Even though I had a good conversation with Tris yesterday, and with Mike afterward, I still had a hard time sleeping last night. I was escorted to the infirmary this morning for my next dose of healing serum, and they removed my sling, but I refused the pain medications once again. I needed my head clear.

Hector tried talking to me on the way to my appointment with Tris, but I just didn't have it in me. I can't stop thinking about Miles, and how I have missed almost ten years of his life. I pushed Tris away when she was pregnant.

How the fuck can she just forgive me?

Hector leads me in and unchains me carefully, he knows my shoulder hurts like hell and he's doing his best to work around it. Once he leaves the room, I find Tris' eyes on mine.

She offers to work on my hair again when it's obvious I've still been unable to do anything with it myself because of my arm. It's hard for me to think of anything else other than her fingers gently working through my messy hair.

Her hands on me is fucking truth serum, and not one I can fight.

At one point during our conversation, I find Tris looking down at me with a happy smile on her face. She tells me I look like our son, and I can feel the burn of tears in my eyes again.

I feel so fucking weak.

She tells me he's written me a note and hands it over to me. I read his sweet words out loud, and when I meet Tris' eyes I can see the same sheen of tears that I am sure she can see in my own. To her credit, she says nothing about my emotional state this morning, and she keeps working on my hair when I ask her to.

I feel her sectioning off my hair and I try to look at her again, "What are you doing?" I ask.

"Braiding, does it hurt?"

"No, it's just weird. I like it though. I could literally sit here all day letting you do this." I reply.

"Now I know how to get you to talk to me," She chuckles.

"I didn't like it when anyone else touched me at all. With you it's so different. It's like I always want to be touching you in some way." I explain nervously.

"Trust. I think we're finding a way to trust each other again." She says as she runs her fingers through my hair.

"I would agree. Besides Lainie, you're the only other person I've felt I could be myself with."

"Why do you think that is?" She asks.

Because I've likely been in love with you for my entire adult life.

I shake my head, wondering where the fuck that thought just came from. Love? Sure, I have felt something for Tris since I've known her, but how could it be love? Am I even capable of knowing what love is?

The words just come tumbling out.

"You've always been so feisty, and no one can tell you shit, but it's when you're being selfless that you're at your bravest. You have this natural ability to empathize with people, you are relatable, and you are just truly a good person. I was awful to you in Dauntless, and you still cared about me then. I ignored you for years once I got locked up, and you still kept trying to help me. I was a complete asshole when you showed up here as my therapist, and you refused to give up. I called our son a bastard... I told you I wished I'd left you... I'm so sorry."

"You don't need to..." She begins.

"Yes, I do. You are always so kind to me, Tris, especially when I don't deserve it. I think I am able to trust you because you show me that you truly care every time we interact. Just a few days ago I was screaming horrible things at you, and today you're taking care of me after I hurt myself. I always called you a Stiff, but your Abnegation upbringing served you so well."

"I think you have a bit of Abnegation in you too." She says and I look up at her.

"Dauntless and Erudite too."

"Same as me." She smiles and I can't help but to grin back.

The two of us, split into three parts, once were pariahs of the society we once tried so hard to fit into. We talk about her group of friends, and how they had spread throughout the city once the factions were abolished. When I ask her if anyone stayed in Dauntless, she says Four and Christina. While her answer doesn't surprise me, her willingness to crack open the door when it comes to her former best friend marrying her ex-husband does.

"Whenever you're ready to talk about them, I'm here." I say and she nods. I can tell from the look on her face that she wants to talk about them, but I'm not sure if she's ready.

"I miss her sometimes. She was the first friend I made in Dauntless. We were so close." She sighs.

"Did you ever talk after the war?" I ask.

"Neither of us knew what had happened to the other. When I was brought back to Candor to testify, she was there with a lot of the Dauntless loyal. We were so happy and relieved to see each other. I only had minutes to talk to her before I was put under the serum, and that's how she found out about Will." She replies.

