I hear him talking in his sleep, loudly, and his body is jerking next to mine. I open my eyes and can only see the faint light that comes from the hallway, and Eric continues to thrash next to me.

"No... no... no..." He chants and I carefully move the arm that is clutching me to his chest and try to turn around.

"Eric, it's okay, please wake up." I say and I gently nudge his shoulder.

"Fuck you Four!" He yells and I gasp. Why on earth would he be dreaming of Four? I nudge him harder and he jerks awake, his eyes wide and the shadows on his face give way to a touch of fear.

"Eric, it's just me." I soothe and he finally focuses on me, "You were dreaming. You're okay."

"What the fuck." He rasps and I turn so I am fully facing him and he buries his head under my chin, "What the fuck..."

"Do you know what you were dreaming of?" I ask.

"It made no sense. There were some men there, all wearing black, a woman in black, some blonde woman in all blue, and me. It was a meeting or something. And I was pissed, and some dude pulled me out of a room and we argued and then I got a needle like I'm here."

I will myself not to react, but I know this was more than a dream. This is likely a memory of some sort. I pull away from him, "Eric, you said Four's name in your dream."

"As in your ex? I don't even know him. My head must just be fucked up." He sighs, "I'm sorry I woke you up."

"It's okay." I look into his silver eyes, "It sounded bad."

"It felt weird. Like here but not."

He reaches his hand towards my face, and his fingers push my hair behind my ear. He rests his hand there, and then I feel a gentle rub of his thumb on my neck. He moves closer, rolling towards me and angling his body so he's looking down at me.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes." I reply shakily.

"I first started watching you because I was drawn to you. Maybe it was recognition, maybe it was attraction," He murmurs, "You're the only person in this place who's tried to know me, who's cared about me at all, and even though we may not have liked each other before, you've given me a chance and I appreciate it. I appreciate you."

"I appreciate you too."

He leans closer, allowing just our noses to touch, and I can feel my nerves.

"I won't hurt you." He whispers.

"I believe you."

His lips press gently to mine and for a moment I forget I am kissing Eric Coulter. Our first kiss was me leading it, and it was nothing like this, but this time it's him, and he's tentative and sweet. We deepen the kiss, and his tongue tangles with mine and I hear a low moan come from him before we slow our kiss and break apart. He gives me several soft kisses before he pulls away and leans his forehead to mine.

"Hi." He sighs and I giggle at him.

"Hi Eric." I breathe out.

He kisses me again and this time I can feel him moving so he's hovering over me, and when I tip my head away to breathe he trail kisses down my neck.

A noise at the door breaks us apart, and before it's even cracked open we're both pretending to be asleep.

"Mr. Benton, you're needed back in your room for a med check." An orderly says and Eric pretends to be groggy as he hums in affirmation and slowly gets out of bed. He glances back at me and smiles briefly before reluctantly leaving the room.

I press my fingers to my lips and smile before grabbing the pillow Eric was using and hugging it to my chest, cuddling it as I fall back to sleep.

"Replaced by a pillow." Eric chuckles as he crawls back into bed with me, it could be minutes or hours later, and I feel him pull me against his chest while he curls himself around me before his soft snores lull me back to sleep.


Eric and I are lounging together the next morning, reading from the same book in the common room when I'm paged to the visitors room. He threads his hand with mine as we follow the orderly down to the sign in desk and when my badge is scanned I am admitted entrance. I pause to wait for Eric, and his access is denied.

"Why? We have the same visitors list." I argue and the orderly simply shakes his head.

"This visitor is on a temporary pass for Tris Prior only."

Eric shrugs and glances at me, "I'll wait back in the room, take your time."

My stomach is in knots as I'm led to the room, and as soon as I'm through the door I stop walking.

"Tobias." I say and his dark brown eyes meet mine.

"You look good, Tris." He says as he rubs the back of his neck.

"Why are you here?" I ask without sitting.

"I wanted to see you." He replies.

"It's been two months. Where the hell have you been?"

"You needed time, I wanted to be sure you had the tools you needed to heal before I came out here-"

"Heal?" I ask angrily, "I thought you were dead and I've sat in this place for months without as much as a fucking phone call from you! Why?"

