AN: Epilogue here! Thank you for taking yet another journey with me!

He scrambles around the apartment, looking for his daughter's shoes as she giggles from her perch on his hip.

"Harlow, we really have to find your shoes, and I know you have more than one pair, why can't we find at least one pair of shoes for you in this whole apartment?" Eric says as he sets her down on her socked feet while he digs through the front closet.

"Mommy always finds my shoes." Harlow says with conviction, and he glances over at her.

"Mommy isn't here right now ladybug, so we've got to figure this one out on our own." Eric says as he continues digging.

"I could wear your shoes Daddy." She says and he smirks at her.

"Bug, I could fit your entire body into one of my shoes."

"Nuh-uh Daddy, I'm a big sistaw now." She shakes her head.

"That you are," He grins at her, "Are you ready to meet your brother?"

"Aw we gonna go see Eli?" She asks as she plops down on the floor next to her father and tries to put one of his heavy boots on her feet.

"We are, but if we show up without shoes, your mommy is going to kill me." He says and makes an exaggerated noise and tips himself back onto the floor.

She giggles at him and crawls on his chest, sitting there and looking down at him. Looking up at his almost four-year-old daughter was like looking at a smaller version of his wife, with her freckled skin, light brown hair and fine features. Harlow had his grey-blue eyes, and she shared her curly hair texture with him, but the rest of her was all Tris and Eric adored her.

Harlow Elizabeth Coulter made her appearance almost a full month early, and her young parents were terrified. They'd been living together for less than a month when Tris's water broke during one of her shifts down in the Control Room, and Eric barely made it for her birth because he was in a part of the faction that had barely any phone service.

He made it to Erudite when they were preparing to take Tris to the operating room for an emergency C-Section, when her labor hasn't progressed the way they needed it to. He and Harlow had a special bond from the start, she was immediately placed into his arms while they worked on her mother. When they had to do the C-Section it seemed to be the first in many unexpected issues in the young woman's first venture into motherhood, and unbeknownst to him his girlfriend blamed herself.

Tris also couldn't produce enough milk to feed their daughter, and Harlow had to be moved onto formula immediately after her birth. She was also born almost four full weeks early, and had some initial lung problems that kept her in the hospital longer than her mother. While little Harlow improved in the hospital, her mother slipped into the throes of postpartum depression, and by the time the tiny girl came home it was to a mother who had no interest in parenting her.

It was up to Eric to figure things out.

It was heartbreaking to say the least, and the two grandmothers stepped in, helping to teach Eric how to be a father. Natalie and Marcia stayed with Tris, Eric and Harlow for first two months of the tiny girl's life. Both women also tried to help Tris, recognizing that the young mother was deeply depressed, but Tris slipped further and further away.

Eric had eventually told both grandmother's that he could do this on his own, and that maybe having the house back to themselves would help Tris find herself again. He had thanked them both profusely, and both women had promised to be there at any time if he needed them.

He was single-handedly parenting their baby daughter while also trying to help his girlfriend find her way. Tris had refused any of the recommended therapy, and it was Eric who took care of their daughter while Tris struggled to take care of herself.

One night after getting Harlow back to bed, he and Tris had tentatively explored each other for the first time since her birth, and he felt more connected to her with their gentle kisses and touches. It wasn't until they were both naked, and he had slowly slid inside of her warmth that she fell apart. She broke into sobs and he'd immediately stopped, pulling her close to him and whispering soothing words in her ear while she cried it out.

"I could leave. You deserve more than me. You can take better care of Harlow than me." She'd said once she had calmed enough to speak.

"There's no one else for me, all I want are you and Harlow, I love you so much Tris. We're going to figure this out, together, and you are going to be the best mother to Harlow." He'd whispered and she curled herself tighter against him.

"I'm not even her mother now. She's almost three months old, and I've not even touched her." Tris cried.

"We can change that any time you're ready, baby."

