Chapter 6

It was well into the night when the perimeter alerts started sounding, startling Eric out of what had become a nightly routine after three months of virtual solitude. He had just settled down with a book and cup of tea after performing a series of 'chores' he set himself.

He had found making a schedule of activities and jobs everyday helped him from going crazy. There was the fact that he found a way to keep in shape by using the natural resources around him for exercise. He also improved his knife skills to the point that he could outdo Four.

This relaxation time at the end of each night was only after making sure all his weapons were cleaned and prepped. Then he allowed himself to indulge.

Old reflexes kicked in with no hesitation and he was on his feet, grabbing a 'go' bag he had prepared and then out of the door to the lookout spot that would allow him to scope out who was intruding at this time of night.

It could and has been a wild animal in the past but it didn't make him relax his alertness any.

When he was in position he pulled out his scope and had to switch to the infrared. The darkness wouldn't allow the regular scope mode to give him any type of visibility. The outlying perimeter sensor was the one that had been set off so he focused on the one that should be next if something was on the move towards him.

He sat waiting for much longer than he thought he should if it was an actual person on the move. He was about to call it that an animal had wandered into his territory again, when he finally caught sight of an odd red shape moving towards him. The way it was moving suggested it was weighed down or wounded.

When he zoomed in he was able to determine it wasn't just one person, but three. Two distinctly moving on their own while one was being carried between them.

Someone wounded was being brought here. Eric already felt who it might be but was hoping he was wrong or that it wouldn't be that bad.

He got a better visual on the two carrying the wounded person and scowled when he recognized one of them as Four.

Accepting that at this moment it didn't matter who the hell was bringing her to him, he just needed to get her home, he moved quickly towards the slow moving group.

"Eric, if that's you...don't shoot." The winded and obviously strained voice of Four called into the night.

"If I wanted to dead Four you would have been about twenty minutes ago." Eric snarked lowly as he seemed to almost emerge from the darkness next to them.

Four and Zeke, who was with him, almost didn't recognize the former terror of a leader. His hair was a mess of wild curls, he had a full beard and there was not a trace of tattoos to be seen. He was wearing dark colors but the cut and cloth was not standard Dauntless wear.

"Dude." Zeke started out despite the seriousness of the situation. "What the hell happened to you?"

"I embraced the yeti life. What the fuck do you think happened? Better question…" Eric growled as he moved to look at Elle being carried in a cloth stretcher between the two men "...what happened to her!" He demanded and then disregarded waiting for an answer. "Never mind. We need to get her home. Follow me, there is a better path to take with her like that."

He didn't wait as he took one side of the stretcher nearest her head and started leading them on. Four and Zeke exchanged looks before Zeke leaned in and whispered a question.

"Did Eric Coulter just make a joke?"

Four didn't answer. He was too worried about Bree along with wondering if Tris made it to the Amity compound for her objective or not.

Sensing he wouldn't be getting any answer and that after the past two weeks no one was in the mood for his half hearted attempts at jokes. Not even him.

The path he led them on was one he found in his exploring. It looked to be one that was used previously to bring cart and horses up. It was much easier to move along and made it for a smoother ride for Elle. He looked back on her from time to time when he heard small pain filled moans. Each one increased his desire to hurry but knew that rushing could make it worse.

On the way, Zeke asked about the lookout point he spotted them from. After getting directions from Eric he slipped off while the other two men carried on.

"Expecting company?" Eric asked in a low angry rasp.

"After the last month we have had, Eric, we have learned to take no risks. I don't think anyone will care to follow us. Not when they are just trying to survive themselves. I just don't want to take chances."

"Is it that bad?" Eric asked in a breathless half whisper.

"Worse." Four replied but wouldn't elaborate more at the moment.

When they reached the cabin all focus went on getting Elle settled and her wounds looked at.

"We got most of the severe ones stapled or sewn up. We had a limited amount of nano serum and she wasn't allowing us to use that at first. Had to knock her ass out just to be able to get it in her. That is mostly why she is out and won't rouse for you, Eric. She was determined to keep going on her own and not be coddled, as she put it."

Eric had handed Four a cup of water as he sat gingerly at the kitchen table. They had gotten Elle on the bed and Eric hadn't hesitated in trying to strip her for inspection. Four had excused himself immediately at that point.

"What happened?" Eric demanded now that he was sure she wasn't in immediate danger or in need of more care at the moment.

Four drained his cup gratefully then sighed looking into the empty bottom. "I don't even know where to start. Has Johanna been able to keep you updated?"

Eric nodded. "Until even she lost contact with anyone. About two weeks ago she said it might be better if even my few visits to the main compound's market stopped. I still get notes stuck in with the supplies but nothing new other than negotiations had broken down."

