That night, Tris and Eric had nervously moved around each other while getting ready to leave. She was used to being in hiding by this time, but Eric was not, and he felt like a rat in a cage. He'd turned the tracking off on his phone months ago, but he still checked obsessively to see if anyone had found them. Four finally showed up, along with Lauren, with Tori and Bud, and surprisingly Tris's close friend Christina from training and her boyfriend Uriah.
Tris was happy to see that Lauren was there with Four, and that the two of them had worked through their issues.
Eric was paranoid that Max or any of the other leaders had been alarmed by his absence, but he found out they hadn't even noticed he was missing. He'd taken that news on the chin when Four had debriefed him on their way out of the city.
Tris didn't expect Tori or Bud to show up, before they had left both had expressed incredible concerns about Eric and his intentions. No one in the group trusted him, but they also knew that he was telling the truth about Jeanine, Max and Byron's plans, and no one wanted to leave Tris alone with him.
Getting out had been surprisingly easy, but once they were finally outside it was just like Tris's fear landscape where it was nothing but a desolate area, with no real signs of any civilization. Everyone's eyes were on Eric, watching him for any sign that he was going to turn on them, and they noticed he seemed almost obsessed with Tris. He kept her by his side, holding onto her hand as if she was going to take off running at any minute, but she didn't seem to mind.
Had he brainwashed her to the point where she willingly followed her kidnapper?
"He didn't kidnap me, he protected me." Tris whispered her answer to Tori's question when she and Christina had gotten her alone for a few minutes while Eric went over a map with the rest of the group.
"We can get you away from him." Tori said softly.
"I don't want that, I'm making my own decisions." Tris said angrily as she walked toward Eric.
They watched as Tris wrapped her arms around his torso, and how he'd kissed the top of her head while slinging his arm around her shoulder and pulling her closer.
"I think it's Stockholm Syndrome." Tori says and Christina nods.
"I've been worried about that too. She only had three weeks in Dauntless before he took her out of the dorms, and he's all she's really known since then." Christina agreed, "I also don't want to push her too hard. She's going through a lot, plus she depends on him, and she genuinely seems to care about him."
"For now, we watch him. He's gotten us out of the city and nothing's happened." Bud sighs as he joins their group.
"Yet." Uriah says as he sidles next to Christina.
They'd been walking for hours without any signs of life when they finally saw approaching headlights. Everyone had stopped walking briefly, and then they'd all ducked and crawled into the brush to better hide themselves.
"What do we do?" Christina had asked.
"We find out who they are." Uriah sighed.
It was still dark, and their group was hiding in the shadows when a dark-haired man stood in front of the vehicle's headlights and surveyed his surroundings.
"George." Tori cried out, shrugging Bud's arm off of her shoulder and sprinting towards the unknown man.
Their entire group watches in shock as the two embrace, and Bud looks back at them, "That's her brother, George, the one we thought was dead."
"The one you were convinced Eric had killed?" Tris asks angrily.
Bud looks over at Eric, who stares off in the direction of where Tori and George are, saying nothing.
"He never gave us any reason to believe he hadn't." Bud replies.
Eric stays quiet and Bud walks away, approaching the man and sharing a hug, and the group watched as another man stepped out of the shadows of the vehicle and into the light.
"Amar." Four and Eric say at the same time, and Four runs out to his former trainer and good friend.
"He's the one Four thought you'd turned in." Tris says quietly, and Christina, Lauren and Uriah watch the exchange.
"I couldn't ever find them." Eric admits.
"If you could have, would you have turned them over to Jeanine?" Lauren asks.
"We all heard that they had died, some sort of suicide pact according to the letters they'd left behind." Eric replies and Lauren studies her former friend. She can tell he's torn.
"You did look for them at one point though, didn't you?" She pressed.
"I made Jeanine believe that I had." Eric replies.
"You didn't want to?" Tris asks quietly and he shakes his head.
"Amar was my trainer. I liked him, respected him, I didn't give two fucks about him being divergent. He was the definition of Dauntless in my eyes." Eric replied without taking his eyes off of Amar and George.
"It's good to hear you say that." Lauren says.
"Eric!" Four calls out, gesturing for the other man to join them.