"What if she doesn't like me?" Tris whispered.

"Harlow loves you. She knows you, she heard your voice the entire time you carried her. When she hears you in the house, she always looks towards your voice. Baby, Harlow is going to be ready whenever you are, okay?" He replied.

They'd laid there skin to skin for almost an hour, until the soft cries of their daughter floated over their baby monitor. Eric had dressed, pressed a kiss to Tris's forehead and slipped out of the room to go tend to his daughter. He had her on the changing table, cooing at her when he heard Tris's tiny voice behind him.

"Do you always do the same things?"

He looked over his shoulder and gestured for her to come closer while he finished getting the diaper on their baby girl, "We do. Harlow gets changed, then I put her in that fabric wrap thing we got at the baby shower, and then I go and make her bottle."

"Is there something I can do?" She asked.

"Her bottle needs to be made, the powder is in the can on the counter, and her special water is in a jug in the fridge-"

"I can't do that, I'll mess it up," Tris shakes her head and takes a step backward, and Eric masks the disappointment as he picks Harlow up.

"That's okay, if you don't mind handing me her swaddling wrap, I can get her situated on me so I can make her bottle hands-free and I can show you how it's done." He replied.

"Or… maybe I can hold her? I don't want to mess up her bottle, or make her wait, but I could hold her while you make it. Would… would that be okay?" She asked.

"Of course, it would be, she would love that." Eric said and Tris walked over to the rocker in the corner of the nursery. Eric carefully passed their daughter over to her and Tris held her in the crook of her arm, just staring down at her.

"She's perfect." She whispered.

"We made her." Eric replied with a smile before pressing his lips briefly to Tris's before leaving the room.

When he got back, he could hear Tris humming a familiar tune to Harlow, and their little girl's eyes were glued to her mother. Tris got up with Eric each other time Harlow woke that night, and she even changed her diaper while Eric made her bottle for the last night feeding.

The next morning Tris had made her first appointment with a therapist who specialized in treating mothers experiencing postpartum depression, and from that day forward Tris was more present in her daughter's life, and the young couple began to heal.

"I wanted a sistaw." Harlow pouted as Eric tied the shoelaces to her little sneakers and he chuckled at her.

"It's a little late for that, bug. You're going to love your brother though, he looks just like you did as a baby except he's twice as big." Eric replied and her eyes widen.

"How big was I?" She asked and Eric took her little hand in his as he locked their apartment door.

"You only weighed five pounds, you were teeny tiny and I was always afraid I was going to break you." He grinned down at her.

"Does that mean Eli weights a hundred pounds?" She asks seriously and he chuckles.

"No bug, it means he weighs ten pounds." He grins at her.

"But daddy, I weigh forty free pounds." She says proudly, flexing her muscles like she did after their daddy-daughter workouts.

"Eli is big for a baby, you are the perfect size for daddy's ladybug." He replies as he squeezes her hand.

"Daddy, look at his cheeks!" Harlow exclaimed when she saw her baby brother for the first time.

"Aren't they cute, bug?" He asked and she nodded enthusiastically from her place next to Tris.

"Do you want to hold him?" Tris asked her daughter and she nodded again.

Eric helped them to all get settled, and while Harlow is snuggled against her mother, she holds her brother with Tris's help, and Eric snaps several pictures of them.

"You need in there too, Daddio." Christina says as she enters the room.

Eric moves in and leans close to his wife and children as Christina takes several pictures from her phone.

"Harlow are you ready to spend the night with Lila?" Christina asks and Harlow excitedly squeals.

Lila was born less than ten months after Harlow, and the two little girls had grown up to be just as close as their mothers are. Christina and Uriah also had a two-year-old son named James, after the father that Uriah and his brother Zeke had lost as children. Harlow had stayed with them while Tris was in labor, but to no one's surprise Eric had picked her up as soon as he could.

He hated being away from his girls.

