Family of two

9 - Indictment and challenges

Two days after the funeral Eric left Sean's office, shaking with rage.

"Fuck!" He cried out loud, as behind him unnoticed his own office door opened. "That son of a bitch!" He kicked the wall of the hallway.

"Eric? What's up, man?" Mike asked concerned standing in the door to the young leader's office.

Eric whirled around. Mike looked at him quizzically while Teddy eyes had gone big and a little frightened. 'Shit!!' Now he had done what he promised himself never to do – he had terrified Teddy. Immediately he crouched down to the boy.

"I'm sorry Teddy. Did I frightened you?"

Teddy nodded his eyes still wide.

"You don't need to be afraid. Okay Teddy? Never be afraid of me."

Teddy nodded again, more relaxed now.

"Come here." Eric opened his arms and when Teddy immediately stepped into his embrace, Eric felt relieve flooding him – he hadn't screwed this up yet. Picking the boy up, he finally addressed Mike:

"I tell you in my office."

After closing the door, he sat Teddy down again. In one corner of his office were toy blocks littered all over the place and among them stood proudly a small tower.

"I see that you have been building quite the tower there. How about you play some more with your bricks while Mike and I have to talk, okay?"

"Kay. I build a new tower. A real big one." Teddy raised his hands above his head.

"That big? That's quite a challenge. I'm sure you'll get it. How about I help you later?"

"I like that!"

"I thought you would!" Eric smiled at him.

Teddy went over to his corner and enthusiastically began to work on his tower.

Eric pulled Mike in the opposite corner and began to explain the situation in a low voice.

"Marcus Eaton pulled Candor into this. He requested that Teddy is handed over to Abnegation. Said it was against Faction law. Apparently he hasn't only gone behind our backs but behind the council members as well since Andrew Prior told all of Agnation at the funeral Teddy would be Dauntless now."

"Shit!" Mike cursed.

"This is so fucked up. Sean is currently doing some digging into the Faction law. The only good thing is, that we already had the papers for the adoption on the way so he can't claim we were going behind everyone's back."

"Okay. That's something. What about Max? Does he know?"

"No. Luckily Condor addressed the matter only with Sean. They will handle it confidently in order not to shake up the system. So it'll be a closed trial. That's something at least or next thing I know, Jeannine will stomp in here and have him take an aptitude test or something like that." Eric snorted in distain.

"You sure don't like her." Mike commented.

"Nope." Eric thought Jeannine to be cold blooded, stripped of all emotion and power hungry but, he had to give it to her, she had a sharp mind and often was right about things. "And don't tell me you do."

"No. I'm glad it's you who has to deal with her and not me. It's one thing I don't envy about your position."

"You envy me?" Eric teased his friend to distract himself from the situation.

"O shut up." Mike growled lightly shoving him at the shoulder.

They got quite for some time, looking at the playing Teddy in a heavy silence. Eric was glad Teddy was doing better today, since he was not as quiete and withdrawn as before. When Teddy told him about the tower he wanted to build he had been nearly cheerful. Everything had been getting better, but of cause Marcus, the fucker, had to pull this shit. Eric could feel rage creeping back up on him, the old rage about Ethan's death, which he had believed to be successfully locked away came rushing back along with all his insecurities. These feelings were consuming him, he could feel them taken over. Just when he had been able to get ahold on things, that shit happened, making him feel helpless again. Helpless about the situation and helpless to stay in control. He loaded that feeling – being about of control, with only added fuel to the fire. Eric felt the urge to trash something.