AN: Lots to digest in this chapter. See you all Sunday.

Eric makes his way to Four's apartment, knowing that Tris was stuck in Erudite without him. Jeanine had managed to get Max to stop sending other leaders there with Tris, even those who were part of their "plan". Eric was incensed when he'd left a meeting with the armory staff to find his girlfriend had just been sent out of the faction. He knows that she can handle herself, but they've been sitting on the damned box for two days while Jeanine was away from Erudite. Tonight was the night all of their small group of trusted friends were finally getting together under the guise of a party to discuss the next steps in their own plans to stop Jeanine.

He knocks on the door, feeling just as awkward as he did as a teenager back in Erudite on his first official date. Tori is who answers the door and she looks past him for Tris.

"She's stuck in Erudite." Eric says and Tori frowns at him.

"The bitch found a way to isolate Tris from you. Super." She sighs as she escorts him into the crowded apartment.

"She wanted to apologize to Tris, supposedly." Eric shrugs.

"I can tell you're going crazy. Come on, grab a beer. We were waiting on the two of you, but we will give her some more time." Tori replies.

He looks around and sees many familiar faces. Tori's husband Bud, Veronica, Four, Zeke, Uriah, their mother Hana who is also Veronica's sister, Lynn, Lauren, Christina, Will, Marlene and Shauna who he remembers from a night at the bar with Lynn months ago. It's a group of people he'd never imagined working with, but their common denominator was a strong desire to protect the reputation of their faction, doing the right thing, and a shared respect for Tris Prior.

"You okay?" Zeke asks him as he hands him a beer.

"I will be." Eric replies before taking a draw off the bottle, "Your aunt bring you on board?"

"Yeah, she's a persuasive lady. You could have told me, you know? I mean, I get why you didn't, but just want you to know you can talk to me about anything man. I know we play a whole lot, but had I known the shit you were carrying I'd have been here for you. Tris too." Zeke says.

"I know that I can trust you. This entire thing has been Tris and Four's thing, and I didn't want to overstep her." Eric replies.

"That girl is my family, legit, you know she's my cousin right? I just found out, my aunt was telling my Momma about a conversation with her sister in law in fucking Abnegation of all places. My Daddy and Tris's Momma Natalie were siblings. Faction before blood bullshit. How's that a thing when my blood is sitting right here with me?" He rambles.

"I think Tris just recently found out too, that same meeting." Eric replies. Zeke watches his friend's eyes dart around the room.

"Relax. We're all here for the same reason." Zeke says and Eric nods once.

"Yeah. I'm trying to. I'm worried about Tris." He sighs.

Eric had checked the safe in their apartment they had locked the box in before leaving for this meeting, it was still there safely tucked away. He trusted Tris, they had promised to make no decisions without the other, but still he worried about her reckless streak.

"You two good?"

"Yeah." Eric can't help but smile and Zeke claps him on his shoulder.

"Yeah, you are, you love struck fool. Come on in here, we'll give her some time to get here."

He spends some time talking to Lynn and Lauren once he's sitting down at the kitchen table, and when the door opens again he's hopeful to see Tris but he's surprised to see Amar and George walk in as well. Eric moves around the room, taking the time to speak to everyone and uncomfortably mingle throughout the crowd. When he goes to the kitchen for another beer he finds himself face to face with Four.

"Let me get that," Four says as he pops the top off of the bottle.

"Thanks." Eric nods before bringing the bottle to his lips.

"Caleb is with her, so whatever they're meeting about she's not alone."

Eric takes a deep breath, "That makes me feel a little better." He looks down at his watch and shakes his head, "I need to go, it's getting late and she's going to be riding the train back alone in the dark."

"No I'm not." Tris says as she wraps her arms around him from behind and he releases a breath before turning towards her.

"You had me worried." He says and she smiles up at him.

"I'm okay. She sent me back in a car since it was so late." She rolls her eyes, "Maybe there's something maternal about her after all."

They finally call their meeting to order, and Tris admits to having secured the box. She explains what she learned from her parents about it, that many have died in an effort to open the box to retrieve the message from the founders.

"Why is the message so important?" Christina asks.

"Jeanine believes it's either something that can help shape the future of our city government. Or, it could be something that proves we've been doing things wrong this entire time. She wants to control the message and destroy it completely if it doesn't match her vision." Tris explains.

"So she needs someone who can successfully pass sims for all five factions?" Shauna asks.

"Yes."

"A Divergent." Will states and Eric nods in affirmation.