Four laughed bitterly. "That is putting it mildly. I don't know that there was ever really an attempt at negotiating. It was all stall tactics from both sides. We didn't know that they had approached the factionless. Trying to woo them to get more numbers. In the end it became a clusterfuck of epic proportions. The factionless led them on and egged on the hostilities until fighting broke out. Then they used that and made their own move."

"What side were you on?" Eric asked lowly with his hand clenched around the cup tightly.

Four raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you really have to ask if I am here?" Then their history, his willingness to believe everything he had heard about Eric, his being the one of the loudest voices to protest all Bree had been trying to tell them, prove to them; ran through his mind.

He sighed wearily and waved away Eric readying a response to that. "Never mind. You do and I can admit my fault in that. At first, I was on the side ready to hunt you down and string you up. Bree was trying to smack some sense into me and a few others but it took when Tris went to her side that I realized I was just holding on to an old grudge. Having Tris' parents back her up on that helped. It was her mother Natalie that told us that Bree's claims of you helping to get divergents out of the city were all true. That you even helped to hide and cover the early signs of Tris' divergence. Then it was a group of us trying to talk both sides down. I think we knew it was a long shot. In the end both sides came up with the frame of mind that if someone wasn't with them, then they were against them. This made perfect conditions for the factionless and it was civil war. No one was safe anymore."

Eric's blood ran cold at this. He hadn't figured this for a possible outcome when his list of worries started growing over the last few months.

He stood and went to a window, looking out and dreading this next question. "Four….what about...what about my family?"

The silence behind him was enough. His head dropped and he fought back the tears. He felt a hand awkwardly come to his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry, Eric. She tried….when it was clear what was going to happen...she tried her damndest. Then Tori interfered and had Bree restrained. Fully intending to keep her out of any fight and make no rescue attempts for your family. Jesus, I have never seen Bree like she was then, even if we were never close. She was so cold about it. I knew Tori and she were tight. Bree was in the tattoo parlor a good bit from the time she came to Dauntless. I think...I think they might have been family, though I am not exactly sure how they are related. Because Bree said if she did this, Tori was dead to her."

Pieces started to click into place for him. The debt she said she owed him. The fact that one of the first people he was able to get word to remove from the city had been George Wu. Elle would have been very young at that time. Hell, he had been twelve at the time and still four years from his own choosing. He was already in Jeanine's web though so he did what he could.

Four continued on unaware of what was lining up for Eric.

"This really threw Tori. She finally let her go. Eric, you have a nephew. Did you know that? Bree...she wasn't sure if you knew. Something about your sister had married and changed her name and long ago renounced you in Erudite."

Eric nodded numbly and turned towards Four but then moved past him to a cabinet that had a bottle Johnna brought him on his last visit. It was some kind homemade spiked apple cider, but would fine for him right now.

He poured himself a glass in his empty water cup and after a look to Four, who nodded, poured him some as well. He took a big swig of the aromatic drink before plopping down in his seat again.

"It was an act. All of it. She had to so they couldn't use her against me. I may not have spoken to her in years...but I knew. He would have been eight months old next month on the tenth."

"He will be eight months old next month. She managed to get him. Cara, Will and Bree had a plan along with your sister but your sister wouldn't leave that night. She said it would point them after her son so she would go into work as normal to buy some time and then her and her husband would leave. Bree and Will were able to get Brendan out. He is with Tris now and being taken to Amity. Before you go Eric….." Four stopped Eric before he could try and bolt to find his nephew "...there was a reason we didn't bring him yet. Johanna said to bring Bree here first. She will be likely to be looked for out of anyone and they can't hide her in this state. She will need constant care and it will be hard enough without adding a baby. So until she gets at least up and around, Johanna will place him under her protection and with a young woman that has experience with children. It will look as if he is one of the kids she looks after and it won't draw attention."

With a sigh Eric settled down again. "Keep going. Just tell me everything. What happened to my sister and her husband? Was it Jeanine?"

Four shook his head. "Believe it or not Jeanine was taken out pretty early on but it was like some mythical beast. New and even more viscous people popped up. I think it was some man named Silas that ordered it."

"Sadistic fuck." Eric muttered darkly as he remembered the man and Jeanine's lover.

Four nodded. "Pretty much what Bree said and there was no way she was going to let it happen. Even Tori agreed. Tori, Bree, Will and Christina went to try and get them out. Only Bree and Christina made it out and that was after Cara and Tori did something to buy them time. It was a trap and Silas had figured at the very least it would net him you. Christina was in better condition but not by much. Most of Bree's injuries happened as they were making a run for it. There was a deliberate explosion set that started a building collapse and Bree had refused to go without at least trying to get Will, Cara and Tori out. We….there were a lot of people lost all in the space of a week. One after the other and it was like anything we did to try and help or stop just made things worse. I hated doing it but with supplies dwindling and us running on fumes, Zeke and I had to order retreat here."

