Unloved (Eric x OC Divergent)

Part XVIII: The Leader

-Eric-

She's mine.
I don't know how I got this lucky. She is not going to let me tell her I don't think I deserve her again, she's made that abundantly clear. After the events of the past days, I've learned a few things about her. 1: She knows me better than I know myself. 2: She sees right through me. 3: I should never underestimate her. And finally 4: She is what I need. I didn't expect when I first opened up to her, we would end up here. I thought I would have found a million ways to ruin this for myself, and I have definitely put in my best effort towards that, but she's strong and more resilient than I even thought, picking up my pieces everytime I fell apart. 

We moved on from the stupid things I did and her trip to Erudite. I haven't been able to talk to her about it, but having her know is good enough for now. I know she'll give me the time I need to open up to her about my side of that story, knowing full well the accounts she heard were just a glossary of what happened. One thing still stuck in my head from our talk about that, is that she said she's been through shit too. At the moment she said it, I skimmed past it, still too deep in my own thoughts to put two and two together. But the past few days the words keep popping up in my thoughts, itching me to ask her about it. I haven't done so yet, it doesn't seem like the right time now, we've been too busy.

Even though a lot has happened, our jobs and responsibilities obviously didn't stop. Florence had to return to the infirmary to work and I had my hands full with supervising the last efforts from the initiates, who have now all had their final test and are one celebration away from becoming full members of Dauntless. I'm putting together the final rankings right now, before I return home to Florence, who has undoubtedly tried to cook dinner again. So I'll bring some food from the cafeteria, just in case. The thought of her trying to cook anything again makes me chuckle, she's good at a lot of things, but cooking is definitely not her strong point. A few days ago she was adamant on making us pasta, which ended up with a pan catching on fire and at least two plates breaking, how she managed that is still beyond me.  

I hide the bags of food from the Pit behind me when I walk in, if by some miracle she cooked something eatable, I'll just ditch them somewhere. The smell of something burnt reassures me I wasn't wrong though, she looks frustrated when she presents me with a pan filled with something that probably wasn't supposed to look that charred. I try not to laugh at her, but I can't help myself. "I really did try this time!" She laughs with me, pulling her lip into a pout when she looks at me. "Just stop cooking please, before you burn the building down." I kiss her forehead and put the bags of food I brought on the table. 

As we eat the non-charred food in peace, I decide to talk to her about something that has been on my mind about the celebration that will be taking place tomorrow. "Babe, can I ask you something?" She looks up at me and nods "Yes ofcourse." She has this look in her eyes, she always has when I ask her something, I think it's best put as genuine interest. I love her for it.
"We've been together for a few weeks now, you know I'm different around you than I am around other people right?" I can see her start analyzing me as she likes to do when she's not sure what I'm going on about. "What do you mean?" Her words confirm my thoughts. 
"Well, you know..." I can't seem to find the right words to tell her what I mean, but her warp-speed brain has already caught up, her next question is right on the spot: "You mean having to be leader Eric around initiates and colleagues right?" A playful smile warms her face. "Yes."

"You're not sure how to act when we go to the celebration tomorrow" the smile on her face gets wider as she says it. She really does see straight through me, I smile with her before I continue talking to her. "I just don't know how to go about it." I play with my food while I try to think of something to solve this. "Being a dick is kind of part of my leadership position, but I can't be one around you." Her smile still hasn't left her face, she seems to be enjoying my split personality-like position and I bet it's funny from her perspective. "You will be fine Eric, be the leader they're all used to, there's no need to complicate things for yourself by overthinking." She makes sense, but I'm still not completely relaxed about it. "We just haven't been out in the open like that before." I just speak the words that come to mind now, it's easy with her. "I know, but it's not a big deal, I don't expect you to hang around me all lovingly all night, we'll do that at home." She winks at me, making me chuckle. "I just wanted to talk to you about it." She walks around the table to sit on my lap, her head is level with mine when she says: "Just be yourself, it will be fine." I feel her lips touch mine shortly after she said it and I kiss her back eagerly, pulling her close to me.