"One with an affinity for all five factions." Veronica states, "You see, most of us have at least slight affinities for other factions, but not enough to move the needle. Those rare ones who truly have enough of an affinity for each to make any type of difference are few and far between."

"So we're going to give the crazy lady her weird box and no way to actually open it?" Lauren asks.

"That's an option, it would give her a project to work on, a distraction of sorts." George adds.

"Yes, it is. But that opens up a risk of a hardcore Divergent hunt, and it's only a matter of time before she gets that serum in all of us and flips a damn switch to see which ones of us are awake." Amar says.

There's more conversation and cross talk, and Tris threads her hand with Eric, and brings her lips to his for a kiss.

"One of us can do it." She whispers to him.

"I need you to let me try first babe, please. If for any reason I can't, you have a chance to just walk away from it all." He whispers to her.

"What if you open it and she kills you once you've served your purpose? You know she thinks we need to be destroyed." She argues.

"I've only had myself for all of my adult life here. I've had my job, and me. I don't think you get it, Tris. I don't think you understand that my purpose has always been to protect my faction and city, that's all I've ever known. Now that I have you my purpose is to not only protect my faction and city, but it's to protect the people I love as well. That's you. I don't want to live in a world that doesn't have you in it. Let me do this." He pleads with her.

She doesn't know how to tell him that she doesn't want to live without him either. He already knows, but this is more than a want from him to protect her, it's a need.

"Okay." She whispers and he kisses her lips again.

"You're sure? I don't want to push you into a decision."

"I trust you. We are making this decision together. If you feel as strongly as you just expressed that you do about being the one who tries, then we go with that." Tris replies.

"Thank you." He whispers before kissing her one more time, "I won't let you down."

"You never have." She says softly.

"I can open the box." His voice booms over the noise in the room and the silence he's met with is deafening.

Eric meets Amar's eyes and sees a mixture of pride and fear in them. He can imagine the look on his face is much the same.

"Eric, no, there needs to be some other way." Lynn is the first to speak, and the stress in her voice is evident, "Tris, you can't let him do this-"

"We make our decisions together, and this is what he wants to do. I don't like it any more than you, Lynn. I don't want to send him into a dangerous situation like this-"

"Then DON'T." Lynn shouts and the room grows completely silent again, "You were so in love with Four and suddenly now you're so in love with Eric? Did these feelings just conveniently come out when you realized you could use him for that fucking box?" She yells angrily.

Tris is taken aback by Lynn's shift, and it's then she realizes that Eric likely hid his Divergence from his very best friend as well.

"Lynn, I want to do this." Eric replies firmly.

"No, this is not something you would do if it weren't for her. You'd come up with a different plan-"

"Do you really believe that?" Zeke interjects, "I've known him for years, going back to when we were in school, and this man will do anything for his faction. You can't sit there right now and tell me he wouldn't. You gotta take your emotion out of this Lynn, regardless of his relationship with Tris he'd be doing anything he could to protect the faction."

"He's right." Eric replies, "Lynn, you are my best friend and I love you for it, but you have to strip all emotion from these meetings and our decision making."

Eric pulls her to the side and the two continue to talk quietly while the group continues to toss ideas around. Eventually, an almost unanimous decision is made for Tris and Eric to bring the box to Jeanine, and for Eric to volunteer as a show of good faith to open the box. Tris will use her own relationship with him in order to get Jeanine agree not to push him too far or hurt him in any way in their efforts to open the box.

"If he can't open it, I will." Tris says confidently and Eric squeezes her hand. Neither of them want this, but it's all they have.

"I'll request an audience with her as soon as we have the surveillance equipment ready." Eric adds.

"We'll have it to you by the end of this week." Uriah replies.

Things get a little lighter, with less talk about Jeanine and more just friends catching up outside of their busy lives. People start to leave, starting with Veronica who reminded everyone she's not getting any younger and needed her beauty rest. Tris is in a group chatting with Will, Christina, Shauna, Marlene, Tori and Bud when she spots Eric in the kitchen talking with Zeke, Uriah, Lynn and Four again.

"You're worried about him." Christina says.

"I am. Jeanine wants to use Divergents, then eliminate us when she's done. No matter what happens, opening the box or failing, he's signing his own death certificate." Tris replies.

"You'd be signing your own if you did the same." She argues.

"I signed up for this, Chris. He didn't. He's doing it because of me."

"I know I've not been his biggest fan since we've been here, but I will say that everything I've seen him do is to better our faction and to make us the best soldiers. He knew that even the positions within our faction that weren't out in the field every day could be called to duty at any time. He's made sure that we're always ready, and that we don't let ourselves forget our purpose here. He'd be doing this with or without you."