Tris had agreed to marry him the night of Harlow's first birthday. They had gone to bed exhausted after hosting family and friends for the special event, and that evening after they'd made love he had reached into the nightstand and slipped the ring onto her finger.

"What… what is this?" She'd asked.

"I love you. I love our family, and I love our life. I have never deserved any of this, but now that I have it I want to keep it. I want to nurture us, and our family, I want to grow old with you, I want you, Tris. I've wanted you every day since I've known you. You've loved me when I didn't deserve it, given me a beautiful daughter, and I am asking you to give me another thing I don't deserve. I want you to marry me, Tris. Take my name, share it with our daughter, be with me forever. Will you marry me?"

She had turned towards him as he was talking and he can barely make out the shine of tears in her eyes in the dim moonlight of their room.

"Yes, I will marry you." She'd replied and he pressed his lips to hers.

Their wedding had been an event, with most of their faction attending, plus their family, and even the friends Eric had made in Milwaukee and Portland. Tris walked down the aisle on the arm of her father, on a carpet of petals spread by their then two-year-old daughter, and met her emotional partner in a deep burgundy colored gown.

She was easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. As far as he was concerned, she was the only woman he'd ever seen.

And now, not only was she his wife, but the mother of their two children.

The decision to have another child after the depression she'd gone through with Harlow wasn't an easy one. They'd gone through many possibilities after Harlow's birth, even thinking that maybe Eric should get a vasectomy. Neither of them was ready to give up on the idea of one day having more children, and when they decided to try again they were careful with their planning.

Tris's pregnancy with Eli was completely different, instead of being pregnant while the father was banished hundreds of miles away, they were now married, with established careers and a strong relationship.

"He looks just like you." Tris said to Eric once they were alone in the room, "He even scowls like you."

"Isn't it crazy how bug looks like you with my eyes, and bud looks like me with your eyes?"

"You already have a nickname for him too? He's literally hours old." Tris laughs.

"Harlow is my ladybug, and Eli is my little buddy, bug and bud." He shrugs as he looks at his sleeping son.

They'd gone home later that day, and little Eli settled right into their lives. Their small apartment may have been bursting at the seams, but it was also filled with love. The smaller third bedroom that they'd used as an office became Eli's nursery, and their Dauntless laptops took up residence in a shared space on their dining room table, which was cleared each evening for dinner together as a family. Eric was leading his own squad by now, and Tris had been promoted to one of the supervisors of the Control Room. They always came together for their children, both being present for Harlow's first day of school, and for Eli's first day of preschool. Their children were six and almost three when Eric received a call that had the potential to change all of their lives.

He'd been asked to be a leader again.

The leadership staff in Dauntless had changed in the years since Max's execution. Harrison had taken over as the head leader, but Four was the only other remaining member of that original staff. Veronica was the first to retire, and in her place they'd brought Peter Hayes in. Next to retire was Latasha, and they'd brought in Danae, a tough Dauntless born who'd been the first in her initiate class. A woman named Raven had replaced Eric years ago, and she had been leading for years with integrity ingrained in her from her Candor roots.

Harrison had decided he wanted to retire in the next year, so he was grooming Four to take over for him, and when he'd asked Four for a recommendation to backfill him Four had immediately mentioned Eric. The two had formed an unlikely friendship years ago, and it had developed into a bond closer than Eric had ever shared with anyone other than Tris and his mother.

"He's likely your best friend, doesn't that make you biased?" Harrison had asked Four.

"Nope. It makes me harder on him. I was tasked with watching him when no one in this faction trusted him, and I've seen him rise from his lowest to where he is now. He was helping to plan a genocide, and now he's a husband and father. He has an impeccable record as a squad leader, and the city respects him again. Eric is ready."

"I guess you'd better call him then." Harrison returned with a smile.

It was a shock, and Eric had told Four he'd have to talk to Tris. His leadership position before had almost ruined him, and even though it had been almost eight years since he'd last held office he was still worried.

