Second Chances (Eric and Tris)

A Quiet Evening: Part 26

Tris and Barb worked for hours going through the records for the new security system to find out if anyone was able to bypass it and get into the armory. However, no matter what they tried everything came up clear, as one last precaution, they went in and did an inventory check. Everything was still in place. No breaches had happened here. That evening when Tris made it back to her apartment, it was strangely quiet. She could hear no music coming from the other side. She had been used to coming home and looked forward to what she would hear as she opened the door. As she pushed open her door, she saw Eric sitting at the table with barely audible classical playing. He was hunched over a stack of papers and was so deep in thought that he did not hear her come in. Tris walked over to him and set her bag down. He finally looked up and gave her a tired smile. "Hey you." Tris smiled back. She glanced over his shoulder to get a look at what he was concentrating so hard on.

"What's that?" She asked.

"Just transcripts of the surveillance videos. I could not handle a third day in a row staring at a computer screen. I thought that I might have better luck if I read through what happened. Try to find a break somewhere."

"I hear ya. Barb and I looked at the system in every possible way, and did and inventory count. Nothing was missing or has been disturbed there, which I guess is a good thing." Tris sat next to Eric with a heavy sigh. "I still can't believe that Four is mixed up in all this, or maybe it's just that I don't want to believe it. I thought I knew him so well, but this is over the edge. There has to be some sort of explanation for all this." Tris looked at Eric with sad eyes, though the gaze he gave back held little sympathy.

"I have no trouble believing that he could and would do something like this. He has always thumbed his nose at everything that we do here at dauntless. He always thought that his way was the superior way and that he knew better. I guess he felt that the rules did not apply to him. And now we are seeing just how much he thinks that he can get away with. I wish that I was wrong, but I don't see how I can be with all the evidence." Tris burrowed her eyebrows as he was talking but realized that for the most part, Eric was right. Four did feel that being divergent gave him certain exceptions when it came to the rules, it was one of the things they did not agree on. Tris always thought that by following the rules, playing along, that they were less likely to be discovered as being divergent. Four did not agree with that. He was the kind that felt that by getting too close to anyone would get him caught. He held himself above others and above the rules. Tris let out a long sigh. This whole situation was beating her down. Eric reached behind her and gently rubbed her back. The small amount of comfort was enough. Tris knew that above all she had to stay true to who she was and to what she believed in. As much as she still loved Four, she was not in love with him and he was doing wrong. This was something that she was not able to overlook. Even if they were still together, she didn't think she would be able to overlook what he was doing. People were getting hurt, more were going to get hurt. Maybe it was the abnegation in her, but she couldn't stay loyal someone who was willing to hurt others and the dauntless in her was begging for justice. Tris laid her head on Eric's shoulder as he continued to go over his paperwork. Knowing that Eric knew who she was, what she was, was a huge relief. Having that support from him, knowing that their end goal was the same, helped her keep her sanity. She was not sure what she would do if they had not gotten together. Going through this alone, or working against your significant other would be too much to handle. Tris glanced down at the bland paperwork in front of Eric. Something caught her eye. Pointing to a tiny time stamp on the corner of the paper, Tris asked "What is this for?"

"This is just an automatic time stamp for when the footage and or the conversation took place. Each conversation or scene has its own time stamp . I am looking through the transcripts from the autopsy." Tris pointed to a barely smudge on the side of the page.

"What is this? Your lunch?" Tris smiled. Eric looked closer at the smudge and realized that it was another time stamp. There were two in a row. "What does that mean?" Tris asked.

"This love, is what we have been looking for!" Eric held up the paper for her to see and pointed to a few inches above the smudge. "Look closely. Here you see the time 1:24am when the autopsy started." He scrolled down through the transcript with his finger until he stopped at the smudge. "Here, you see about 5 minutes later at 1:29am, but there is no transcript for what happened then. It goes right to the time of 1:32, that means there are 3 minutes that are unaccounted for during the autopsy. And if I was a betting man, I would say that was when the doctor got rid of whatever evidence he found in the man's stomach. Someone has erased the footage of those 3 minutes. Those missing 3 minutes right there, hold our answers. We need to find a way to recover the footage, so we can see just how deep this goes."

"How can you recover the footage if it has been erased?"

"Normally we would go to a security expert like Four, but we obviously can't go to him. I will have to look into who I think we can trust to help us out." Eric let out a groan as he dropped his head down on his arms on the table. "This shit sucks. I want a quiet, normal life..." Eric mumbled. Tris laughed.

"Is there such a thing in dauntless?" Eric chuckled and sat back up. "How about some dinner?" Tris noticed Eric looked less than thrilled at the idea of cooking dinner. "I'll cook. But I warn you, it's going to be simple compared to what you have been making." Eric smiled.

"Anything works as long as I don't have to make it. Thank you." Tris busied herself making her favorite comfort meal since she joined dauntless, grilled cheese and creamy tomato soup. Tris and Eric ate in companionable silence. There was no need to force conversation. It was comfortable and relaxing just to sit and eat while listening to classical. Tris could feel the stresses of the past few days just melt away.