eyes widen.
"So did you get her blessing?" She asks slowly.
"I did, she thinks those are the prettiest earrings she's ever seen." Eric bats his eyelashes at her.
"There must just be earrings in that box if you're dropping it on my desk and not holding it out while on bended knee…" She smirks at him.
"You already said yes once. Hell, you already married me once before, woman." He argues.
"I could say no this time," She counters with a smile.
"Not once you see those fancy ass earrings inside." He retorts, watching as she just examines the box itself, "Open the damn box, Tris!"
She finally does and it feels like time stops. The ring is easily the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, and she feels the tears sliding down her cheeks when she sees Eric on his knee next to her.
"Tris, the last time I asked you this question you were straddling my lap while talking me out of my nonsense anxiety, and you said yes, and it led to some of the best sex of my life. While I would be perfectly happy with the same results this time, I thought I'd better do it the right way. I love you, I respect you, and I literally will worship you for the rest of our lives if you let me. You are the best thing to ever happen to me, you are my partner in this life, my best friend and I want nothing more than for you to be my wife. I'm down on this knee to ask you to be my wife the right way, to love me for the rest of this time we have here, and after that if there is such a time or place. Marry me, Tris, really marry me this time, and let's spend our lives together."
"You're definitely getting sex for that speech, and even more with this ring. Of course I will marry you, get up here and kiss me!" She exclaims and he stands up, pulling her from the chair and capturing her lips with his.
"She said yes!" He yells as they break apart, and he slips the ring on her finger. They hear cheers from the other leaders and staff scattered around the floor.
"She'd better have said yes, you two were already married once before and have been engaged ever since." Will shouts down the hall, and they hear laughter from the rest of the team.
Soon they're joined by the rest of the leadership staff, and Eric sees Christina huddled in a corner with Tris exclaiming over the ring on her finger. He then sees Harrison gesture for him to follow him out of the office and he moves towards the older man, who leads him through his office and out to the attached balcony.
"I'm sorry to pull you out of there, but there's something you need to know. Josiah called me right before you proposed to Tris. He's finally ready to hear the full proposal to dissolve the faction before blood law and to also recognize the factionless. He's asked for representation from them, is there anyone you trust out there to bring into the fold?" Harrison asks.
"It's funny you ask, on my way back here I ran into Cheyenne. She's someone I've known for years, she was pretty much just a messenger for Evelyn but she and I always got along extremely well. She told me today that Edward and Myra had stepped up to be their de facto leaders, he's the one who took the knife to the eye during Tris's initiation class."
"You trust him?"
"Yeah, I do. We've had zero issues with them since the shit went down with Evelyn. I think if we were to bring him, Myra and Cheyenne in I'd feel good about things." Eric replies.
"Good, I'd like to send you and Uriah down to talk to them, and I'm going to send Four with you since he has history down there. I don't have a good way to get a hold of them until you all get their communication set up down there, so I was hoping you three could step in. I'm not comfortable sending Tris, not for this."
"Why can't I go?" Tris asks from where she stands in the doorway from the office to the balcony, "Sorry, you dragged him away from our little impromptu engagement celebration, so I wanted to know why."
"It's the factionless, and I didn't think you'd want to go after the kidnapping." Harrison replies.
"But you'll send the person who actually kidnapped me? That seems fair, Harry." Tris replies angrily.
"You're right, and I shouldn't have made an assumption on your behalf." Harrison replies.
"You don't get to decide for me. This proposal is as much mine as it is Uriah and Eric's, so if there's something that needs to happen for it I'm involved. Edgar and Evelyn are both dead, there's nothing for me to hide from." Tris replies firmly.
"Okay then, let's make this happen." Harrison replies and Tris nods and gives Eric a look before turning away and exiting the balcony. They watch her exit the office before Harrison speaks again.
"That was a hell of a look. I think I got you in trouble." He says to Eric with a shake of his head.
"That's not the look she gave me, I'll see you tomorrow Harry." Eric smirks as he heads out of the office, leaving a laughing Harrison behind as he heads upstairs to his apartment, knowing that Tris will be there wearing nothing but her ring by the time he gets there.
Tris wakes up before Eric, and she wiggles her finger in the tiny bit of natural sunlight that filters through their blinds to watch the way the light bounces off of it. She loves the colors, the fiery reds and oranges, fading into yellow then surrounded by those clear white diamonds. She's never seen anything like it.
When he finally told her the story behind it, she broke down in tears. The man who spent months fighting his feelings, and being unable to express himself, sat down with a complete stranger and described what their relationship meant to him.
This isn't anything like she expected when she chose Dauntless. When Caleb had chosen Erudite the year before her, she was shocked, and for a long time she thought she had to stay in Abnegation. She thought her parents needed her, and she remembers how much her father seemed to not want his children anywhere near Dauntless.
She never knew he had been spending his entire life conditioning them. First Caleb, indoctrinating the importance of education, buying him books, and likely influencing him to eventually join Jeanine's cause.
He tried the same with Tris, encouraging her natural curiosity, allowing her to express herself, to ask questions and to think outside the box. She remembers the look on his face when she spilled her blood over the coals of Dauntless. She thought he was disappointed that she didn't stay in Abnegation, she never knew he'd promised to send her to Jeanine.
She'd thought about going to Erudite, but when she met the Dauntless woman who administered her test, something told her she needed to come here, even though she was warned that it would be dangerous.
It had to be Eric. That crazy connection, the magnetic force they always have felt towards each other, and the way their lives have twisted and turned around each other, always entwined, and never ending.
Like this beautiful ring.
She's brought out of her thoughts by Eric stirring behind her, and she smiles when he rubs his bearded cheek against her skin.
"Do you really like it?" He asks as he presses his lips to her naked shoulder.
"I love it. I can't believe everything you put into this. It's literally the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." She replies.
"I wanted it to be something that represented how I feel about you." Eric says.
"It's perfect." She turns over and presses her lips to his.
"I bought our wedding bands too. I mean, Willard, the guy in Amity who designed this ring for me, he was able to design matching bands too. I'm sorry I didn't wait for you, but they were perfect." He reaches into the drawer in his nightstand and grabs the box, handing it to Tris.
"Wow, these are stunning." She replies, tracing her fingers across the delicate vine design that matched her ring, the white gold and yellow gold twisting around.
She slides his ring on his finger and he glances over at her, "This is what I'm waiting for." He looks at the ring briefly before taking it back off and putting it back into the box with hers.
"Do you want a big wedding?" She asks him and he shrugs, "Eric you always just say you want whatever I want."
"I do want whatever you want. You literally married me to make medical decisions, I'm pretty sure that's not what you had envisioned when you married someone." He replies.
"No, it's definitely not. I also didn't envision being married to someone without being in a relationship first. That seems like some dumb decision making after a night out of drinking, right?" She chuckles.
"That's exactly how I imagined my wedding would be. Stumbling into a leader's office after a night of tequila shots with a smoking hot chick like you." He grins at her and she playfully smacks his arm.
"I mean, we can still do that if you want." She raises an eyebrow at him.
"And that's one of the many reasons that I love you." He says before pressing his lips to hers.
"We have to go to work, so let's go finish this conversation in the shower." She throws the covers off and he watches her naked body as she moves towards the bathroom.
"I don't promise much talking." He says as he chases behind her.