When You're Gone, I'll Try to Move On

Plot: Maria catches up with Minho in Paradise after a long day of work and they talk about what happened in Phase Three and the struggles leading up to the escape to Paradise.

Rating: T+ (graphic descriptions of death and violence)

Characters: Maria, Minho

Notes: Maria (named after Korean activist Maria Kim), Jane (named after Jane Addams), Helen (named after Helen Keller), and Julia (named after the famous cooking personality Julia Child) are my own creations. They are the counterparts of Minho, Chuck, Winston, and Frypan/Siggy in Group B.

"Ugh," Minho groaned as he flopped himself down on the beach and shielded his eyes with his arm. Every part of his body was aching from all of the running to grab materials for the structures Gally was building and he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold his machete properly for tomorrow's work. He probably should have gone to find Clint to make sure that his soreness wasn't anything too serious but he didn't feel like getting up for a while.

"Remember when it was just waking up, running a pattern in a Maze, and coming back to map out your findings?" a voice asked him.

Minho uncovered his eyes and tilted his head back against the sand to see it was Maria from Group B standing there.

"Hey Mari," he said as he moved his arm away. He patted the sand next to him and invited her to take a seat.

"Thanks," she said as she dusted off her cargo pants. "Tough day?"

"Not bad but just tiring," Minho sighed as he stretched his arms out. "Yeah, sometimes I kinda wish it was as simple as running a Maze again. Does that sound weird?"

"Nah – to be honest, it was familiar," she admitted as she stretched her legs out in front of her. "Terrifying if you're worried about the Grievers coming for ya but familiar and…normal, I guess you could say." She picked up a rock and threw it as far as she could, watching the rock skim across the surface before sinking to the bottom of the water's surface. "So…what did those Sticks do to you during Phase Three? Or is that too sensitive to ask?"

Minho winced as he pushed himself to a sitting position as he recalled the moments during Phase Three. He folded his hands in his lap and stared out, watching the water roll in onto the shore.

"Rat Man took me to a room," he said. "He wrote some names on a board, including Aris's name and asked who I would spare from testing for their cure. I said all of them." He paused and licked his lips as he brought a knee up to rest his elbow on before continuing. "Then this shuckfaced WICKED person punches me. They ask the same shucking question, I gave the same answer. Got beaten to a pulp until all of a sudden, Rat Man says we're done. Then I'm back in my room."

"Sounds like we went through similar tests," Maria murmured as she wrapped her arms around her knees.

Minho's back straightened at those words and his eyes flashed as he turned towards Maria to get a better look at her. He squinted to see if he saw any signs of scarring or bruising that could have been WICKED's doing. "Those shuckfaces punched you? I swear if I ever saw them again, I will–"

"Cool it Stick!" Maria said to him as she shot him a look. "They didn't punch me until I was bloody – no what they did was…worse, if you can believe it." She chewed on her bottom lip before meeting Minho's fiery eyes. "They shoved my head underwater and held it there for a few seconds before pulling me out. Except they asked me if I would sacrifice one person for the cure, who would it be? They put your name and Teresa's name up on the board along with the other sticks I cared about."

Minho punched the sand in frustration and Maria made a face as she looked around the beach. "I think it's 'cause you and I were hanging with each other on the Berg and before they separated us out. Teresa, well its 'cause she was put with all of us in the Scorch." She frowned as she looked back at Minho. "Hey, did she even make it? I ask because it's been a blur since we got here and I can't remember if I saw her or not."

Minho bit his lip and sighed as he kneaded his hands. "Got crushed by a boulder as we were running for the Trans Flat. Right in front of Thomas. I hate her for betraying Thomas the way she did, but…she did push him outta the way and took the fall for him. I give her some credit for that – guess she was trying to make up for her betrayal in a way."

Maria lowered her head and shook it. "Well she wasn't a favorite in the group for calling the shots but I'll give her credit that she tried to help us get through the underground tunnels somewhat intact. We got attacked by these weird spider robots and lost a lot of people in there. Helen got hurt – when you saw her at the WICKED labs after Phase Three, she was starting to go blind. Those spiders injected something near her eyes and she started having trouble seeing in one eye then the other. During the Scorch Trials, Teresa brought back a cold compress for Helen's eye after she had to do some task that WICKED wanted her to do. She didn't have to help her but, she did so…"

Maria picked up another rock and threw it so it skidded across the smooth surface of the water. Minho mimicked her movements as he threw his own rock and sighed when it sank after it skidded twice across the surface.

"Newt? Jane?" they asked at the same time.

Minho shook his head and prompted Maria to go first. Normally she would have bantered that he should stop trying to act like a freakin' proper gentleman and just go first, but she bit her tongue and cast her eyes down at the ground. Minho watched her fiddle with a shell that was nearby and waited.

