Spoilers: For the end of The Death Cure. Spoilers for three characters deaths.

Word Count: 1,176

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Do As The People Do

His hands hurt, just a little bit.

That was the first real realization that he had before he looked up, a little more aware of everything. The next thing that he was aware of was the sun that nearly blinded him. When he blinked it out of his eyes he became aware of a sort of comfiness to his position, as if he had been there for quite a while. The very next and most alarming thing that he noticed next was that Newt sat opposite him on a log and seemed fine with watching him.

"Tommy," Newt smiled, a soft and lonely thing that allowed for Thomas' heart to beat painfully in his chest. As soon as he said that memories dotted along his thoughts, foggy and murky against his consciousness, and he felt pure unadulterated alarm flooded through him hotly. The sudden realization that something was wrong, that Newt shouldn't be here, was enough for him to see a monochromatic film flash across his eyes. It was awful, like he tried to cross his eyes in an attempt to see double of everything - except it's a soft filter of the shelter in Paradise with small beads of sunlight that fall from the weak rafters. But then Newt tugs on his hand, palm and fingers rough with callouses, and the vision faded. He blinked the dark spots from his sight but it didn't lessen the ache behind his eyes. "It's okay."

"This is a dream, isn't it?" He asked, more croak than actual words. Because you're alive when you're supposed to be dead.

Newt's smile was forgiving. "Doesn't mean it isn't real, you know." His hand felt real - if he focused he could feel each shift and tendon in the taller boy's grip. If he focused, he could hear the soft chirp of birds in the distance, he could feel the lazy heat of the artificial sun warm his skin, he could feel the log beneath him, the grass beneath his - bare? - bare feet. Instead, he focused in on Newt's eyes, on the dark hues and the sad look he has.

"I'm sorry," he said even though it didn't amount to much.

"That's okay." Newt's hand left him long enough for him to playfully smack Thomas on the shoulder sympathetically. "There's nothing to apologize for anymore." Then he glanced down and seemed to produce a block of wood out of nowhere. The blade he had in his hand cut sharply into the wood of a sculpture that Thomas had a feeling he had worked on before.

"This isn't the first time I've had this dream," he said in realization. He could feel that knowledge in the air as if it were a heavy fog and he just blew it all away.

"No." Newt didn't look up.

"It won't be the last."

"It'll stop when you're okay," Newt commented. His hands went still. His mop of blond hair fell in front of his face and obscured Thomas' view of him.

"Until I'm better?" Thomas asked, more confused than incredulous.

"Until you forgive yourself." Newt amended and looked up, eyebrows quirked downwards in something almost like disapproval. "Until you stop blaming yourself, until you can sleep easy, until you can say everyone's names without - giving yourself away, I guess. In time, they'll forgive you too. But not until you do it yourself." He rested his arm along his knee and kept his back arched, eyes hooded but a sad, fond smile played across his face.

"You mean Minho and them and -" he stopped. "And everyone else. They'll forgive me after?" All the people in Paradise, all the ones who had unwittingly been a ploy in the aftermath. He couldn't even blame WICKED - they tried to help when everybody else fled. He knew that and yet he still wanted to blame them even if it meant that he wouldn't blame himself.

"If that's what you think I mean by 'everyone'," Newt shrugged, a sharp and sudden roll of one shoulder. He didn't look away and Thomas squirmed. It wouldn't be them forgiving me it'd be me having forgiven myself just enough for their words to mean nothing.

"Are you the only one here?" 'Here' wasn't much of anything, really. Just a soft clearing, somewhere where he thought it could almost be a part of the Glade but not quite, with dark oak trees that shield them from the sun and wind, little twitters of bird song among the trees. Life only seemed to exist in that one clearing.

"For now." Newt straightened, "Once you've moved on from my death it'll be Teresa and Chuck next." His gaze was hard but not unforgiving. "The hardest first - the ones you couldn't have prevented but caused. Then the ones you couldn't have stopped but you blame yourself for." He tilted his head, blond locks fell across his brow. It was something that he had done before, enough for him to know that this was his consciousness trying to mend itself. "Or maybe they're the hardest so they're last."

"Maybe."

Newt turned back to his carving, small scrapes of wood curved and fell onto the grass. Thomas watched it, felt the sharp burn in his chest at the truth behind Newt's words. He doubted it would ever stop hurting but Newt seemed certain. At the back of his mind, just beyond where his memory capabilities were, he felt as though he was responding to this inappropriately. But I've been here before. Maybe his reaction wasn't as bad because it was true - maybe this was the seventh, twelfth, hell maybe even the sixtieth, time he had been here. Maybe that was why he wasn't a crying, snivelling mess. Maybe that's why he isn't surprised. "I miss you," is what he said.

"Hm," Newt responded. Thomas didn't know why he expected a different response. Newt was all in his head, after all.

Thomas hesitated. "Can I stay?"

Newt looked up, posture lax and fond, sad smile on his face. Thomas' heart beat faster in his chest - does Newt have a heartbeat here? - and tried to swallow the lump down. "For a little while."

"Can you tell me about the Glade, if you can?" Newt paused. Thomas paused. They stared at each other as Thomas' words sunk in. I'll forget it in the morning anyways, he wanted to say but didn't. His mind couldn't make up facts that he didn't know - and because foggy snippets of his memory came back from time to time, of when he worked with WICKED, he didn't doubt he knew about Newt's past, but he wanted to hear them from Newt's own mouth. Perhaps Newt had heard that thought because his smile widened and his eyes brightened. He looked nearly happy, despite everything, and Thomas wanted to cry because he wanted to see Newt happy, always. But he can't be, not anymore, the thought didn't make him as sad as he thought it would. Maybe it's working. Maybe I am getting better.

"If you'd like," Newt said and he did.