Eric puts his hand out to Tris to take, and she follows him, approaching the unknown men warily. Christina had been paying very close attention to Eric and Tris's interactions, and she noticed his control over her friend and his inability to leave Tris alone. She was still worried that her choices weren't her own.
"Why are you here? You've been with Jeanine this entire time, why now?" Amar asks his former trainee and Eric's grip on Tris's hand tightens.
"I want to do the right thing, and for this to end without her getting hurt." He gestures towards Tris and Amar eyes him warily before looking back to Four.
"Do you trust him?" Amar asks.
"Not yet, but he says he has a call to make to Kang." Four replies, "Is there somewhere we can go so he can make that call?"
Amar nods and George invites them into the jeep, where they all squeeze in. During the long drive, they'd learned that George and Amar's suicides had been faked, due to Johanna Reyes's involvement with a group outside the fence. That group was in the city of Milwaukee, and they protected people like them. Johanna's reluctance to do anything that Max or Jeanine tried pushing onto her made more sense now, knowing that the leader they'd dismissed as being weak and pointless was actually running her own organization to protect the divergent in Chicago.
George and Amar explained that the divergent weren't pariahs, they were the answer to creating a peaceful society, and Chicago was where the actual rebels settled after the Great War. Those people who could only believe that they were one thing were the actual issue, they would either follow the instructions of those they felt were their leaders, or they'd lead as fairly as they were capable of with a singular focus. The monsters were the ones who could easily be swayed by power, money or vengeance.
Like Jeanine, Byron, Max and even Eric.
It was a long ride back to their city, and Tris had eventually fallen asleep squeezed in the very back of the jeep next to Eric. As soon as they were allowed entrance to Milwaukee, Eric had been taken to a room where he could make that promised phone call to Jack Kang and try to stop the massacre he knew Jeanine, Max and his own father were planning. He'd not wanted to be separated from Tris, and did so under great protest, setting off a red flag in many members of their group.
In the end, Amar and Four accompanied him, leaving Tris behind with the rest.
"His obsession with you is dangerous." Christina had whispered when she, Tori and Tris were sitting away from the group.
"He's kept me alive so far." Tris replied.
"And isolated, after admitting he had planned on bringing you to his father to get recognition." Christina pressed.
"I know." Tris sighed.
"He's grooming you. The isolation from your friends, the obsessive way he controls you, this isn't healthy." Tori says.
"I will agree with both of you, none of what is going on with Eric and me has been healthy, but I was literally walking around Dauntless with a target on my back. That machine they used to scan you was a machine that could detect divergence, and he knew as soon as I was scanned I was as good as dead," Tris whispered.
"That machine malfunctioned the first day they used it, and they'd yet to get a working prototype before we left the city." Christina replied softly. "He never told you, did he?"
Tris gapes at her friend, "No. The night she came up with that device he'd moved me into his apartment."
"He could have let you go back to training and the dorms once he realized her prototype was broken." Tori added.
Tris nods, he damn sure could have, why did he make her stay?
"Are you... is he forcing you to...?" Christina asked nervously. She was worried about her friend, and she had no idea what Tris had been going through.
"It's not forced. I have consented to everything we've done." Tris replies.
"You're willingly sleeping with him." Tori says slowly.
"I am." Tris nods, "Please don't judge me for this."
"Hey, neither of us are here to shame you for decisions you've made. We care about you, and we're here because we want to make sure you're safe. We all believe him about the war, but we also believe that he's still grooming you for his own selfish reasons. If Jack doesn't believe him, or if Eric decides that whatever this is between you two isn't enough, we think he'll take you to his father." Christina says.
"Tris, I promise you that we're just looking out for you. Four told us that Eric's father's disappointment was one of his fears." Tori says in a hushed whisper.
"Eric told me that himself when he told me his original plan." Tris replies and Christina purses her lips, while Tori shakes her head.
"You can talk to any of us. I know we hadn't even been in training a month before Eric took you, but you were one of my closest friends." Christina says.
"We care about you, a lot, and you don't have to be isolated anymore. We can get you out of here when the dust settles." Tori says and Tris nods.
"I appreciate you both, thank you for looking out for me." Tris smiles briefly.
