Watching the slaughter at Abnegation, I feel numb. Erudite has taken over Dauntless, made them slaves without thought or feeling. It's a hard scene to watch, but I make myself. It's all so fast, the fighting, and the screaming; they'd haunt my dreams if I still had them. Eric is among those uninfected with the control serum, and my heart aches when I think about what he's been through in the last year, what he's done, who he's become. He is as ruthless and cruel as Dauntless could have hoped for.

My brother has changed; he isn't the man I saw him becoming before this war started. He's quiet, and he drinks too much, and he can't stand the company of others. Some nights I expect to find him on the edge of the chasm, daring to walk the line that has killed so many before. There is a new initiate taken with him, and from the laughs she's startled from him before she may just be what he needs. But now isn't the time to focus on getting better; we're too far down in our own hells.

When they bring him into Candor's interrogation room, Eric is cradling his left side, but he doesn't fight them. I can see the way his hands tremble even from the other side of the room, and the sweat on his face makes him seem ill. I've never seen him in worse condition. The other Dauntless file in, keeping their distance from him, traitor that he is, but I can feel them acknowledge that he could have been the best of us.

There's a storm raging outside, rain pounding against the windows and thunder booming so lough it's nearly impossible to hear. I drift away from the wall, into the crowd, closer to what will most likely be Eric's last moments. There's a strange undercurrent running through everyone, sharp and wild, untamed like every Dauntless was raised to be, even when they came to us from somewhere else. Several people whisper around me, but I pay them no attention.

When Tobias and Tris enter the room, Tori steps up onto the platform and holds up her hand for quiet. Tobias and Tris join her.

"Would you like me to tell you your crimes?" she asks. "Or would you like to list them yourself?"

A grin splits Eric's lip, pulling at the piercing that's remained, but it falls flat. He scans the crowd, and his eyes settle on Tris. He settles his hands over his stomach, like he actually has the ability to protect himself in the state he's in.

"I want her to list them," he says. "Since she's the one who stabbed me, she's obviously familiar with them."

"Leave her out of this," Tobias says firmly.

"Why? Because you're doing her? Or because you know she doesn't have the guts?"

If I had any breath, it would rattle in my chest.

"You conspired with Erudite," she says sharply. "You are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Abnegation. You betrayed Dauntless. You shot a child in the head. You are a ridiculous plaything of Jeanine Matthews."

"Do I deserve to die?" he asks quietly, reverently.

I can see Tobias open his mouth to answer, but Tris beat him to it.

"Yes," she says.

"Fair enough," he says, eyes blank and lifeless. "But do you have the right to decide that, Beatrice Prior? Like you decided the fate of that other boy – what was his name? Will?"

"Did you have the right you decide Olivia's fate?" Tobias asks suddenly, and the room falls deathly quiet.

I can see Tank and Henley from where I am in the room; Tank is crying. No one else from 209 is alive. I run my hand through my hair, and curse at my brother in every way I can for bringing me into this. Eric sits up in the interrogation chair even though it obviously pains him, fury in his eyes and a snarl twisting his lips.

"You listen to me, Tobias Eaton," he growls. "I had nothing to do with Olivia's death, and – "

"You liar!" Tank shouts from the crowd. "We found her hanging from the goddamn platform, brains blown out, children dead in the street! I sh – " She stops and gags, trying to keep herself from throwing up in the middle of a crowded room; Henley pulls her close and buries his face in her hair.

"I had nothing to do with Olivia's death," Eric says again, calm and drained and tired, "and if I had, I'd have shot myself long before this became inevitable."

"That's enough," Tori says, voice cracking. "We're not here about Olivia's death; we're here to judge Eric's role in the destruction of Abnegation and the betrayal of Dauntless. We can't prove anything else."

"You have committed every crime that warrants execution among the Dauntless," Tobias says dully. "We have the right to execute you under the laws of Dauntless."

Tobias takes the gun from his waistband; he doesn't bother with the ceremony of three guns and a chance to live. When Eric realizes what's finally going to happen, he relaxes. His shoulders slump, and he stops trying to be so protective of the wound in his abdomen.

"Do you have anything else to say," my brother asks, "before I put this bullet in your brain?"

"Your mother's book is in the top drawer of my dresser," he says quietly enough that I almost can't hear him.

For the first time since this war began, I see Tobias's hand shake.

"She wanted you to have it if she didn't make it out of initiation."

"Be brave, Eric," Tobias says, cocking the gun in his hand.

"For Olivia," Eric says.

I stay in the interrogation room for a long time after the rest of dauntless files out, running and hollering for one of the few 'victories' they've been allowed the past few weeks. They leave Eric's body. If you can ignore the spot of blood on his forehead, he looks more peaceful than I've seen him in a year. The lines have relaxed out of his face, and he doesn't look like her has a personal vendetta against the world anymore. It takes hours for Candor to come back to the halls they gave to Dauntless. When they discover Eric, they merely sigh and cover him with a sheet, respect for a dead man who was nothing to them.

Eric's hand is warm in mine, and he's the most real thing I've ever felt. We don't look at one another, simply content to enjoy what we've missed for so long.

"It's weird," he says softly.

"It is," I agree, "but only for a little while."

"I mourned you."

"And I mourned you."

"I just died," he says as if he doesn't understand what complicated people we can be.

"I mourned for who and what you could have been," I say gently. "There is no harder struggle than watching a love one kill themselves slowly."

"That was kind of my plan," he says. "There was no point after we found your body."

"Of course there was."

"You are the one good thing I've done in my entire life," he says.

I have to turn and look at him.

"It's done now."

"It is," he agrees.

"I love you," I say, turning away from the cooling corpse that has nothing for either of us now. "Let's go home."

"Yeah. Home."

END

I know quite a few of you are upset by the ending of this fic, and a few more of you have pointed out the parallels between Olivia and Tris (Abnegation, first jumper, almost being thrown into the chasm, first in her initiation class), but this was never meant to be a romance.

This is an origin story.

This is an ode to what Eric could have been if he hadn't been killed off in the second book. This is teenage romance gone as awry as it possible can. This is hope and fear, anger and abandonment. This is exactly what it was meant to be: upsetting. You all came to read this story because you found the same thing I did in Eric; you found someone who does not fit the construct of the society they live in, and you have identified with him. He is what we are all afraid to be: alone, upset, controlled to an extent we don't realize, and in dire need of someone. That someone may never understand, may never grasp why or what we are, but they are there and they love us anyway. By coming to this story and identifying not only with Eric, but with Olivia, you have each become that person someone else needed. You decided somewhere in your mind that this character, this awful human being too easily disposed of had to have had a reason. And I applauded you.

As for all of the reviews calling for more or different endings, you're in for some luck. In my haste to finish this project so I could move on to something else, I've left a few plotlines unfinished. I'm not going to rewrite the entire story because it is exactly as it should be, however unintentionally it came to be that way; it is rushed, hurried, and, if I'm judging this correctly, it left you, my readers, with an unfinished feeling, with questions. I can't promise when, but when my work allows me the time, I plan on tying up some of those loose ends. I'll post them under a different cut with directions and comments for each chapter, and I'll update this again to give you the title when I have one.

Farewell and good fortunes and I hope to see you again,

Chelsea