Authors Notes: So, I should mention once again. This has major spoilers for The Death Cure Movie, it's not compliant with the books.

Also, the deleted scene with Newt and Thomas still happened for this story to make sense.

This can be read as a one shot and it makes total sense if you want to ignore the second chapter but that is more light-hearted and has a slightly different tone to it.

A massive shout out to Tattered_Dreams for making sense of all of this and helping me make sense of The Maze Runner's unrealistic version of viruses.

Also posted on Ao3

And the blood will dry
Underneath my nails
And the wind will rise up
To fill my sails

Everyone started to gradually disperse after Vince's speech. Some headed straight to the memorial, some headed out to the sea or of into small groups while they had time before dinner, but neither Thomas nor Minho made any indication of moving, both too lost in their own thoughts.

"Oh," Minho said suddenly, leaning into Thomas—snapping him out of his own thoughts—to shove his hand into his pocket, pulling his closed fist out.

"You had this on you while you were passed out," Minho said, opening his fingers, letting the pendant hang down from the worn cord between them and Thomas' heart clenched as he recognised it. It was Newt's. "I figured I'd keep it safe for you."

Thomas swallowed thickly, watching as the light reflected off of the battered metal. With shaking hands, he reached out and took the necklace, letting the pendant rest on his palm for a moment as he remembered Newt shoving it into his hands. Thomas took a shaky breath, pushing the memory away to wipe his face with his shoulder and his eyes drifted out, across the camp to rest on the soft rolling waves.

"He would have liked it here," he said, his voice soft.

"Mm, it's not so shabby."

Thomas froze at the accented voice. His fingers curled around the pendant tightly, the rusted metal digging into his skin as his heart pounded in his chest and he remembered how to breathe again.

He didn't move.

He wasn't sure he could.

His eyes wide, fixed on the horizon as he thoughts raced.

He was imagining it.

He was still delusional from the blood loss.

It wasn't real.

Minho nudged him lightly with his elbow and Thomas' head snapped around to look at him desperately, waiting for Minho to tell him that he still had a fever or… whatever. But instead, he had a soft expression on his face that Thomas couldn't read. Minho gave the slightest of nods and his eyes drifted to settle on something over Thomas' shoulder with the slightest of smiles.

Thomas rose up to his feet, blood rushing through his ears, his heart pounding in his chest as he turned and everything around him seemed to slow down. Someone gave a strangled sound and it took Thomas a moment to realise it was him that was crying.

Because there he was.

His skin was pale and almost translucent, veins lighter and less angry than they were back in the plaza when he was full of Crank. Dark circles stood out under his red-rimmed eyes, no longer filled with rage. His cheekbones were more prominent, giving a gaunt look.

Alive.

Thomas looked past him, to Frypan and to Gally who were standing slightly behind Newt, looking ready to dive forwards and catch him if he fell. Seeing the shock and wariness on Thomas' face, Frypan nodded, as if to reassure him that this was really happening.

The corner of Gally's mouth twitched and his eyes met Thomas'. "Day one, Greenie," he said and at any other time, Thomas might have laughed. Because of course, that's how Gally was introducing him to his new home.

"I don't—" Thomas' voice cracked, looking back to Newt. "I don't understand. You were dead."

Newt's lips quirked into a tired, but sarcastic smirk that was all him; all signs of the Crank's aggression gone. "I got better."

"Wha—" Thomas couldn't quite find the words as he looked between the four other boys.

Gally just gave a slight, one-shouldered shrug. "I did," he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, Thomas saw Minho tilt his head to the side in consideration and nod.

"Next time someone gets stabbed, check for a pulse before declaring them dead," he suggested.

Gally said something snarky in reply but Thomas tuned out of their light-hearted bickering. He focussed back on Newt who was still looking at him, with a soft, vulnerability in his eyes that he didn't often show.

"Alright, Tommy?" he said and the last of Thomas' resolve broke.

He stumbled forwards, throwing his arms around him; his fingers curling into Newt's shirt, gripping tightly like he'd slip away again. Thomas pressed his face into the crook of his neck as Newt's arms came up around him and for a moment neither of them cared about their pulling stitches or aching bones. They just sagged against each other, everything around them fading into irrelevance.

