Chapter 8
It took a week for Elle to be able to move around without a good amount of pain but both her and Eric knew that it needed to be done to be able to heal. Neither would admit they had come to enjoy the times he had to carry her to the living room or restroom.
Another thing they didn't talk about at the time was the first time Eric suggested a bath for her instead of the method he had been using, of a bowl of warm soapy water and a sponge. It had been the first day after she had been able to stay awake for a good amount of time.
After they had woken and he had made her a small breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, he had asked if she wanted to try and be setup on the couch so he could change the bedding. This led to her realizing how awful she must look much less smell.
Eric hadn't even given her the option of arguing after he had realized her thoughts. He had went about running her water and getting things ready while she was on the couch and eating.
She had thought he was just changing out the bedding and washing the dirty ones to be hung for drying outside. It was with a surprised yelp she was lifted into his arms and then noticed the bathtub ready.
There was a small argument between them but the bath really looked appealing and she realized that Eric had seen everything she had already during the time he was tending to her.
The fight went out of her and at first it was awkward. Until Eric started talking to her in an effort to distract her while he helped bathed her. He told her about his childhood and his family. How their father had been taken for questioning by the Erudite internal security. It wasn't until two weeks later when that same security came for the rest of them to be tested that they realized he was Divergent and not coming back. Eric never found out what happened to him but it was alluded to. He had been tested on and executed.
It shouldn't have been a surprise to Elle when Eric revealed he too was Divergent. He had always shown to her moments of what could only Erudite aptitude. Even more than Will had occasionally even a year after his transfer.
It made sense for who she had discovered he is and became, that he would come up with the plan to protect his family. That he placed more importance on their and other people's lives then his own. His Dauntless instinct was to protect and that was something he embraced. But working as he was, trying to act like he was fully under Jeanine's thumb, was difficult. It created paranoia in him on just who he could trust. He saw for himself how corrupt multiple factions proved to be.
Then came the first opportunity he had to do some good and for someone he had known of in his own faction. When the name Wu had been heard and what was discovered or suspected he had went to the only source he could think of.
Another set of names had been uttered by Jeanine often. Unconfirmed suspicions and dislike was enough to send young Eric their way. He didn't dare approach Andrew. It seemed too obvious but one day he arranged to be near the volunteer center. It could have gone wrong but he made a show of purposely running into and knocking down Natalie Prior. In the scuffle when he untangled himself from her, he passed a note.
It was all he knew to do at the time but it had been enough. A few days later, Natalie confronted Eric as he made his way home from school. She didn't ask many questions other than his name and about himself. Before she left she told him that if he ever needed help with something that herself or Johanna Reyes would try and assist him.
With those two contacts only Eric had been able to give advance warning to at least a dozen people that were targeted.
After her bath, along with him washing her hair for her, he had helped her get dressed and back out on the couch.
He moved around doing chores and cooking while she dozed from the medication and bath. She also took that time to process all he had opened up about and decided that she would as well. Tori was gone and the guilt from everything that had happened before her death was eating at her.
Her chance to talk came the next day when the subject of Brendan came up. Eric wanted to go see him, was even told by Johanna that when he thought Elle could stand to be alone for a few hours, it would be safe enough to see him.
"I will be fine for a few hours, Eric. You need to go check on him. I want and need you too as well, to know he is ok after all of that." Elle was pleading with him as they sat together on the couch, her legs were in his lap so she could still be laid down slightly.
Eric thought for a few moments before answering. He really was anxious to see his nephew but he wasn't sure leaving Elle was ok so soon after she just woke.
"I'll make you a deal. If by tomorrow I am sure you can at least make it to the bathroom and back to the bed by yourself without too much discomfort then I will go. But you will stay in the bed otherwise and I will be going after breakfast but back before lunch."
With a nod and a small smile Elle agreed. "Thank you. It's just...after everything…"
"Do you want to talk about it?" Eric asked understandably.
Elle nodded but looked away and took steadying breaths before she began.
"We didn't know each other in Erudite but I know you knew my brother and sister. George and Tori." Seeing the question in his eyes she answered. "Why didn't anyone know about me and why do I have a different name?"
Eric nodded in reply.