"You aren't the person you were back then." Tris had replied simply when he'd told her, "You once told me that no matter what temptation you were faced with, you'd always choose me, and you have. Now you have two other reasons to always make the right decisions. If you think it's too much, don't do it, but I will tell you that I am sure you can do it right this time."

"I don't want anything to take my time or focus away from my family." He replied.

"You won't let it this time." Tris had said before leaning in for a kiss.

It was his father-in-law who convinced him to take the job, the one person Eric was sure would talk him out of it. Eric returned to leadership without fanfare, he was trained by Peter, the two having long ago squashed their rivalry over Tris. When Eric had first returned to the faction, Peter had admittedly gone out of his way to push all of his buttons, but when Peter realized that Eric was all in when it came to Tris, he immediately gave them both his full support. Peter had married Marlene right before Harlow's first birthday, and the two of them had two small children of their own who often joined playdates with his own children.

He and Tris had moved into the very apartment he'd once had as a leader before, and the bedroom that Tris had once spent all of her time exercising in while Eric was hiding her became their son's bedroom. Harlow had her own room as well, and on the other side of the apartment was the bedroom Eric and Tris shared, along with a home office that Danae had the contractors build when she, her wife and their children had once lived there. Eric had refused to bring any of their furniture, outside of the children's rooms, into the new space, even though those were once his things and Tris had brought them to her own apartment when she lost him, he couldn't stand to have the place look anything like it did before. They picked out new furniture, donated the old, sold all of the gym equipment and brought nothing from their past into their present.

One evening when the kids were in bed, Tris found Eric sitting at the coffee table working on his laptop and the memories from years ago came flooding in. When Eric looked over at her, he noticed the tears in her eyes and he pulled her closer.

"What's wrong?"

"Seeing you sitting there, it just reminds me of a different time." She admitted.

He pulled her down to his lap and he wrapped his arms around her, "I'm so sorry I did that to you."

She rested her chin on his shoulder and shook her head, "We were both different people back then. We've moved forward."

"I love you." He said before pressing his lips to her cheek, and she turned to face him.

She leaned toward him and pressed her lips to his, first a chaste kiss that she quickly deepened and when they broke apart for a breath she told him that she loved him too. She closed the lid of his laptop and slid off of his lap, taking his hands in hers and leading him back to their bedroom. They used to be frantic, always in a tearing hurry for him to be buried inside of her, not wanting to think too much about the feelings that their joining brought out in him.

Now, he could take his time.

Their lives had changed, and her body had as well, her hips shifting wider to accommodate their children, her breasts filling out, and her stomach showing the light stretch marks from her two pregnancies. His body was no longer as disciplined as it once was, where before Tris had to almost force him to share sweets with her, now all it took was one look from his daughter and he was down in the ice cream shop with her.

Tris loved every inch of him, much like he did her, and when they had time like tonight to actually explore each other, they did. She had pushed him down on his back, and she'd pressed her lips onto most of his skin, pausing at the spot on his hip that always made him laugh.

After he'd returned the favor, and teased her by kissing, nibbling and licking her everywhere except the one place she wanted him to, she'd pulled his face up to hers.

"I want you to fuck me, Eric."

He didn't have to ask her what she meant, he already knew, and he'd pulled her body flush with his and kissed her hard, before pushing her onto her stomach and yanking her hips up. He lined up with her and slammed inside of her, relishing in her hot heat and how her tight muscles stretched for him. She knew he loved her, and he respected her, but tonight she didn't want to be treated like the mother of his children, she wanted to be thoroughly fucked.

He always delivered.