They didn't know how much time passed before they slowly pulled apart. As they separated Newt stumbled back, a faraway look in his eyes as he swayed, suddenly lacking the support of Thomas or his cane that was now lying in the dirt. Minho, Gally and Frypan all dove forwards but it was Thomas who caught his arms gently pulling him upright.

"Sorry," Newt said, his eyes drifting past Thomas' shoulder, a small frown on his face as he swayed, "just… dizzy."

Gally swiped the cane up off the floor, shoving it unceremoniously into one of Newt's hands. Before Newt could fully register his grip on the cane, Gally had grabbed his elbow, all but dragging him and by extension Thomas –who wasn't relinquishing his hold on Newt— towards the logs that had been fashioned into benches.

"We only got you out of the medical hut because we promised the Doc that you'd take it shuckin' easy before your next dose. You know you're not supposed to be standing up for long," he said, folding his arms across his chest, fixing Newt with a menacing scowl until Newt sat down. Newt gave a clear 'what the fuck are you doing?' look but sat down anyway.

Thomas sat on Newt's other side, Minho next to him and both Gally and Frypan took Newt's other side.

"So, uh—" Thomas swallowed the lump in his throat. "I still don't understand."

"We did tell you before, but you'd lost a lot of blood and were pretty delirious," Frypan said with a grim look.

"We were going to tell you again when your fever broke but that only happened last night and before any of us could come see you this morning you decided to take a stroll," Minho said with a slightly exasperated sigh.

"Well, nobody was there," Thomas said defensively before remembering that that totally wasn't the point right now and looked back to Newt.

"And we wanted to make sure you were stable before we… broke the news," Frypan added, "it was touch and go for a while for both of you shanks." He rolled his eyes at them. "But then we had to wait until Newt was up for visitors before we told you because you'd have just barged into the med tent and the Doc wouldn't have appreciated that. But Newt wanted to make an entrance so…" he trailed off with a shrug.

"What happened?" Thomas asked. After all, the details of this afternoon weren't the ones he wanted.

"The last thing I remember is being with you in the plaza…" Newt said his eyes fixed on the floor, "we were er—fighting and then I woke up here."

"We took his body back to the berg after you… disappeared, when we got him there, Sonya, Harriet and Aris were there, they came to help with the evac but er—Sonya and Aris weren't in any hurry to go back into a WCKD building and I don't blame them." Minho looked incredibly uncomfortable at just the thought of having to go back there.

"Sonya worked with Mary back in their medical tent before. She wanted to see if she could help Newt, but when we told her that it was too late she said, and I quote, 'no he's not you dumb ass shanks, he has a pulse,'" he went on to explain with a soft, fond smile, "she gave him the serum we took from WCKD and some of the flares more aggressive symptoms reduced pretty quickly and it took him a while to stabilize enough for his body to start healing and we could up the dosage. We—"

Thomas' head whipped up so fast that Minho faltered off, hesitating as Thomas looked between him and Newt desperately.

"I had a vial," he said as he patted down his pockets frantically only to find them empty. He looked at Minho with panicked eyes. "Teresa gave me a vial. A Cure. It was in my pocket with the necklace. It works. It's permanent."

Minho reached into his own pocket and pulled out the small vial of electric blue serum.

"We didn't know for sure that it was safe and Newt's only stabilized in the last twenty-four hours," he said holding the vial up between his forefinger and his thumb. "Sonya said if we gave it to him while he was too far gone it could have killed him anyway. It was stopping him registering all the trauma and shit. Ironic, right? So we were waiting for you to wake up and tell us what exactly this shit is before we made any crazy decisions."

Thomas nodded, pushing the new information aside to process later as he snatched the vial from Minho and turning to Newt with an almost desperate look in his eyes.

"This," he said, "it'll help. It'll fix you."

Newt took the vial from Thomas, turning it over in his fingers, brushing his thumb over the label that had neat letters in bold black ink. For Newt.

He eyed it warily for a second before shrugging it off. "Well, I'm due for my next dose, so… what's the worst it can do, right?"

Gally rose up to his feet suddenly and before anyone could ask what he was doing he strode off into a cabin and came out with a slightly battered looking auto-injector. He sat back down next to Newt and held it out pointedly.

"Are we waiting for a special occasion or…" he trailed off.