It took a while to digest all of this. As much as he tried to steel himself and condition himself into thinking he basically had no family, he knew he never could. They hadn't spoken in years but they were always in his thoughts. Elle has even made sure he had the photo album of his family. Now because of her efforts to save them she had lost family of her own.

Four continued on and it was more a cathartic release for him as well as to inform Eric. He told him of the deaths of Tris' parents along with Jack Kang, Harrison and Bud. How they had been killed in a supposed meeting to help mediate between the group that started the madness by their bid for power and demanding all divergents being turned over - Erudite with some of Dauntless; and the group that had started out as the ones trying to stop that and restore order - Abnegation with the other part of Dauntless. But the second group under the influence and guidance of Marcus Eaton it had all gotten corrupted.

How Tris had, before even that, tried to turn herself over to Erudite in an effort to head it all off. Hoping that if Jeanine had what she wanted, a highly divergent person to test on, that she would stop it all. Peter had been one of the Dauntless recruited by Jeanine but something caused him to betray her and Erudite. With the help of Peter, Cara and Caleb; she was snuck out of Erudite.

Caleb went back to Erudite though and it wasn't clear before he was killed what side in that faction he was on. Tris wants to think he was trying to play the role of a double agent in order to find the best way to stop everything. He had said he was going to find a way to honor his parents to Tris before he left to return.

Once Four opened the dam of memories, they poured out. He even admitted about his mother being with the factionless. That at first the group trying to mediate went to her to get help. Four never really trusted her though and soon cautioned them against falling for anything she said. Evelyn was one of the main instigators of the civil unrest but ended up paying for it when someone in her own group turned on her as well.

"The city...Seattle... is done. There aren't many options but Tris and a group of us...we decided trying to stay here and rebuild is pointless. Bree was the one to tell us as a backup plan about cities outside of the walls. She cautioned against someplace called Pendleton though. Something about there were supposedly people Jeanine had there and obtained items from. So we are going to get supplies, rest and then head out. Maybe north into what was Canada or further south along the coast into California, that hasn't been decided for sure yet. I made a promise to Tris and Christina that I would tell you. Once we find a place and we know it is safe, we are going to have someone come back for you two. Anyone else that wants to come too obviously, but we wanted you to know...to tell Bree we aren't going to abandon anyone."

Zeke came in a short while later and Eric was able to get them both something to eat. He fell back into a commander mode and ordered them to get some rest. Trying to make it down off the mountain in full light was already hard enough.

The two were grateful even if one of them had to sleep on the floor while the other tried his best to curl up on the short couch. Eric chose to sit in an armchair beside the bed to watch over Elle. Sleep just wasn't going to happen. Grief came over him like a shroud.

Emma and Robert were gone and he regretted every second and day that he had allowed without at least trying to contact his sister, to let her know he loved her and always would no matter that - for her protection - they had to act like they were disgusted with each other.

That day years ago when their father had been found divergent and taken away started off a chain of events that shaped Eric into who he was and what he felt he needed to do. Jeanine and her group hadn't wasted time in testing both himself and Emma.

Emma was clear but Eric didn't wind up as lucky. He was Dauntless and Erudite with the higher percentage being Dauntless. It was still enough for Jeanine's uses and she held both his family and a death sentence over his head. In an effort to take away his family being used as leverage against him, Emma had agreed to publicly declare that she renounced Eric as being family.

It gave her the image of being against Divergents and completely in line with the creed of 'faction before blood'. Eric in turn had acted as if this angered him and the family was completely torn apart.

Maybe he hadn't been as careful with his keeping tabs on them. A few of those pictures in his family album were ones he had sneakily gotten of Emma and Brendan together at outings to the Erudite play park.

He had hoped they would be safe but it had been just useless to think people like Jeanine, Silas and John would forget any weapons or cards they held.

So much death on such a scale he couldn't even fathom.

Genocide.

It was a term that lived in history books. Supposedly eradicated with the foundation of this city and the factions. It shouldn't have been possible but it looks like it was just another trait of human nature that found its way back to them.

Crushing guilt and pain coursed through Eric. His chest felt tight with it and his breathing went erratic. Elle moved slightly in her sleep and he never needed someone to hold more than at this moment. Sliding gingerly in the bed with her, he pulled her closer just as gently. He closed his eyes and tried to match his breathing to her, to steady his heartbeat until together they beat in time.

The panic attack he had been on the verge of passed and his tears burned behind his eyes. So much was lost, but not all. There was Brendan and the woman in his arms. How hard she fought for him gave him some hope and it was to that and her he clung.