They shower together and then get dressed before going back to bed, and like most nights Eric falls asleep almost immediately. Times like these remind her that she made the right choice so many years ago. She thinks about it often, the questionable and dangerous way that they started, and how she could have screamed and beaten on the doors until someone got her away from Eric. Or, the days he left her alone in this very apartment while he worked and she could have found Tobias and gotten help. The way Eric grasped for her in his sleep, much like right now, always told her that he felt more for her than he was ready to admit. All she ever wanted from him was the truth, about the work he was doing for Jeanine, Max and his father, or how he actually felt about her, she just yearned for him to make the right decisions.

When he snuck back into the city for her, every part of her wanted to run away with him. It would have been romantic in a way, the man who'd fought through everything to get back to her, the love of his life, but back then they were so broken. Eric has always been a complicated man, and even when he fought a memory wipe serum to make his way back to her he wasn't quite ready for the type of relationship that she knew she wanted. Even when she was pregnant with Harlow, Eric struggled with her strength, but one day he finally realized she would be okay without him.

That's when she wanted him the most.

She loved the life they had built together, the family they were raising, and the careers they were flourishing in. Her children had an amazing support system with their friends and family, and with walls and borders no longer holding anyone in, or out, she knew they were raising their children in a different time and place.

Their friends sometimes still joked that she was the one person who could tame Eric Coulter, and in a way, they were right, but they never knew the Eric she fell in love with. The one who held her back then just like he does now, with her back pressed to his chest and his warm breath fanning over her. He may not have been able to tell her he loved her back then, but she knew that he did, and she also knew that he would make the right decisions. He'd always promised her he'd make things right, and he did.

So, she snuggles against her husband, holding his arms around her as her heavy eyelids drop, smiling slightly as she thinks about starting tomorrow morning with his featherlight kisses on her neck.

Leading the faction was different in so many ways this time around, and Eric was ultimately pleased with his decision to take the job. There were no longer closed walls, no more faction lines, and while they still had a responsibility to keep their city safe they were no longer fear-mongered into being afraid of what they didn't understand. He'd heard that leadership had relaxed under Harrison's tenure, and Four was okay keeping that tradition alive when he took over as head leader as well. The tensions that always ran so high in their city were gone, and even though it took time the people who had once supported Byron and Jeanine eventually tapered off, whether by their own choices to leave the city, or their eventual mind changes, and there was now a sense of peace over the city of Chicago.

He walked out of his office and headed to the Control Room, deciding a lunch date with his wife was needed since they'd spent the last week dealing with two sick children. As he made his way through the hallways, he was greeted with nods, waves and smiles, all a completely different feel from the way things were the first time around. He hated his job back then, and the faction hated him. Had he not been so hell-bent on getting power he would have been able to admit that to himself. Barreling head first to an insurrection, while also taking innocent lives appalled the man he was today, but back then he didn't care about anyone but himself.

Until her.

He still hated the way they first started, but he was so thankful she never gave up on him. He gave her every reason to not only leave him, but to turn him in and send him to the same fate of Jeanine.

He meet's Tris's eyes through the window of her office when he makes it into the Control Room, and she smiles at him. He's once again reminded how lucky he is to have her love, the woman who single-handedly gave him a reason to turn it all around and stop the war he knew was coming.

The woman who taught him how to love.

"Hi Eric." She grinned at him as she left her office.

She could see the starry-eyed trainees, the kids who had just finished their own initiation and who looked at Eric like he had hung the moon. She remembers seeing a different side of him, but she can't blame the girls from smiling and blushing when they look at him, because she once was the same starry-eyed girl who had hoped that Eric would one day choose her.

"Hi baby." He says before dropping his lips chastely to hers, "Can I take my wife on a lunch date?"

She looped her arms around him and kissed him again, "Of course you can."

Tris leaves Kaity in charge, the second year member who reminded her of a younger version of herself, and she smiles as she watches everyone's eyes follow her husband out of the room.

He threads his hand with hers and pulls her to a stop, kissing her breathless as soon as they're out of the door.

"Is this a lunch date or something else?" Tris asks him.

"I like the idea of something else." He grins at her.

"Lead the way." She grins back.