Newt snatched the auto-injector from Gally and the cure from Thomas and rigged it up. The injector gave a soft hiss as it connected and the green light came on, indicating that it was ready.

"Should we maybe get Sonya or another medic?" Frypan asked with a wary grimace as Newt turned the injector over in his hands thoughtfully. But before anyone could reply, Newt jammed the needle straight through his trousers and into his thigh.

"What the—" Gally broke off as he and Thomas once again lunged forwards to catch Newt who sagged forwards as the serum entered his bloodstream.

"Newt, hey. Newt!" Thomas said, letting him sag against his side as Gally shook the half-unconscious boy.

"'m fine, Tommy," Newt said, his words slurring together.

Gally gave an unconvinced grunt and pulled the now empty syringe from Newt's leg, tossing it onto the floor out of the way.

Thomas was half aware of Minho standing up and running off somewhere and Frypan moving in the other direction but paid them little attention as Newt's head fell heavily against his shoulder.

Thomas' heart picked up its pace again and for a moment he thought it hadn't worked. That Teresa had been wrong. But then Newt shifted slightly, gave a soft groan of pain, blinking his eyes open. They were hazy and unfocused but already the inflammation from the virus was fading, returning to the soft honeyed colour that Thomas remembered from back in the Glade.

"Newt?" Thomas asked, the urgency now clear in his voice. "Newt? Can you hear me?"

"Why're you yellin' for?"

Thomas gave something between a laugh and a sigh as he shook his head, relief washing through him. He wrapped his arm more securely around Newt's waist.

"What did you give him?"

Thomas looked up as Sonya rushed forwards, dropping to her knees in front of them, a bag of medical supplies in hand. Minho was half a step behind her and Frypan appeared next to him with a bottle of water in his hand.

"The cure," Thomas said, thrusting the injector at her like that explained everything but Sonya's frown deepened.

"Another dose of serum?" she asked but Thomas was already shaking his head before launching into a brief explanation about his blood and what Teresa did.

Sonya shone a light in Newts eyes and pressed her fingers to the inside of his wrist and whilst she was going through her checks Thomas took a moment to give Newt a once over. A soft, healthier colour had returned to his cheeks, his veins looked lighter and less prominent and even the dark circles under his eyes looked less angry.

"Newt? How do you feel?" she asked, pressing the back of her hand to his forehead to check for a fever.

"Better," Newt said, opening his eyes but his voice still sluggish. "'s easier to breathe and my head 'sn't pounding as bad."

"And the nausea?" she asked.

Newt hummed slightly in consideration. "Delightful," he said, his voice laced with its usual sarcasm.

Sonya rolled her eyes with a patient blink as if she was annoyed but the small smile on her lips was clear.

"Well, there's no trace of the virus in your eyes, your veins are clearer and your pulse is less erratic, so it seems to be working," she said, "drink some water, get some food and I'll come back and check on you before the campfire. Stay here though."

Newt nodded, lifting his head as he took the bottle from Frypan and took slow sips.

Sonya gave a satisfied nod before rolling up to her feet.

"Any seizures, migraines, vomiting, bleeding, come and find me immediately," she said firmly, a steely glint in her eyes that made it clear that she wanted to take no chances here. She didn't want to lose anyone else. "Just take it easy and you should be feeling better soon."

Newt nodded, giving a slight smile of thanks and Sonya stepped around Minho and headed back towards Harriet who was leaning against a tree a little further out waiting for her. Sonya reached out when they met, lacing their fingers together. Before they walked away, Thomas caught sight of Sonya looking back at them, a soft, almost wondering look on her face as her eyes rested on Newt. Harriet said something to her quietly and Sonya nodded, letting Harriet lead her away.

Reaching down with the arm that wasn't still around Newt, Thomas pulled the vial out of the injector. There was a small drop of blue liquid still in the bottom but Thomas didn't care. There was nobody sick here now.

He brushed his thumb over Teresa's writing and sent a silent thank you to wherever she was now.

Somewhere better. He hoped.

Because in the end, she wasn't so bad.

"I don't know why," Thomas said, breaking the quiet that fell around them, "but I was the answer."

Gally grunted, "It all went to shit the day you turned up," he said as if to say I told you so.