"I am their half-sister. My very young mother had an affair with their father. We didn't know about each other until I was just two years old and George and Tori overheard their mother and him arguing; where I was mentioned. After that the two of them sought me out. My mother agreed that they could see me and spend time with me but that it had to be kept quiet. Their mother was really angry and jealous so would have and did cause problems for my mother as much as she could. We grew really close and they never treated me as anything other than their sister. George taught me to cook actually and Tori loved to work with me and drawing. When they transferred, I was devastated even though I knew they belonged there. Tori went the year before George so that entire year we talked about when I would transfer. I can be honest and say that if they hadn't transferred I would have been happy to stay in Erudite."
"But you never showed divergent tendencies." Eric said as he thought back to her arriving in Dauntless. He had watched her sims closely and refused to let anyone else do them. He had honestly thought at first she would be divergent.
"Because I'm not. When it was discovered about George, shortly after his death, I was taken to be tested. I was so angry and scared. I had just seen George on visiting day. I met his boyfriend and saw how happy he was to finally be able to be himself fully. Something you know was never allowed or condoned in Erudite. He was happy and still making plans with me for my transfer. There was just no way he committed suicide! I think maybe before that happened and before the year spent with George in preparation for his transfer, I would have tested Erudite. But I think that time changed the way I thought and felt. So when I was tested I came out Dauntless. I was still watched closely though."
"I never thought of it like that, or that would be possible. To change aptitude like that."
Elle shrugged. "We could sit here and debate all day long what little good those aptitude tests really are and never get any closer than years of arguments and research. Regardless it was clear I was going to go to Dauntless. That first year after his death, Tori shut me out. She was angry and looking for someone to blame or punish. She was scared to bring attention to me or herself but scared that I might have been turned against her after she found out that I was taken in for testing. When she did finally find me again, I was so hurt and angry that this time it was me that shut her out. I didn't understand how or why she could or would think that of me. It makes sense now that I heard what happened to you. We were both still grieving and Tori channeled hers into hate. Of Erudite, Jeanine, Silas and then later...you, before you even transferred she had already started to hate you."
Eric could hear the guilt in her voice at that, the apology. So he rearranged them so she was pulled to his side and stopped her. "To her and the entire faction it would have looked like I was a future divergent hunter. One of her little child minions she was grooming for whatever plot she had in mind. It was what I needed and wanted it to look like."
She nodded then started again. "We did end up making amends to each other but there was always this divide between us because Tori had started to make contacts. Dangerous ones that she didn't want to bring down on me if things should go badly. Two years before I was to transfer that is exactly what happened. They wanted more from Tori, they wanted me and they weren't above threatening her to get it either. I guess, with how things turned out...I don't think there was truly a good side. I was forced to become a spy and get information. To contact people and pass along messages. That was how I met Johanna and Natalie myself but they weren't considered as part of the group, just sympathetic I guess. Natalie didn't believe in their methods any more than she believed in what Erudite was doing. That was how my path started but then they also trained me in what they could for when I was to go to Dauntless. Eric…" she looked at him with pain in her eyes and he knew.
"You were sent to take me out. That was the main thing you were trained for." Eric stated and help no anger or malice in his tone, just acceptance.
"Yes. But by that time I had already found something out. I found out about George in an unlikely run in with someone else it was thought was dead. Someone you supposedly had a direct hand in their death, when in reality it was rescue you engineered. Someone I trusted to never lie about this because George meant the world to him too."
"Amar." Eric smirked as he replied. "I am guessing he showed up in Amity or something?"
Elle smiles at his correct guess. "He was shocked to see me and then when he found out what I was up to...what they were wanting me to do...he became livid. He told me what you did for George and then later him. He cautioned me that I needed to find the answers to things on my own. That not everything was always as it seemed in this city. So I did. I knew then that I wouldn't be able to kill you if I found everything I had been led to believe was a lie. Even before I actually transferred I think I knew I wouldn't kill you. I didn't know that I would end up having to do what I did in the end."
She trailed off and got quiet, looking off into the distance at nothing in particular. Eric tensed beside her and asked what he feared the most right now.
"Do you regret it? Saving me...saving Brendan and trying to..."
"No!" She snapped her eyes to his with an angry look. "No, I don't regret it Eric. I regret that Tori wouldn't listen to me. That no matter what I tried...she just couldn't let go of that hate. It was like I had my sister but at the same time, she was gone. I regret that I couldn't save Emma and Robert. I regret that because I was determined to try, it led to Cara, Will and Tori's deaths. I regret that it wasn't me instead."
