Tris is still pretty busy but I was out skating last night. It was actually really great since there was no one around and we could just go with it. I won't deny that I'm a crap skater but, there you go. I love it.
Oh, there's no place like
Home for the holidays,
'Cause no matter how far away you roam
When you pine for the sunshine
Of a friendly face
For the holidays, you can't beat
Home, sweet home
I met a man who lives in Tennessee
And he was headin' for Pennsylvania
And some homemade pumpkin pie
From Pennsylvania folks a travelin' down
To Dixie's sunny shore
From Atlantic to Pacific, gee
The traffic is terrific
Oh there's no place like home
For the holidays, 'cause no matter
How far away you roam
If you want
To be happy in a million ways
For the holidays, you can't beat
Home, sweet home
Of all the carols that Newt's subconscious had played for him over the years, this was the one that stung the most. Here, in the afterlife, he had some memories of his life before the Glade, a kind woman who must have been his mother brushing a particularly long lock out of his eyes. Newt had never really seen his own reflection, but he assumed that the woman must have looked like him. She was tall in his memory, maybe because Newt was also really tiny in it, but Newt thought that it was because the honey-haired woman was about 5'8.
Newt got the sense that he'd inherited her height, for he towered over most of the other Gladers.
The woman in his memory picked Newt up, hugging him close to her chest as she said, "Don't worry baby, everything is going to be just fine."
Her hug was warm and firm around Newt's tiny form and he nuzzled at her hair. "Mummy?" He asked, bemused. "Where am I going?"
"To people who can keep you safe, Zachy. They'll protect you for as long as they can."
At the time, Newt didn't understand what was happening, just that he wasn't going to be seeing his mother as much now.
As it turned out, he would never see her again.
"Bye Mummy," Newt whispered as the people carried him away.
The memory hurt, undeniably so, but it was also the last that Newt would ever have of his mother and somehow that made it so, so special. He smiled faintly at it.
Their first Christmas in the Glade, the song had come to mind and he'd almost believed that the Glade was his home. Then something else came over him, a longing so strong that somehow the fourteen year old had known that no no no this place, this strange place where he'd been plopped down without explanation or memory, was not his home. Oh how it may have felt that it was, but no it never would be. Never. Not in a million years or all the time that they'd spent here.
Newt supposed that being trapped in a place against one's will didn't exactly make it feel like home, but there they were.
Scared.
Alone.
Away from home.