"Damn, you shot him to save yourself."

"I could have just disabled him..." She says.

I look up at her again, "Tris, you did exactly what you were trained to do. You watched him kill your mother, you had a matter of seconds to decide between losing your life or taking his. You did what you had to do. You were an amazing Dauntless, Tris, better than I ever could be."

"Thank you." She replies, and her voice breaks. She leans down to grab the elastic and I turn to look at her. She's so damn close to me, and I can smell that sweet lavender and vanilla scent.

"You look beautiful today." I whisper, "In a different place, and a different time, I'd be brave enough to try again."

"Try what?" She whispers.

"Kissing you."

I can see it, she feels the same. She pulls away, and finishes putting my hair up. I scoot over and straddle the bench so she can sit with me. She does, and mirrors my posture.

"Are you with anyone right now?" I ask.

She shakes her head, "No. I've dated, here and there, and you know about Jack. He's the only person I was serious enough with to have around Miles. I focus on Miles, and work obviously."

"What's Miles like?"

She smiles easily as she tells me about the son she's raised for nine years without me. I once again feel the emotions swirling wildly around inside of me as I hear her talk about our little boy. In this moment, more than anything I've ever felt, I want to meet him.

"Would you bring him here so I can meet him?" I ask suddenly.

"Yes, but I need to be sure of some things first, okay?" She counters, surprising me.

"Like what?"

"I want to make sure that you're ready, you and I have had some extremely tense conversations since you found out about him, and I want to be sure that you're in a comfortable place. I also want to make sure that we don't set him up for any false expectations. He knows what I do for a living and he knows I am working with you. I am hoping that you are going to continue working with me, and with the parole board to try to get you out of here." She explains.

"I still can't believe that letter Miles wrote, he actually wants to see me." I reply with a smile.

"Yes, he's been asking repeatedly since he found out you were back in Chicago," She replies.

"Tris, do you actually think I could get out of here?"

She scoots towards me, and our legs are now touching. I wish I could just pull her closer.

"You have to want it. You have to stop holding back, and let them see the real you. You have to be willing to put yourself out there, fully exposed, even if there's a chance they'll put you back in this box for another five years. They have to believe that you have changed, and that you will continue to do so, and that you will bring value in your return to society. That being said, yes, I absolutely think you could get out of here."

I don't know what to say, and all I can do is look down at where our legs are touching.

"Did you ever want to be a leader?" She asks.

"That's what I was sent to Dauntless to be." I shrug.

"But did you ever want to be a leader? In Dauntless? In Erudite?" She presses.

"I don't know what you're getting at here, Tris."

She writes something down and I wrinkle my brow at her.

"Let's come back to that. Can you tell me something you did on your own, for your own reasons, without having to worry about reporting it back to someone?"

"I don't know, why does it matter?" I reply. I'm getting uncomfortable, but she keeps going.

"I know the past almost ten years in incarceration have been regimented, and it seems as if your childhood was as well. Dauntless initiation – regimented. Leadership?"

"Regimented. The last thing I can remember doing on my own, for my own reasons, without any regard for the outcome was that day in Erudite with you."

"What was your thought process that day?" She asks.

I close my eyes before I start talking, "I had no idea what I was doing that day. Jeanine had found out that Lainie was divergent. That morning, Jeanine sends me to the lab, something she's never done before. So I go into the lab to check on shit like she asked and there's Lainie, hooked up to all these fucking wires, bleeding from her nose and ears. The bitch sent me there specifically to see Lainie like that. I begged Jeanine to stop what she was doing, and she wouldn't. She made me watch it, Tris. She killed her, right in front of me, and told me I'd be next if I didn't get myself together. That was her message to me, and I heard it loud and clear. You know what's even crazier? I didn't even know you were there. That's how out of the loop Jeanine kept me. The first chance I got, I went through all of her paperwork, looking for anything she had on Lainie. Anything that could have justified killing a woman so pure and loving, and the only reason I found was because she was only ninety five percent divergent. Lainie wasn't good enough to open that fucking box. So I looked for who it was, who had the percentage Jeanine was looking for and it's you. I decided then and there to hatch that plan to get you out of there."

