Disclaimer: I still do not own anything that has got to do w/ TMRS.

"Bill's research on his DNA and our extensive study on killzone patterns just about explained him in a nutshell. There are Immunes like the rest of us. And then there are Immunes like you and him and a handful of Subjects in the Trials. He was a goldmine that the entire team didn't know how to get to. He even had Janson pulling at his sideburns during the numerous attempts of trying to crack him. Nobody figured out how to do it except you, Thomas."

"Thomas what's wrong?" Brenda asked the boy sitting beside her. The Full Moon Party had been going on for hours and he hadn't moved once from his spot on the makeshift bench in front of the fire pit. Worse, he hadn't spoken a word either. All these were enough to tip the sharp girl that something was off.

Thomas shook his head in denial and took another swig of the good stuff or moonshine, as the Denver Munies called it. Brenda gently took his hand and laced it with hers. "You're gonna have to do better than that to convince me." She smiled. He gazed at her soft brown eyes, which were so different from the strength and muscle which made up the rest of her. Right then, he knew he had lost. He couldn't lie to her. He looked around to make sure no one was near enough to hear him before ducking his head towards hers.

"I spoke to Aris earlier." He wasn't sure how to continue. "About Minho and Alex."

On instinct, Brenda's gaze landed on the couple across the pit. They were also seated on one the logs. Sonya was seated on the Runner's lap while he wrapped his arms around her waist. The dark-haired boy peeked behind the blonde, noticing that he was being watched. He stuck his tongue out at Brenda.

"Yeah? What about them?"

"Earlier in the Trials, the Creators planned on terminating Minho because he wasn't giving us enough data."

She looked at him in surprise. She did not expect that. "But I always thought he was-"

"-a top candidate. I know," he cut her. "On par with Rachel as the fourth strongest candidate before she was killed."

"Does he know?"

Thomas' reply was a firm shake of his head. And from the looks of it, it didn't look like he had to. WICKED and the Trials were things they all desperately wanted to put behind them.

"Anyway," he continued. "We needed the data. The only way to do that was to break him." He raked his hand through his hair as Aris' story unraveled the images in his head, memories shaken free from the protective grasp of the Swipe. He didn't know how to put it into words. "That Griever attack those older Gladers knew about? It had been staged all along."

An unusual glint appeared in her eyes as the words began to sink in. She chanced another look at the "broken" Subject. Brenda was many things but she was no fool. It was obvious what Sonya merely was to Minho. Anyone who saw and who remembered how he was around Alex could see that. It was a cruel and ugly truth, which in turn was a ripple effect from an inhumane experience.

"Who could think of doing such a thing?" she whispered.

"Apparently, I had a shucked up way of solving problems back in the days." Thomas locked his gaze on the flames, afraid to look anywhere else. His hands curled into tight fists as his whole body shook, as though he was struggling to keep it from exploding. She had spent enough nights with him to know that when he was being like this, he was struggling with the guilt brought about by his past.

"Look at me Thomas." It was a command. He followed. She continued, "You did what you had to do. And just as well because if you didn't-Thomas listen," she reached up to his face and gently turned it towards the Runner, "If you didn't, that kid wouldn't be here right now. You saved him."

"At what cost?" He remembered the mind-numbing, sanity-shaking pain he felt on seeing Chuck and then Teresa die in front of him. It was a loss so deep that he didn't wish it on anyone. And yet, he had deliberately shoved it at one of his best friends for something as cold as data printed in crisp white paper.

"But she's back, isn't she?" Even Brenda wasn't too sure about this part. "That must mean something right?"

"As far as Aris and I know she isn't supposed to be. That's why I have a feeling Bill knows something we don't." He noticed her giving him a confused look. "Don't you think it's too much of a coincidence? The same man that "adopted" Alex is also the same man who found the Cure. It's too...forced."

Brenda nodded in agreement. "Why don't you ask him?"

"I will. Soon. I owe Minho big time."

Thomas had always been curious. As a kid, he was the lone child who would dare to ask the questions the rest of the children didn't even think about. Most of time, they just followed instructions wordlessly.

And so Bill wasn't too unfazed when, instead of Minho or even Alex questioning his motives first, it had been the dark-haired boy with the sad eyes who came to confront him. The question had been as simple as it was loaded.

"What are you really doing here?"

Aged steel gray eyes looked at him. Bill knew he already knew. With a sigh, he turned the burner off and put the distillation process of the medicinal herb to a halt.

"Hiding. But you already knew that. Tell me," he motioned for Thomas to take a seat across the table. "What makes you ask something you already know the answer to?"

"I need to make sure my second question makes sense. What are you hiding, Bill?" He was done with mind games. More importantly, he was done with secrets. And now out of nowhere this stranger thought he could waltz in and wreck havoc in the honest world they've struggled to build.

'Really, Thomas?' mocked a voice in his head. 'Some kind of honesty you're fighting for, considering what you did to Newt.'