Tris looks over at her friend, "Now that I have someone like him in my life, I can't imagine it without him. I'm being selfish-"

"Not selfish, you are not giving me that Abnegation shit. You deserve to love, and be loved. He's going to do everything he can to come back to you when this is all over." Christina says.

"What if he can't?" She asks.

"We aren't going to think that way." Christina replies, squeezing Tris's arm.

At the end of the week Eric picked up the surveillance equipment from Zeke, and after fully testing it he felt they were finally ready for their next steps. Tris had already made the request for a private meeting with Jeanine, and they would be heading to Erudite tomorrow with the box.

Her head is on his chest, both of them sweaty and out of breath from their previous activities, but neither care. She can hear his racing heart, and the hair on his chest tickles her face, but she wouldn't change anything about this moment. He has one arm wrapped around her, playing with the ends of her hair.

"You make me so happy, Eric." She says once her breathing has calmed.

"I'm happy too." He presses a kiss to her head.

They had promised not to talk about the meeting with Jeanine tomorrow, so when he feels her tears on his chest he turns them both over so they're facing each other.

"I don't know what to do with tears babe, you know that's my kryptonite." He says as he wipes her face.

"I know, I know we promised, but tomorrow everything is going to change. What if this is our last night together?"

"We're not doing goodbyes, Tris. I can't." He says as he sits up on the edge of the bed.

She crawls up behind him and presses her lips to his strong back. She kisses the flames that wrap around his left shoulder, and lays her head there.

"I love you. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to say it, I've felt it for a long time." She says and she feels him take a deep breath.

"Don't do that to me. Don't say those words just because you don't think I'll come back tomorrow night."

"Eric-"

"I have some work I need to do, I'll be back in later. Try to sleep." He says quietly as he leaves their bedroom.

He makes his way to the kitchen and grabs the scotch from the cabinet, taking a draw directly from the bottle. He looks around the apartment, and as much as he wants to fold the blanket that Tris left on the couch in a heap, or pick her shoes up from the floor and put them into the closet, he doesn't. The little messes she leaves around made his once sterile apartment a home.

If shit with this box goes wrong, he will miss it. He will miss her.

He's not sure what compels him to do it, but he picks up a pen and one of the many notebooks in his home office and begins to write her a letter. They had promised each other there would be no goodbyes, but the pragmatic part of his mind tells him they will likely need it. He's met with Andrew Prior himself, the one thing he did without Tris's knowledge. They talked at length about this box, and how Andrew spent years in Erudite watching the former leader, and Jeanine's father Thomas Matthews, test scores of Divergents in an effort to get the box opened. No one succeeded, and not one of the people they had try to pass the sims to open the box survived to talk about their experiences. They had nothing but grainy video footage to study, and what it told them was the sims didn't appear to be incredibly difficult, but proved impossible to pass. Andrew thanked Eric for his efforts to take care of his daughter, but he also in so many words told Eric he was about to venture on a fools errand.

Eric picks up the pen and looks at the paper, unsure of where to even start. He takes another sip from the bottle of scotch, and he begins.

Tris,

We promised there would be no goodbyes, and if you're reading this it means I broke the last promise I made. I didn't live through it.

I know you didn't want me to do this but I never had a choice. I transferred here, willingly signed up to put my life on the line to protect my faction, and that's what I did. There was never any doubt on what the right answer would be when I was faced with a decision to try and prevent an outright genocide.

I remember when I was a kid, and we first learned that Jason was sick. My parents were sure they'd find a cure to leukemia, and they never did stop trying. Jason was a fighter babe, he would have come here and kicked every single one of our asses from one side of the city to the other. I learned how to be brave by watching him, and even though his death brought out the worst in my parents I still learned my resilience from them. I thought after spending eighteen years in the scholar faction I'd learned mostly everything I needed to know about life, until I met you.

You were meant to break all of my rules, and to teach me how to love. Before you, it was just a series of individual days and separate events strung together in a random pattern that resembled a life. You put all of the pieces together. I can't say it was love at first sight, more like infuriation and frustration with your smart ass mouth but I couldn't stay away from you. I tried babe, I tried to convince myself that we were nothing when I came back here and found you still with Four, but I couldn't lie to myself anymore. I've never wanted a woman the way I've wanted you, and I've never loved like this. Like I said, you broke all of my rules.

I want to thank you for allowing me be the one to break through your walls. Thank you for trusting me, and letting me prove that relationships built on mutual respect can work. Thank you for staying at my apartment for over a month now, I can assure you it's been the best and messiest part of my life.