"Jane…didn't make it," Maria said. "After we escaped the labs, Helen took a turn for the worse. She was really upset about losing her sight and not being immune…I think that fear and anger helped accelerate her condition from normal being to Crank. There's a point where she almost choked Jules to death and Harriet had to make the hard choice to kill Helen right there on the Berg. Trust me, you don't wanna know what happened – I still get chills whenever I think about it."

"Got it," Minho said as he pulled his other knee up.

"Helen's death scared Janey," Maria continued. She swallowed a large lump that had formed when she mentioned Helen and continued, keeping her gaze focused on a seaweed-covered boulder several feet away in the water. "At the lab, she didn't seem to show any signs of deteriorating other than forgetting a few details about past events."

"Are those shuckfaces sure that she wasn't immune?" Minho interrupted with a skeptical look on his face.

"That's what we wondered too," Maria said as she met Minho's eyes. She returned her gaze to the boulder as she skipped another rock. "But after Helen's outburst and death, she got hysterical and started begging Harriet to just kill her now before she got as bad as Helen. Teresa managed to find some medicine on the Berg that would calm her down and she was out for a couple of days. It must have been a heavy dose because she was out cold for a long time. I was scared that whatever Teresa gave her killed her but then she came to about three or four days later." She searched for another rock to skip and when she couldn't find one, she settled on the shell she spotted earlier. She picked it up and ran her fingers across the grooves on the exterior.

"I saw that what we gave her made her act off," Maria continued. "Her eyes looked hazy, her speech wasn't super clear…almost like she was in a trance of some kind. Teresa then remembered that WICKED mentioned something in her memories called The Bliss, which slows down the progression of The Flare but it doesn't cure it. She sorta stayed that way for a while before it wore off and she was back to being hysterical again. Harriet tried giving her more of the stuff but…"

"But?"

Maria sniffled as she wiped away a few tears. She licked her lips before saying, "She gave her…too much…by accident of course. Jane calmed down but about ten minutes later, color drained out of her face and she sank to the floor. Writhed for a few moments and cried out in pain. Jules tried to hold her down and during one her thrashing fits, Jane moved her head too quickly and…"

"Sorry," Minho whispered as he saw the scene play out in his head. "Then?"

"We buried her at night after we landed," Maria replied. "Teresa and Harriet were able to distract some of the guards at the airport while some of us carried Jane to an area and buried her." She sniffled and dug her fingers into her palm. "I had one job – get Janey home to her parents, if they were still alive, and help her have a normal life."

"What do you mean?" Minho asked as he gave her a puzzled look.

Maria turned and looked at him. "Sorry I forgot that you never knew her – Rachel, I guess she was like Thomas? She came up in The Box before Aris did. I used to run with her in the Maze – she slipped right between the Maze walls to save me and Sony, who was unconscious thanks to a Griever –"

"Playing dead?"

"Yeah but how did you know?" Maria asked with a confused look on her face.

Minho shrugged and shook his head with a grim smile. "Same shucking thing happened to me – found what I thought was a dead Griever and I took Alby, he was our leader, into the Maze to check it out. Alby got stung and Thomas squeezed through the Doors to help us. Somehow he managed to trick a Griever into rolling over the cliff further into the Maze. …Just one question though, why did Sonya go with you and not Harriet?"

Maria made a face as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Well 'cause…Harriet had some terrible thing happen to her when she first came up and it involves the Maze in some way – she wouldn't tell anyone what happened though. Sonya used to be a Runner too but after the Council discussed it, everyone thought that I was faster than her, so the job of Keeper went to me. She didn't mind really – I kinda got the feeling that she was relieved to get a break from venturing in. She was the only one willing to check the Griever with me so yeah…" Tears pooled in her eyes again and she glared down at the shoreline as she continued.

"Thought we were finally gonna stop being someone else's lab rats," Maria said. "But then Beth appears in front of us and something's really wrong with her – it was in her eyes, something was off. Mind you, we were all shocked to see her alive since she was the first one the Grievers took when the Doors didn't close one night."

"Same thing with us," Minho growled as he thought back to Gally being under WICKED's control. "Shank named Gally got controlled by those shuckfaces and –"

"Killed someone against their will?" Maria finished as her tear soaked eyes met his. "Yeah, Beth pulled out a curved blade, threw it, and it landed in Rachel's chest. Aris held her and tried to stop the flow of blood but it hit her heart – there was nothing we could do. Sony had to pull me off Beth after I nearly broke her nose. Last thing Rachel said to me was to get Jane home – in any way possible. Said look for her parents if they were still alive. Then…she was…gone."

Both of them fell silent for a moment and Maria wiped away the rest of the tears, rolling her shoulders a few times before focusing on the boulder again. Minho rubbed the back of his neck as he remembered something.