"I just told you why." He replies.

"Where were you after the war?" I ask and his brown eyes meet mine.

"I'd been injured." He replies vaguely.

"I know this. You were shot right in front of me. I thought you were dead."

"I almost was. When I woke up there was no one around that I knew, but eventually when I started to get a little more clear-headed, I recognized someone." He says.

"Who?"

"Edward, the guy who lost an eye during your training class." He replies carefully.

"The factionless rescued you?" I ask and he nods, "Why?"

"It's complicated-"

"Don't be vague with me, Tobias, why did the factionless take you?" I press.

"My mother leads them."

I gape at him, clearly remembering the funeral we'd attended when he was nine and I was seven. It took my parents a lot of careful conversation to make me understand that his mom would never be back, and I remembered just how distraught Tobias had been.

"No, we were at her funeral. She couldn't have just left you."

"She did." He replies solemnly, "My dad treated her much worse than he ever treated me. She was beaten within an inch of her life, and left to die, and some factionless found her. They nursed her back to health, and she tried to find me. My father never knew she was alive, but you saw the hold he had on me. She could never get close to me without exposing herself to him, so she tried and waited for the right opportunity. Once I'd left Abnegation, she found it."

"You knew she was alive when I came to Dauntless?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Why wouldn't you tell me?"

He scrubs a hand across his face, "Because I had planned on leaving. I'd made up my mind that I was going to go live with her, and then you showed up." He shrugs.

"You were going to leave Dauntless?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you? Outside of having sex with me a few times, you kept me at arms length-"

"It wasn't that easy, Tris. There was a war coming and I needed to be on the inside." He argues.

"You told me you had no idea what was actually happening, outside of some weird activity with Jeanine. Did you lie to me?" I ask and he frowns at me.

"No, but I've found out some things, and I'm starting to understand why I willingly cooperated." He says and I urge him to continue, "Evelyn gave me something to alter my memory. I think it was a type of wipe, something to ensure I cooperated, but eventually I started remembering who I was, being divergent is helping me clear that serum. I've convinced Evelyn that I remember nothing about opposing the war, and she's believed me so far. She was working with Jeanine the entire time, with a promise from Jeanine that if they were successful in getting the government away from Abnegation that Evelyn and her people would be recognized. Yesterday she told me something else, something that I know she wouldn't have entrusted me with if she had any idea I knew what kind of monster she is."

"What did she tell you?" I whisper.

"She's looking for Eric. He's not dead, Tris, he was memory wiped. Jeanine fucked up when it came to him, and allowed him to escape after the wipe without finishing the same type of coercion programming I went through. He could be a complete monster."

"Why are you telling me any of this?"

His brown eyes bore into my own, "Because he's here with you."

"No... no he's not. Why would you even think that?" I ask and he just stares at me, "I'm not crazy, I would know if Eric Coulter was here-"

"I have eyes and ears everywhere. Uriah and Christina aren't as discrete as they think they are." He says without any emotion. I can feel the color drain from my face, "I don't want to hurt him or you, I want him to help me, and I think if we reversed his memory wipe he'd be able to take Evelyn down."

"How?" I ask without thinking.

"He was on the inside of the war plans. Evelyn said that Jeanine trusted him implicitly and she was shocked when he'd turned against her. There's something he knows that could bring peace to our city, I wouldn't be here exposing all of this if I didn't think he was the key to stopping what is inevitably going to happen."

"Evelyn wants a war." I state and he nods.

"She'll get one too. She knows all of Jeanine's plans and tricks, and everything that Jeanine had hidden away." He replies.

"And you think Eric knows them too?" I ask and he nods, "Tobias, do you think Eric had truly turned against Jeanine or had some ulterior motives for attempting to expose her plans?"

"There's only one way to find out." He replies.

"What is it?" I ask, already knowing what he's going to say. I need to hear it, I need to know exactly what Tobias is up to, but more importantly I need to protect Eric.

"We give him his memory back."

"What if he doesn't want that?" I ask.

Tobias's dark eyes meet mine, "If more people find out about him, he may not have a choice."