Thank you for teaching me that I don't have to make the damn bed every day, and that life won't end if I don't fold the blanket on the couch. I can see the blanket right now, I chose to write this instead of fold it. That part was supposed to make you laugh babe.

All kidding aside, thank you for being the reason I can finally relax.

Thank you for letting me love you, and loving me in return. I know you always say you have no idea how to love someone, but you're amazing at it babe, even when you are too afraid to say those three words out loud.

You've made me happy and you will make someone else happy too. I don't know if I believe in soul mates or any of that other shit but I do believe that you were made for me. That part will never change, every part of you was made for me and I will never forget it. You have too much love to give to keep it to yourself after I'm gone. Find someone who treats you the way you deserve, who makes an effort to understand the complexities of your upbringing, and someone who will respect the memories we made and the life we had started to build together. I don't want you to mourn for me, I want you to live, and I want the person who shares your life to understand I will always be with you.

I love you in a way I never thought I could, and I died knowing that you loved me in the exact same way.

Eric

When he puts the pen down he has tears pouring down his face that he scrubs away with the back of his hands. He puts the letter in an envelope and sends a text to Lynn.

E: There's a letter in the smallest drawer of my home desk, below the liner. It's for Tris to open if I don't make it.

L: Got it. I love you man.

E: I love you too.

He goes back to bed, where he finds a restless Tris lying on a tear stained pillow. They sleepily make love until the early hours of the morning, gentle and so much different than the way they normally take each other. They get ready for this meeting on auto-pilot, both of them smoking cigarettes while waiting for the train, forgoing their normal promises to quit soon.

He didn't expect to see Four jogging alongside the train when he and Tris had just jumped on board. Tris and Eric help him on, and Tris looks over at Eric.

"Four is going to keep the box for us while we talk to Jeanine." She offers simply and he nods in response. He has no idea why she never told him about this change of plans, but he knows better to question her when she is this determined.

Her grip on Eric's hand as Kevin escorts the three of them to Jeanine's office threatens to leave bruises, but he doesn't care, he needs her right now just as much as she needs him. Four waits outside in a chair, while Eric and Tris steel themselves before walking in.

"I was surprised to see either of you wanted to meet this early, but I do appreciate the brisk start to the day. To what do I owe the pleasure?" Jeanine asks.

"We have the box." Tris says, cutting straight to the point.

"How?" Jeanine replies, showing she's rattled for the first time that Eric's known her.

"How doesn't much matter, it was in my parent's home and I found a way to get it. I also have a way to open it, but I need to be fully in control of the way it happens." Tris says firmly.

"Tris-" Eric interrupts but she turns those ice blue eyes on him, almost cutting them with the fierceness he sees.

"Of course dear, tell me what you want." Jeanine replies.

"You need a Divergent who can complete sims for all five factions, and I have two who I believe are able to do so. However, from what I've heard everyone who has tried it before has died in the process. What I want is for two Divergents with affinities for all five factions to go into these sims in tandem, and if at any point there is duress from either the sims are stopped. Furthermore, if these Divergents are successful in opening the box, their lives are spared."

"Beatrice, you are asking me for the impossible-"

"My name is Tris, you need to start using it. If you want your damn box opened, we do it my way. If you don't agree to my terms, the box is just a nicely decorated paperweight as it has been for fucking years." Tris hisses.

Eric has never seen anything like the exchange in front of him and he is in shock watching the usually stoic Jeanine bow down to the daughter she foolishly gave away.

"We will do this your way, of course my darling. I trust you." Jeanine replies.

"I don't trust you, so I want it in writing, on your official stationary, and notarized. I also want an electronic copy saved on this drive, and I will be watching it saved and validate I can open it before proceeding." Tris presses.

"Beatrice-"

"I said my name is Tris and this is non-negotiable." Tris interrupts. Within minutes Jeanine has had Kevin draw up the electronic form, with both himself and Tobias as witnesses and he then notarizes it. Tris watches as it is saved to the portable drive she's brought with her, and Tobias opens it and secures it in front of her as well. He nods once to let her know he's good.

"Thank you Jeanine, we may proceed." Tris announces.

"How long will it take for you to get the box and the subjects here?" Jeanine queries.

"All are here right now. Tobias will be overseeing the sim with Caleb's assistance, and here is the box," Tris signals for him to place the knapsack he was holding on the desk, "Eric and I are your Divergents and we are ready to get this over with."

Jeanine's smile falters and her already pale skin blanches, "My God." She replies shakily.