Tori gives her a quick hug, and then leaves to join her husband across the room.
"Tris, is there something on your mind?" Christina asks.
She looks around and then focuses on Christina again, "Am I a complete fucking idiot for trusting him?"
Christina takes a deep breath and tries to push her blunt Candor background away so she can answer without hurting Tris, "From what I know even before hearing Eric out today, he's not been a good person. He's been working with Jeanine and Max, and Four and Lauren had already seen shipments of that new serum arriving in Dauntless. Uriah's older brother Zeke works in the control room, he's seen Jeanine in Dauntless all the time, and always with Eric and Max. His girlfriend Shauna works in the armory, and her team was responsible for storing those serums. They were told it's a vaccine, but it was held in the armory until it was administered to the faction, and not in the secured medical supply? Eric was a part of all of this, and he did a one-eighty out of nowhere. It doesn't look good."
"No, it absolutely doesn't." Tris sighs, "But, if he calls Jack and tells him everything he's likely going to stop an entire war. Is it more important to focus on why he waited than what he's doing now?"
"I'm not taking anything away from him regarding his decision to finally do the right thing now, however I think the focus should be on why he was ever willingly involved at all." Christina says gently and Tris nods.
"I'm focused on the wrong things, aren't I?" Tris asks.
"Not necessarily, but I do think that spending all of your time isolated with him could be influencing your decisions. Did he force you to stay with him?" Christina asks and Tris shakes her head.
"No. He gave me every chance to leave, he even told me that if I did he'd understand my intent."
"But, he would have chased you down if you left, wouldn't he? If you left him, and stopped the physical part of your relationship, he'd know your intent was to end things with him, and then what?" She asks.
Tris looks down at the table and wrings her hands together, "All he ever said is that I left he couldn't protect me anymore."
"What does that mean to you, Tris?" She asks softly.
"I think in the beginning he would have taken me to his father or Jeanine if he was able to find me."
"That's something you need to think about. You have a choice, and with all of us here we will never let anything happen to you." Christina replies.
Tris nods her head, "I know. I ended things once, and he left me. He could have immediately taken me to Erudite when I told him I was done with him, but he didn't. He left the cabin, and I'm the one who asked him to come back. I want to be with him."
"Tris, do you actually have feelings for him?" Christina asks.
Tris nods, "I do. I know you all think he's brainwashed me, but I fell for him on my own. I have a lot to think about."
"I'm here for you, no matter what you decide, okay?" Christina asks softly.
"Thank you." Tris replies.
Tris couldn't stop thinking about what she and Christina had talked about, even as they were meeting some of the leadership and key people in the city of Milwaukee. Eric was always glued to her side, and if she did stray from him to speak to someone she felt his icy eyes on her at all times.
Maybe they were right about him.
He'd been incredibly difficult to talk to when this thing with them first started, and even what little she did know about him now was tiny bits and pieces she'd get out of him when he was at his most vulnerable. It was when their naked skin was sliding together, and he was thrusting into her that she could get little snippets of who Eric was.
What she did know wasn't much at all.
He was the same age as Tobias, two years her senior, and he'd joined leadership right after his initiation. He'd come in second place, his number of fears too many to keep up with Tobias, and he was aware of Jeanine's part in getting Max to take him on.
Actually, she knew all of that because of Tobias, that's some of what he'd told her about Eric. If this arrangement with them was just sex, why would he have bothered getting to know her at all? If he truly did just plan on using her for leverage with his father, it would be easier for him to let her go if he didn't know a damn thing about her, or care about who she was as a person.
She turns to look at Eric and finds his eyes already on her.
Over dinner, Eric and Four discussed the outcome of the call with Jack. He'd simply been advised that they would bring the accused parties in for questioning, and then Jack told him he'd be in touch.
It frustrated Four. He wanted this to be over.
Eric keeps watching Tris as she sits at a table with Lauren, not understanding why the two of them would have anything to talk about. He was surprised to even see her with Four, and it was obvious they had gotten back together, but why would Lauren want to talk to her boyfriend's ex.
He also doesn't know why it bothers him so much.