"Asides from the virus, you're okay, right?" Thomas asked, recalling a very vivid image of Newt with a knife in his chest, unmoving on the floor.

Newt gave the slightest of nods before resting his head back against Thomas' shoulder without seeming to realise what he was doing. "Concussion, fever, knife to the chest that just missed my heart and a hangover that rivalled Gally's brew," he said like it was nothing but over Newt's shoulder both Gally and Frypan were pulling disbelieving faces and Minho made an indignant noise behind Thomas' back.

"You were throwing up blood for three days you slinthead," Minho said. "You've had four blood transfusions, twelve seizures and we've had to sedate you more than once because of the pain. And this isn't even mentioning that you've barely kept any food down the entire week we've been here."

Thomas' eyes widened as he turned to give Minho and then Newt a horrified look, a fresh wave of nausea rolling in his stomach at the thought of Newt writhing in enough pain to have to be sedated. His grip on Newt's waist tightened fractionally.

Newt looked distant for a second like maybe he remembered more than he was letting on before shrugging it off. "Well, when you say it like that it makes it sound like I nearly died."

Minho stared at Newt for another second, his face hard before looking away with a slight shake of his head, muttering something under his breath but Thomas caught several curse words and many variations of the word shank.

Thomas narrowed his eyes at Newt but didn't comment on him trying to brush of his injuries, instead, asking "but you're okay, now, right?" as he gestured to the cane.

Newt gave a so-so gesture rather than getting accused of lying again.

"Apparently pulling all of the muscles in a leg that has previously been broken and not set, hurts quite a lot," he said mildly and Thomas nodded slightly.

That was fair enough.

Thomas looked down at his free hand and he realised suddenly that he was still holding Newt's necklace.

"I uh—here," he said, slipping the vial into his pocket out of the way before holding out the necklace to Newt. "You should probably have this back."

Newt stared at it as it swung from the cord for a moment before he reached out and took it. He brushed his thumb over the pendant and a ghost of a smile passed over his lips before he put it over his head, letting it hang down in front of his shirt before leaning heavily back into Thomas' side.

With Gally and Frypan, and Minho on his other side, for the first time in perhaps forever Thomas felt something inside of him slot into place and everything just felt right.

.

Sonya came back before the campfire had really started. By which point Newt was leaning against Thomas' side just because he could, rather than because he needed to be. Gradually he'd stopped slurring his words and started to seem a little more himself. So, she agreed that as long as he spent the night in the medical tent and didn't stay out too late, then he could come to the campfire.

Which is how Thomas found himself sitting on the floor, leaning back against Minho's legs with Newt next to him. They were listening to a boy from another glade playing a makeshift drum as several of his glade-mates sung a soft song to match the beat.

Something, that smelt suspiciously like Gally's brew was passed around but both Newt and Thomas declined. Instead, they were content in watching everything happen around them; Frypan was arguing with another cook about bacon, Aris was absently drawing lines in the sand, Brenda and Jorge were talking about upgrades to Bertha. Meanwhile, Sonya and Harriet were trying to teach Gally to dance. He might have even been good at it, had he not been so intoxicated that he was rambling about building a cabin to live in with his three other glade-mates.

Minho was laughing so hard at the scene that he fell back against the sand, his eyes alight with a happiness that Thomas had never seen in him before. It laughter suited him, Thomas decided. Something inside of his chest warmed at the realisation that even after everything Minho had been through and the horrors he still faced whenever he tried to sleep, he could still have these moments of such joy.

As it got later the party started to die down and it was just the five of them with Sonya, Harriet and Brenda left behind. Sonya and Harriet were laying in the sand, with Sonya's head on Harriet's chest and their legs entwined, both fast asleep. While Brenda, Frypan, Minho and Gally had all collapsed into a drunken pile nearby, Gally and Minho still, as always, bickering and Brenda was threatening to shove sand down their pants if they didn't cut it out.

Out of the corner of his eye Thomas caught sight of Newt, still next to him, hunched over. He was fiddling with something and Thomas' eyebrows furrowed in confusion and it took him a second to realise it was his necklace.

"Ah ha!"

Thomas' eyes widened as he watched Newt pull the end off of the pendant and he drew out some rolled up pieces of paper. There were only a couple and something about them, or maybe the way Newt handled them, made them seem heavy, final.

