Title: The Beginning
Summary: Newt is the very first Greenbean to find himself in the Glade after the big group of Gladers was sent at the very beginning. With his new title as the first Greenbean and his memories taken away, he has to fight for his life in an unfamiliar, terrifying place, and finds friends and even love as he gets used to his new home.
Rated: T
Pairing(s): Newt/Alby, Clint/Jeff
Warning(s): Violence, eventually kissing, gruesome deaths
He woke up in a dark, dank lift that moved up and creaked when it moved, like it was going to fall over. My name is Newt, he realized. He knew only that about himself. Nothing else. He was in darkness and the lift seemed to be going up forever. In a moment of panic, he yelled, "Help me! Somebody get me out of this bloody thing!" and he heard the thick British accent.
For a half hour, the lift moved up in eternal darkness - for all he knew, at least - and he had no idea where he was going, or what he would find when the lift got to where it wanted to go. Newt imagined himself flying up like this forever, in complete darkness, and almost panicked again.
He knew nothing about himself. He didn't even know what he looked like. Only his name - Newt - and that he was British. The fact that one of the only things he knew about himself was that he was British struck him as funny and a laugh escaped his lips. Newt had no memories, no personal memories, but he knew how the world worked.
Finally, after what seemed like hours but was probably much less, Newt saw a light above him and there was sweet, sweet relief. There was a crowd of boys waiting for him, faces looking down at him, some pointing excitedly and talking, some glaring. Newt noticed they were all teenaged boys and wondered why there weren't any girls. Or a single adult. Maybe there were, they just weren't there right now, they were off doing something else -
The lift stopped and jolted so that Newt fell down on his butt. A rope was lowered down to him, and he grabbed it and was lifted up onto the grass. Well, they tried lifting him up onto the grass, but a boy's hand slipped on the rope and the ground rushed up towards him. A hot flash of pain went through his left arm, and Newt knew right away he'd damaged something.
"Thanks a lot," he called up to the dark-skinned boy who'd dropped the rope.
"Sorry," the boy called down, and his deep voice rolled over Newt's skin like velvet, making him shiver. Suddenly, he wasn't so ticked anymore, even though the boy had just broken his arm.
"Alby, get down there and help him up," a boy standing beside Alby said. He must have been their leader. Maybe Alby was his second in command? Newt didn't know and he didn't care - all he cared about was the pain in his left arm. And the fact that he couldn't remember a bloody thing about his life - who he was and where he came from - but his broken arm had distracted him from that up until now.
The dark boy - Alby - lowered himself down into the lift while the other boy who'd spoken before - the boy who was probably their leader - held the rope for him. "I'm so sorry," Alby apologized again, sounding really sincere as he lifted Newt in his arms, one arm tucked under Newt's knees and another supporting his back. He easily lifted Newt up onto the grass, and a shocking pain was sent up his left arm. Tears filled his eyes as Alby sprawled out onto the grass beside him. "Let me take you to the Med-jacks."
"The what now?"
Alby grinned. "The Med-jacks are the closest think we have to doctors," he elaborated. He picked Newt up again, which hurt, and carried him to the hospital wing.
"Nice job, Alby," a Med-jack named Clint said as he examined Newt's arm. "Definitely broken." He raised an eyebrow at Alby. "Our very first Greenbean after we get to this shucking place, and you break his arm? I don't think you're gonna live that down anytime soon, is he, babe?" Clint wrapped an arm around the boy standing beside him, another Med-jack. Newt burned with curiosity. What was a Greenbean?
"Nope," the boy answered, but they seemed to be teasing.
"Shut it, Clint," Alby warned, "or I might just break something of yours."
Clint didn't seemed threatened, but his boyfriend joked, "I'll protect you," and wrapped his arms around Clint's waist.
"Shut up, Jeff," Clint responded, all but throwing the boy off him, and Jeff shoved him back playfully, both of them laughing.
Newt didn't exactly think of this as a laughing matter. "My arm is broken."
"Sorry," Clint apologized. He put Newt's arm in a sling and said, "That'll take a while to heal."
Newt rolled his eyes. "I thought it'd bloody happen overnight," he said sarcastically.
Alby snickered. "Now that your arm is taken care of, Nick told me to give you the Tour," he informed Newt.
"Nick?"
"Our leader," Alby explained.
"The Tour?"
Alby looked annoyed. "I really hope none of the other Greenies are going to ask so many questions," he muttered.
"I heard that," Newt announced.
After a quick meal, Alby and Newt stood outside a really old, worn out shack. "This is the Homestead," Alby explained to him. "It's our house. It's where we live, sleep, hang out sometimes. Not that there's much to do."
Newt followed him inside the Homestead. "Why are we here?" he asked. "Did we - did we do something wrong?" His voice broke and his eyes filled with tears. "Are we prisoners?"
Alby's usually none too cheerful expression softened. "Hey," Alby said softly, squeezing Newt's shoulder. "I don't know why we're here. All the other Gladers and I know exactly as much as you do about why we're here, and we've lived here for a month, and you just hours. The people who put us in this shucking awful place have told us nothing. If I could have told you what the shuck we're doing here, I would have already."
"Shuck?" Newt asked.
He could tell Alby was suppressing a groan. "Nick banned curse words, so I came up with some of my own," he said. "Kind of as a code, which he's probably cracked already. He's kind of a jerk."
Newt believed him, not that he knew Nick well enough. Or Alby, for that matter. But he believed him nonetheless. It took him up until then to realize that he trusted Alby.
He followed Alby around the Homestead as he showed Newt the hallway of bedrooms, the creaky stairs, the small living room, and the small bathroom. They went outside then and Alby went on to explain the work and how Newt would work with every job leader - Keeper - for a day, to see what job he was best at.
Newt followed Alby over to a fence where there were different kinds of farm animals - pigs, cows, sheep. "We milk the cows ourselves, slaughter the pigs ourselves," Alby said. "And over here" - he led Newt to another field behind a fence, where there were crops of some kind growing. Newt didn't know what they were. "We grow our vegetables ourselves." Alby turned around and Newt followed his gaze to the huge walls surrounding the place they called the Glade. "The Maze is out there - yes, it is literally a maze, a huge maze, impossible to solve." Newt would only know later how literal that last bit was. "We've tried everything, looked for an exit, anything you can imagine. 'Course, we've only been here for exactly a month - we've been keeping track of the days - and we gotta eat, sleep, drink, work, survive. Thrive, even, as best you can in here."
Newt bursted with curiosity about the Maze. "The Number One Rule," Alby told him sternly, getting right in Newt's face, "is never going in the Maze, unless you're a Runner. Which you aren't."
Something about that ticked Newt off and he glared at Alby. "Get out of my face. You can bloody talk to me without invading my personal shucking space." It wasn't until he said Alby's curse word that he realized he'd said it - naturally, already.
Alby did what he said and grinned. "You'll fit right into this place, Newt," he said, and Newt grinned back.