Amar and George had announced that they'd be given a guest suite, and they had the choice to share or to keep their own suite for their privacy.
Eric had answered for her, they'd be sharing a room. She shook her head, speaking for herself for the first time in so long.
"I'd like my own room, please." She said, and Eric just stared at her.
They're given clothes, toiletries, and all of their basic needs. Tris takes a hot shower, scrubbing obsessively at her skin until it's pink and almost raw. She's crying, her tears mixing with the hot water, and all she can think about is just being normal.
For the first time since her aptitude test, she feels that she is.
She's not being hunted, she's been told that the word divergent was made up in Chicago, to fear monger their citizens to be terrified of what they didn't know.
People like her were normal.
After her shower, she calms herself and finally calls her father, hoping to catch him in his office, and he is relieved when he hears from her. He and Natalie had been worried sick when reports of Beatrice's disappearance made their way to them. They had been getting updates from Jeanine and Jack, and when Jack had pushed to declare her legally dead they'd prepared themselves for the worst.
He'd confirmed that Jack Kang had Jeanine Matthews, Byron Coulter and Max Powell in custody. He couldn't say more, but he assured Tris that the accusations from Eric were being taken seriously. He then told her that Eric may end up being arrested himself for his part in the war and divergent hunt.
She wasn't sure how she felt about that.
They'd talked for almost an hour when he told her he had to get to Candor, and with kind and loving words they'd said their goodbyes.
It's late when he finally knocks on her door, and she sleepily lets him inside of her room. He paced, not knowing what to say or do, but his nervous energy wouldn't allow him to still. She watches as he pulls at his hair, something she's only seen when he's incredibly stressed.
"Did you mean what you said?" He finally asks.
"You're going to need to be more specific, Eric. Did I mean what?" She asks.
"The night before we left, you said something to me when you thought I was asleep. Did you mean it?" He asks.
Her mouth goes dry and her stomach lurches. She had no idea he'd heard her.
"Eric-"
"Because if you meant it, there shouldn't be a reason that you're pulling away from me. There should be no reason for this separate room, or for you to put physical space between us when your friends are around. There shouldn't be fear in your eyes when you look at me. I never once forced you to be here, you agreed to our arrangement. You agreed to be with me."
"I don't want an arrangement. You never once asked me to be with you. You never actually talk to me at all-"
"I'm here. I chose to leave and protect you! I put the target directly on my back, because every single person who followed Jeanine is going to know it was me who turned her in once they realized I left the city. What else do you need from me?"
"What do I need? I need to have a choice in things. I need to actually talk to you, to have you spell all of this out to me in a way that I don't question anything between us. I need answers." She replies.
"You had a choice, I never forced myself on you-"
"My choice was to become a lab rat and eventually die or to fuck you to keep myself alive." She spits.
She's seen Eric angry, he seemed to hover in a constant state of anger and irritation. She's never seen the look on his face right now. He almost looks hurt.
"I suppose you got what you needed then." He replies angrily and he leaves her room.
She missed him immediately.
The next day they're informed that questioning the three prisoners had yielded no results, so a vote was needed by the leaders to administer truth serum. While the serum was always used in conjunction with trials, it was not typically given during a questioning phase. Since these were three leaders in custody, they needed to ensure everything was followed by the book.
Eric and Four both voted for the serum, as did Harrison, Latasha and Veronica back in Dauntless. There was one member of city leadership who voted against it, and that was Marcus Eaton of Abnegation. It was a red flag, and Harrison had ordered surveillance on him.
Eric didn't know it, but Harrison had also tasked Four with surveillance on him. The city leadership team all knew that Eric is who reported Jeanine, but they also knew he had access to this insider's knowledge because he had been a willing part of the plan.
He's not a social person, preferring to keep to himself and focus on his career. Being a leader at eighteen was hard enough, and Max never took kindly to being forced to bring Eric on. He also wasn't quiet in his unhappiness with the situation that was forced on him, so Eric felt like he had to work twice as hard to prove he deserved to be there.
Eventually, Max was impressed with his performance. Eric can only wonder just how disappointed he was with him now.
He's sitting alone at dinner when Tris approaches, and he doesn't even look at her.