"What happened next?" She breathes.

"I had already tapped into the duct system as soon as I had my apartment there. That was more of a way to cover my own ass, in case shit ever went sideways I always had a way out. I went to Peter, Drew and the rest of those idiots who had turned against Dauntless. I told them I wanted to have some fun with you, and I needed them to cut the cameras so there was no evidence of it. At first they weren't really on board, until I told them they could have a turn when I was done. I got Peter to get you to my apartment, and the rest you know."

"You wanted to get back at Jeanine, so helping her number one divergent escape was your revenge."

I reach out for her hand and squeeze it, "It mattered that it was you. I knew you. You weren't this crazy, uncontrollable fucking anarchist monster she led me to believe most divergents were. Neither was Lainie. You both were in a faction because you wanted to be there. I watched you all throughout initiation, Tris, you were fucking born to be a Dauntless. If anyone was leading a life under false pretenses it was me – the divergent forced Daunltess leader who had never wanted to leave Erudite. I'm not going to romanticize it, because at that point I had zero intentions of actually having sex with you that day. We got wrapped up in a moment, and it was good. It was more than good."

"Eric, what would have happened if we had of both made it to Amity?"

I can feel her hand shaking in mine, "Tris, I promised you I'd follow your rules, but when you get this answer there's no more avoiding the conversation about us. It'll all be on the table."

"You were right, there's not going to be a way for me to treat you if I don't allow you to freely express what you felt back then, and how it impacts you now. You can speak freely, Eric." She replies, and she threads our fingers together.

I crave her touch, and with her hand in mine I finally start to share the feelings that have been bubbling at the surface of every conversation we've ever had.

"I would have followed you to Amity. I would have asked Johanna to help both of us. We would have been able to stay there until this shit blew over. I would have likely tried to have sex with you again that very night, and maybe every night until you forgot who the fuck number boy even was. Maybe we would have given a real relationship a try. Maybe it would have worked out for us, or maybe it wouldn't. I don't know. It wasn't just sex for me that day, you'd been on my mind since the day you jumped into that fucking net. The kiss, the constant arguments we had during your initiation, the way you move, the way you think, the way you look, everything Tris. I never thought I'd trust a woman enough to share the type of intimacy we shared that day in Erudite, and I certainly never thought I'd want you and think about you for years afterward. Now that you're back in my life, making me talk to you about shit I've never wanted to think about again, it's all out in the forefront. I could have easily loved you Tris, and maybe you could have loved me too. Maybe we still can. I should have died on that train. I found out you went to Johanna, and she sent out her search party. You saved me too, you know?"

She keeps her hand entwined with mine, but reaches out with her free hand to trace my scar, "Eric, you never should have been convicted, you do not belong here. Let me save you again. Let me try."

"I'm not sure that's possible."

I don't know that I am strong enough to do this.

"You're not just a case for me Eric. Please let me help you." She whispers.

"Tris..." I trail off and look down at the table, I can feel the tears flowing down my cheeks and I hate that she's seeing me this way. She reaches up to my face and begins wiping my tears away. I turn my face slightly and press my lips to her palm.

"Did you ever want the things Jeanine wanted? With divergents? The box? The power?" She asks me.

I kiss her palm again and shake my head, "I think I just wanted her to be proud of me. I just wanted someone to love me."

She wipes more of my tears away, "You have that now. You have a son who is so proud you're his father, and he loves you unconditionally. We made him, Eric." She pushes her iPad towards me, and I see my son's face.

"My son..." I break down in tears and she puts her arms around me, holding me tightly as I fall apart.