"Saw one of those shanks on the Bliss when I was in the city with Thomas and Brenda," Minho murmured as he thought back to the dazed figure that was captured for his impaired state of mind.

Maria snapped her head towards Minho and she pressed her lips together in a taut line. "Now there's someone I'm not happy about making it," she said with a hateful glimmer in her eyes. "Look, I'm sorry if she's your friend Min, but that Stick put me through a lot of hell before I was sent into my Maze. She initiated my Swipe procedure after I asked to not undergo it and I felt like there was something off about her before they knocked me out. Like I knew her somehow and didn't get along with her at some point but I hadn't really talked to her at all on the Berg."

"What did you remember?" Minho asked as he cast a sideways glance at her. "And for the record, Brenda's not someone I'd consider a shank but she was tolerable versus Teresa the traitor. Girl's always really…touchy feely with Thomas whenever he's around."

"You jealous?" Maria asked softly.

Minho furrowed his brow and snapped his head towards her. "What?"

Maria rolled her eyes and told him to forget it. She took the shell in her hands and chucked it as far as she could as she continued, "When we were like, I don't know, 15 or 16 I guess, I remembered running into her when Sonya and I decided to skip out on one of our tests 'cause we were getting sick of doing them. Sonya ran smack into Brenda and she tried to make us go back and do the tests. I sassed her and all of sudden, this WICKED technician comes over and throws Sony over his shoulder and carries her away, screaming and thrashing. It was horrible and I remember the look she gave me before threatening to test some miracle drug on me that wasn't fully approved if I didn't cooperate and get back to my test. After that incident, I saw Sony another time in passing and she had some nasty bruises on her arms and neck."

"You really think that Brenda–"

"No she didn't make those bruises – the other tech did," Maria said. "But I'm sure that she asked him to punish Sony for her disobedience since she wasn't as rebellious as me. They were able to control her a little more easily than me. Probably why her tattoo reads 'The Survivor' as her title."

Minho opened and closed his mouth as he tried to process everything that Maria had told him.

"The rest of the tests were really hard after that – she probably told the Creators to make them harder so I would fail but somehow I didn't," Maria said. She licked her lips and added, "I remember thinking that the only good thing about having my memories wiped would be forgetting everything about her."

"Was she–"

"Nah she was long gone when I came to – probably safer for her own good 'cause I woulda rung my hands around her neck after I remembered everything that happened to me," Maria replied. She glanced over at Minho and scrunched her knees to her chest. "So, Newt didn't make it?"

Minho shook his head no and he bit his tongue, tears pooling near his lower lids. "We took him with us to the city and left him in the Berg," he said. "We came back and he was gone – left a note saying the guards at the airport searched the Berg, found him, and took him to the Crank Palace. He asked us to not go after him but Thomas and I pushed for it. Nearly got ourselves killed there with all of the whackos there in various stages of crazy. At one point, he had a gun in his hands and pointed it at us."

"He what?!"

"He wasn't thinking it through," Minho said. "He wasn't as deranged as the others but he was yelling a lot and spit was flying out of his mouth. He seemed really ticked at Thomas for some reason and yelled at us to leave now. Wouldn't even listen to us reason with him why he had to come with us, maybe see if there was even a shot that a cure could save him, if there was one." Minho cursed under his breath and punched the sand as the tears ran down his face. He kept his eyes on the ground as the tears flowed freely and he sniffled, gasping for air as he cried. He saw something flutter in front of his eyes and he tore his gaze from the ground to see that Maria was offering him a square of fabric.

"It's clean – used to keep one in my backpack when I ran the Maze," she explained.

Minho yanked the square from her hands and blew his nose into it loudly. Maria returned her gaze back to the horizon and she nudged another shell by her boot. She didn't want to draw too much attention to Minho's breakdown, especially since she sensed that he wasn't the type to share this type of emotion publicly. After a few moments, Minho straightened up and crumpled the square up, stuffing it into his pocket.

"Thanks Mari," he said as he looked at her. "Sorry about looking like teat-sucking baby just now. Shuck, why did I just say something that Newt would say?" He slammed his fist hard into the ground and cursed under his breath.

Maria nudged him and looked at him. "Ya know ya don't need to apologize for any of this," she said with a quiet look. "Think of Newt's phrases as a little memento or something that always makes you think of him when things were good. Let's face it – WICKED screwed us all up but now, they're all probably dead or will be dead soon while we get to start over, in a sense. It hurts and I wish we coulda all been immune and made it through this, but for now, we gotta try to fix society so it doesn't end up so messed up. Okay?"

Minho nodded and Maria shot him a small smile. She stood up and dusted herself off before helping Minho up with a grunt. "Let's head back before they start some crazy search party or something for us, okay?"

"Good that."