"I have regrets too." Eric admitted. The strain of grief and guilt filling it while at the same time making him speak softly. "I regret not finding some way to keep in contact with my family. I regret that I didn't try harder to get over my shit with Four so maybe we could have worked together. I regret letting you face all of that alone. I also really regret that you had to take someone's else life at all but especially because of me. Some of those are far from logical things to carry around guilt for, and I know it. Just like I know you know yours aren't logical. We each made our choices as best as we could. Even your sister, Cara, and Will; they all made choices that they knew if they didn't at least try for...they could never live with themselves."
She wanted to get angry at first, feeling like he was trying to lecture her when she knew he was just trying to help them both. With a sigh she laid her head on his chest and felt his arms tighten around her.
It should be so odd and uncomfortable being alone and so close here together. They had both almost made a career in their time at Dauntless of harassing each other. It was a well known fact among Dauntless the two couldn't stand each other yet somehow they always ended up working close together time after time.
No one dared say anything to their faces because neither was exactly friends with anyone that would even attempt to kid with them.
She knew why she had been the way she was to him, but she had honestly believed he really did hate her. She had assumed it was because of Tori though and her very vocal dislike of the leader.
"Eric…" she started to ask hesitantly after he had casually took her hand in his and was idly rubbing the callouses on it softly.
"Hmm?" Eric was just, for once, not thinking about or over analyzing a damn thing. Soaking in and drawing comfort from this and hoping to hell things won't go back to the status quo for them.
"I always wondered...why it seemed from the beginning...I mean...you hate me right? Or did...or at least you…."
"I never hated you." Eric said to interrupt her. "I can admit there were things that annoyed the shit out of me that you did. I can also admit I tried to hate you because I thought it would be easier that way. You coming to Dauntless the year after I transferred brought up issues for me that I was trying to compensate for. One was, I wanted you to do well. I saw this potential but always felt that you were holding back. I was trying so hard for people to forget I was from Erudite, to distance myself from the faction for my own reasons but also because it was what I was ordered to do. I was supposed ingratiate myself with the leaders and be able to influence them to her way of thinking. My own person goal was to do that but in the hope that maybe just fucking maybe I could do the opposite. Then you come along and it was like looking in a mirror in some respects. You isolated yourself purposely, the way you approached training; like you were on a mission and everything and everyone else could fuck off."
"Because I was. Even with any of my training before it was hard and add to that I had to walk this edge...do well but not too well. I was stressed all the damn time." Elle admitted in a huff.
"Like I said it was like looking in a fucking mirror. But what I saw in your eyes and what I just knew you were capable of wasn't matching up with the performance you were giving. So I pushed you harder and I know I went over a few lines with you. That was to make sure no one could accuse me of favoring someone from my old faction and to see what you were really capable of. But also a little bit because there was a part of me that was paranoid you were sent by Jeanine for some reason. Maybe in case I failed or as an informant. I never really hated you though."
He looked down at her, her expression the one she had when she was deep in thought and processing information.
"Did you?" Eric asked the last part quietly, almost as if afraid of the answer.
"I never hated you either. I had to act like it and sometimes I almost felt like I could with how it seemed like you were targeting me specifically at times. I don't and didn't hate you." She admitted and looked up into his eyes.
It was enough for them both at the moment and neither were ready to ask the questions that were occurring for them both. Those feelings and questions went unspoken and a routine began for them as of that night.
For the next week while Elle was still not up to much activity, she was able to show Eric she could make it to and use the bathroom on her own. He still insisted on her having her breakfast in bed, with him eating in the chair beside her. After breakfast he would make sure she was dressed, had anything she might need and then set out to pick up the supplies they might need but also to see his nephew. He would be back before lunch and immediately make sure she was ok, then she would move to the living room.
Eric was able to resume some of those scheduled tasks he had once done on a religious basis but found that the ones he used to keep busy weren't necessary anymore. He finished his chores quickly so he could get back to Elle.
In between meals they talked more about things that had happened, how Brendan was doing, even things in the faction system that were good and bad. There had always been a connection for them from the beginning though they both fought and denied it. Even now, as it deepened, they denied it for their own reasons.
It wasn't a state that could be maintained for much longer because as the week passed their touches became different. They found reasons to do so and often. They ended each night in the same bed and no longer waited until one of them was asleep to find a way into the others arms. What their minds and insecurities were denying, other aspects of themselves had other ideas on.