"Can I sit?" She asks and he simply nods. She drops across from him and they eat in silence for several minutes before she finally speaks again, "I'm sorry for last night."
He says nothing, but he does bring his grey blue eyes to hers briefly before returning to whatever he was reading on his phone.
"Will you please say something?" She asks.
"I don't like an audience." He replies and she sighs.
"I'll let you be." She moves to stand and he reaches for her arm.
"I didn't say that I don't want to talk, I would just prefer to do it in private. You have no reason to leave." He says and she studies his face.
She wishes his emotions were as easy to read as her own.
They finish their meals in silence, and when he takes both of their trays he opens the door for her and she exits the cafeteria in front of him. They make their way to the guest suites and he follows her wordlessly to her room.
"You weren't wrong." He says and she gestures for him to continue, "You fucked me to save yourself, and I gave you no other choice."
"I made the decision. You didn't force me that first day, and after that I could have easily gone to Four and asked him for help. I chose to keep this up with you." She replies.
"Then what was that last night? You get your own room, you've been distant, what's going on?" He asks.
"Eric, if this ended, what would happen?"
"You're ending this?" He asks.
"I don't even know what this is."
"I've been really fucking busy hiding you out and stopping a war, so sorry I haven't had a chance to call you my girlfriend." He shakes his head and starts pacing around the room, tugging at his hair.
"Eric-"
"No, you always want to ask questions so you'll let me answer them. I chose you, Tris. I did a lot of bad shit before, okay? We both know it. When they pushed me to the edge, I lied to them, chose you and got you the fuck out of there. How does that make you question where my head is when it comes to us? I kept you safe, I've left everything behind to be with you. I even brought people into the fold who likely hate me and could have turned me over to Jack themselves, but you needed them and they're here. You didn't want to have a separate fucking room until they were involved."
"You're not used to sharing me." She says, voicing the obvious out loud for the first time, "Eric, the people with us are important to me, they're my friends and I've missed them. Hiding, spending so much time alone and isolated, that was hard for me."
"I like my alone time." He retorts.
"And you gave that up for me. Why did you do it?" She asks.
"Because I wanted to." He replies vaguely.
"They don't believe that you changed your mind about taking me to your father." She says softly.
He sighs, dropping to the small couch and scrubbing his face with his hand. He finally looks at her, "What do you believe?"
"I believe you when you tell me that you want me." She begins, "I also believe that you wouldn't have left your whole life behind and turned on them if you didn't truly want to protect me. I just don't understand why."
He just watches her, not saying anything, his face betraying no emotion. She moves towards him, standing right in front of him and he finally reaches for her, pulling her to his lap.
He pulls her face down to his and presses his lips to hers softly and he surprises her by pulling away and speaking, "If I wanted to turn you in, we wouldn't have ever come here. I wouldn't have ever involved your friends. I would have taken you straight to my father."
"What made you change your mind?" She asks and he doesn't answer. She threads her fingers through his short curly hair, "If your father hadn't accused you of lying to him, and hadn't put you under the serum, would you have taken me to him?"
"No. He asked me about you as soon as I got there that night, before any serum was involved and I refused to tell him anything about you other than I'd given you the sims while you were still in Dauntless."
"What made you change your mind?" She presses.
"You, Tris. I want you. I'm here with you, I want to be with you. Isn't that enough?"
"If this doesn't work out, would you change your mind?" She asks quietly.
He shakes his head, "No."
"You told me before that there was no us." Tris says and he looks back at her.
"I lied. There's always been an us." Eric replies. She opens her mouth to speak and he interrupts, "No more questions, not tonight."
She realizes it's all she's going to get from him, at least for now. He's dealing with the unknown, when it comes to what's happening in their home city, this new city, and what he feels for her. Every time he says he wants her, she knows it means something more, and it's not something he is ready to talk about.
"Stay with me." She whispers before kissing him.
She feels him nod against her when they pull apart and he wraps his arms around her and holds her.
"You're sure?" He asks.
"Do you want this with me, Eric? No more arrangement, but an actual relationship that we can build on when things are over." She presses.
"Yes, I want a future with you, and I'll do everything I can to make this right." He finally admits and she exhales slowly before pressing her lips to his.