Bill's reply was too sincere to be a lie. "Millie, first and foremost. Cole too. These are desperate times. Some people can go crazy enough to want to crack his head open and study the healing process. Those kids are the only family I have now. I can't have that."

Thomas knew how that felt. His resolve at questioning the former geneticist began to waver. He cleared his throat. "Companies all over the world have publicly announced studies being conducted to find the Cure. You have the real thing and...you want to disappear from the face of the Earth?" He didn't notice how his voice rose with every word. And as it did, echos of that fateful day played in his head again and again.

"Do it before I become one of them. KILL ME!"

"Why not?" Bill challenged.

Thomas' calm demeanor disintegrated. The older man jumped as he banged his palms on the wooden desk. "You could've saved people! People who didn't deserve to be put down like animals!" He struggled to contain the tremors that racked his entire body.

"Please, Tommy. Please." He wasn't a Crank during his final moments. The blonde had been a sane person who was begging for a way out.

"You could've saved Newt." He didn't bother stopping the tears that came in droves, didn't bother covering his face which was distorted with anguish. After many months of running away from it, he was finally grieving for the loss of his good friend.

Bill's eyes softened in recognition. "Newton," he said. He remembered the Subject. He was one of the non-Munies thrown in the experiment for them to compare the difference of the killzone patterns between the normal population and those that are immune.

"I'm sorry about what happened to him." And he meant it. "But you do know where, or to be more exact, from who I extract the Cure from." He watched Thomas rub his eyes dry with the back of his hand. The childish gesture reminded him that the prodigy he had worked with in the past, the mastermind behind the Maze, was very much still a child.

All of them were children.

"Millie is eight. Do you think he has enough blood to cure all the Cranks in this world? People wouldn't think twice of bleeding children like him dry if it meant they'll get immunity from the Flare. Even Munies like us couldn't wait to get their hands on them and sell them at the highest price possible. If word of their locations fall in the wrong hands, it will be a catastrophe. Your generation, every child that perished in the Trials was more than enough of a sacrifice. Ava, Hans and I swore to stop anymore deaths from happening in the name of this cure. That's why she contacted you to lead all those Immunes here."

"You knew Ava Paige?" Thomas asked, surprised.

Bill nodded. "And all three of us share the same opinion on the Trials."

"You mentioned children like Millie...are you saying there's more of them out there?" The younger boy couldn't help but feel excited. The Cure was real. It was existing even as they spoke.

Bill chuckled at this. Leave it to Thomas to spoil all the surprises in this world, thanks to his undying curiosity.

"The formation of active antibodies against the Flare was an evolutionary phenomenon. So it wasn't a single freak-of-nature case. Ava's team has discovered a handful of these children all over the world. Of course, you can forget about asking me where the rest of them are. I chose not to know." He gave him an odd look. "I sense more questions. Thomas, you haven't changed at all."

The younger boy rolled his eyes at this. "I wouldn't know," he replied bitterly. "But you're right. I have one more question. Where does Alex fit in all of this? Why is she with you? She was supposed to be killed."

This time it was Bill who was caught off-guard. "I thought you knew."

"Knew what?" Thomas felt his mouth go dry. What shady plans did his old self get into again? There was so many of them already.

"As far as I know, rejects like her wasn't meant to go up the Maze. They wouldn't have survived the Trials. She was put there anyway."

"For a very important reason," he replied. "But that's not the point. How did she get out and how did she end up with you?"

Bill shook his head. He went back to his distillation set and started up the burner. "You and I are no different kiddo. We may possess vital pieces of the puzzle but we have no idea what the big picture looks like." For a long while, they both watched the liquid bubbling inside one of the canisters being heated up.

"I took Alex in as a favor for a friend. Naturally, I assumed you were the ones responsible for getting her out of there." With nimble fingers, he began to chop up more herbs for the extract. "What's it to you now?"

"I figured I owe a good friend a very good explanation for all the shuck I've put him through. First I let him believe his best friend's dead then he sees her waltzing back with no idea who he is. That's messed up."

It sounded like a cheesy plot from a badly-written romance novel that Bill had to laugh out loud at this. It was hard to believe that despite everything that the planet had gone through, ridiculous things like that still happened all over the world. Funnier still was the fact that he was partially involved in one of those cheesy plots.

"Thomas, I have studied those two since they were in the laboratory set up's equivalent of kindergarten. I know them well." He smiled at Thomas and this time it was because of genuine happiness.

"She will get around to remembering him, eventually. After all this is Minho we're talking about."

Author's Notes: Hope you guys enjoy this bit. I noticed I received more reviews from the previous chapter than the earlier chapters (I'd be lucky to get three or four revs and thought, 'Meh. People must be losing interest.' And I understand since it's been quite some time since the last movie and TST won't be out 'till September). So yeah. Thanks for that! Will be gone for a couple of days again so I decided to make this one a bit longer to make up for it. Anyways, I will always ALWAYS love reviews. Hope to hear from you soon. =)