"I didn't know it did that," Thomas blurted it out and Newt's head snapped up from where he was jamming the cap back on like he hadn't even realised he was being watched.

Newt nodded slightly. "I found it in one of the abandoned cities in the Scorch and I thought it was pretty cool," he said with a slightly embarrassed shrug, letting it fall back on his chest.

He looked down the papers in his hands and then made a move to screw them up.

"Wha—" Thomas bit his lip to stop himself but Newt hesitated, looking back up at him, waiting for him to finish. "What was inside?" he asked. "What did you want me to have?"

Newt looked back down at the papers for a full minute before finally holding them out to Thomas.

"It's pretty irrelevant now but…" Newt trailed off with a half-hearted shrug.

Thomas noted Newt's hesitance at handing the papers over but at Newt's reassuring nod he took them. Leaning forwards Thomas used the light of the campfire to read.

Dear Thomas,

This is the first letter I can remember writing. Obviously, I don't know if I wrote any before the Maze. But even if it's not my first, it's likely to be my last.

I want you to know that I'm not scared. Well, not dying, anyway, it's more forgetting. It's losing myself to this virus. That's what scares me. So every night I've been saying their names out loud. Alby. Winston. Chuck. I just repeat them over and over like a prayer, and it all comes flooding back.

Just the little things like where the sun used to hit the Glade at that perfect moment right before it slipped beneath the walls. And I remember the taste of Frypan's stew. I never thought I'd miss that stuff so much. I remember you.

I remember the first time you came up in the box, just a scared little greenie who couldn't even remember his own name. But, from that moment you ran into the Maze, I knew I would follow you anywhere. And I have. We all have. If I could do it all over again, I would. And I wouldn't change a thing.

My hope for you is when you're looking back years from now you'll be able to say the same. The future is in your hands now, Tommy. I know you'll find a way to do what's right. You always have.

Take care of everyone and take care of yourself.

You deserve to be happy.

Thank you for being my friend.

Goodbye, mate.

Newt.

Thomas reread the letter and then he read it again.

A deep sense of dread pushed down on his chest like a heavyweight at the mere thought of having to live in this new world without Newt by his side.

Scrubbing his tears away with the end of his sleeve, he looked back up to Newt who was watching him with a carefully closed off expression. Thomas considered his words for a moment before holding the pages out towards him. Newt reached out to take them but Thomas didn't let them go straight away.

"You deserve to be happy too," he said simply, watching as Newt's eyebrow twitched and his eyes went glassy. After a beat, he swallowed thickly and gave a single nod and Thomas let him take the letters back.

Newt gazed down at them, rereading the words he wrote, visibly conflicted.

"Maybe," he said, "but I mean what I wrote, even it's irrelevant now that I didn't die."

Thomas watched as Newt looked up at the horizon, his eyes scanning over the camp, the ocean and the memorial before finally coming to rest on their pile of friends.

Rolling his jaw, Newt sniffed. "Maybe this is what it's supposed to be like," he said, "maybe this is what it was like before."

Thomas nodded slightly. "It's nice," he agreed, "peaceful."

Newt gave the smallest of smiles. "Living because we want to, not because we have to survive," he said.

Thomas' eyes widened slightly in surprise and he couldn't help but remember the conversation they had on the rooftop what seemed like a lifetime ago and he felt like this wanting to fully live his life was new and a very important for Newt.

They sat together in a comfortable silence for a minute before Newt made a move to stand up but when he put weight on his bad leg, it shook violently and Thomas reached out to steady him before it could give out. He let him catch his balance and when he offered up the cane, Newt shook his head. Limping forwards to stand in front of the fire that was starting to die down.

"What're you doing?" Minho slurred, looking up from where he was drunkenly throwing sand up in the air and watching as the breeze took it.

Newt didn't reply, just stared down at the letter in his hand for a moment before reaching out and letting the flames curl around it. He let it burn just as the first light cracked across the horizon. He shoved his hands into his pockets, the last of the paper already turned to ash and then looked up across the ocean. His shoulders sagged before moving back to drop heavily back down next to Thomas.

Neither of them said a word.

Nothing needed to be said.

So, instead, they just sat there and watched their first sunrise in their new home; together.

So you can doubt
And you can hate
But I know
No matter what it takes

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