Fire, fire
Disclaimer: It its use of intellectual property and characters belonging to James Dashner, Dell Publishing, Wes Ball, TSG Entertainment, Temple Hill Productions, The Gotham Group, et cetera, this work is intended to be transformative commentary on the original. No profit is being made from this work. Any similarities to other fanfiction stories are completely coincidental.
Additionally, I also do not own the works of J.R.R Tolkien, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, Barrie M. Osborn, Tim Sanders, New Line Cinema, Saul Zaentz Film Co., and WingNut Films (I have used a reference to the films/books).
The distinct noise of a bullet being fired from a pistol caused each survivor to jump about a foot in the air. Inka let out the highest screech Newt had ever heard, rendering him momentarily disorientated while he tried to find the source of the noise that had been in such close proximity.
"Winston!" Frypan quickly wrestled the boy down, realizing that he had somehow snagged the gun from his pack and proceeded to try and turn it on himself. Luckily his weak fingers had mishandled the weapon, causing it to fire accidentally before he could turn it on himself. "Give me that!"
"What are you doing?!" Newt allowed his tone to become hostile, bewildered as to what his friend could have been thinking.
"What the hell happened!?" Thomas had sprinted onto the scene with Teresa, both of them looking even more confused and panicked as they had during their entire time knowing the Gladers.
"I don't know!" Frypan grasped the metal object in his hands, looking extremely shaken and on the verge of tears as Winston writhed in pain on the ground in front of the group. "He just woke up and grabbed the gun! He tried to -"
Frypan was interrupted as Winston promptly vomited blood on the yellow sand beside his stretcher, weak arms still reaching towards the ex-cook's hand holding the gun. Thomas was by the boy's side in seconds, questioning if he was alright and what he could do to help. None of the survivors knew how to assist them at the moment, simply staring on in shock and wondering why Winston had tried to off himself so suddenly without warning. The boy in question flopped down onto the sand, breathing having grown shallow and labored after he finished puking.
"It's growing...inside me," He wheezed, lifting up his shirt and revealing the horrid scratch marks that had grown up his stomach. The wound looked purple as it pulsated almost inhumanly, as if something was alive inside of the boy. This made the group cover their mouths in horror, suddenly acknowledging that the creatures that had chased after them were not only bloodthirsty but infectious as well. "I'm not gonna make it."
The survivors looked around at each other trying to figure a loophole to the problem, but after several seconds realizing that there was no way around it. If the infection spread Winston would soon turn into one of the violent beasts that had so clearly wanted the survivors dead, and they knew that they could not turn in their friend to the same crazed fate.
"Please..." Winston wheezed, holding his hand out towards the Frypan one last time. "P-please don't let me turn into one of t-those things."
Frypan looked down at the gun heartbrokenly, the decision killing him on the inside as he knew that the heavy weight barring down on his shoulders required him to make the choice. To hand off the weapon responsible for killing his best friend was an action he never wanted to take in his life, and here he was being forced into it. He began to shake his head, tears pooling in his eyes as the weight of the gun grew heavier and heavier in his hand. That was, until the weapon left his grasp and a figure slowly passed by him.
The white shirt revealed the body to be that of Newt's, the gun heavy in his hand as he made his way over to Winston. Despite Thomas's words of protest and the groups horrified expressions, Newt took the steps over to his friend's body and laid the gun on his chest as a final show of respect.
"Thank you," Winston coughed with all the strength he had left, sharing a nod with the ex-second in command who he had worked both under and alongside so valiantly. "Now – get out of here. Please."
With one glance at his crippled expression Newt knew he could not look away, and knew that the boy was speaking of the wretched sand tomb they were walking through. He wanted them to not only escape WCKD and the current cluster of cement they had taken shelter under but also the world in it's decayed state – Winston wanted them to solve the puzzle and build new lives for themselves in whatever green was left. So, Newt slowly backed away and receded into the group of friends, not being able to spare one more look at the slowly dying boy.
It was Frypan who made his way over to Winston next, crouching next to him as his heart fell to his stomach in dread. There were no words to describe the feeling that was coursing through him at the moment, but he put on a brave face for the boy in front of him.
"You were my best friend," Frypan tried to contain himself as best as possible as he clutched his companion's shoulders. "You were the bravest – the best. You'll always be."
Winston clasped Frypan's wrist as he mouthed the boy's real name, and the two shared one more meaningful, loaded glance before the African-American youth distanced himself. The next to say their goodbyes was Inka, who tore herself away from her position next to Newt and took six heavy steps – feeling as though there were a hundred tons of weight sitting atop her shoulders – to make her way over to Winston's sick form.
"Winston," Inka kneeled down next to the boy with the rest of the group watching, completely shell-shocked that they were going to lose yet another companion on their quest to find answers. Her face scrunched up as she tried not to let tears escape her eyes, scars wrinkling as well on her otherwise smooth face. "The journey doesn't end here."
"For me," Winston rasped, coughing out more blood and spitting it to the side as he looked over her marred face. "It does."
"No," Inka assured, grasping his hand that held the gun in it tightly as she let a few stray tears escape her body. "No – death is just another path of life. We all have to take it at one point or another. You have done great things."
"I'm scared," The boy spluttered, mouth quivering as he choked back a sob. "I don't want to die."
"You'll see wonders, Winston," Inka tried to pass on any light she had left in her eyes to his, hoping that he would listen to her words of comfort in his final moments. Even though she had no idea what death was like and was terrified of the prospect herself, she tried to imagine a marvelous place where the poisons of the true world could never reach. "White shores, and a vast green country under a swift, peaceful sunrise. Colors like you wouldn't imagine – and endless time where each hour is unique and precious."
"R-really?" Winston panted slightly, paying more attention to her words now as he grew slightly less discouraged.
Inka merely nodded, letting more tears flow freely as she gave the boy's hand one last squeeze. "You'll find your way, Winston – I promise. This is not your end."
The boy nodded slightly, thanking her silently as she backed away into Newt's arms and the group began to collect their things. It was an unspoken declaration that Winston had made, deciding that he did not want his friends to witness his cessation. It was too painful to watch him decay as it was, and Winston knew that his friends had said their goodbyes the best way they could. His loss would affect them, but if they did not have an image to go alongside it it would take some of the weight off of his death. It was the only thing Winston could do to ease their passage in the future.
"It's okay," Winston hacked out another blood clot, assuring Thomas after the rest of the group had left the cement cluster. The boy who had been a leading figure thus far suddenly felt very unsure of what to do as he stared down at the sick boy.
"I'm sorry – I'm so sorry..." Thomas's tears welled in his eyes as he tried to remain strong for the boy in front of him who had seemingly accepting his fate. Thomas turned to leave, the weight of the disappointment after not being able to save another one of his friend's lives heavy in his stomach.
"Thomas," The boy on the ground called, feeling his body rapidly ceasing to function normally and choosing to ask one final favor of his friend. "Take care of them."
All that Thomas was capable of doing in the moment was nodding as he turned his back one final time to Winston, swallowing his urge to weep and instead following Frypan's figure that was walking sullenly across the tip of the next dune. The group marched in a single filed silence, several meters between each of them as they each mourned the loss of Winston separately.
A singular gunshot rang through the air about a minute later, causing the row of seven to stop and stare back at the stone blocks they had left behind before slowly continuing on their way.
Death is not the end, Inka reminded herself as she slammed her eyes shut and squeezed them tight, curling her hands into small fists. She forced her feet to keep on moving, despite the wail that threatened to tear its way out of her throat. The survivors continued to trudge along in a glum silence, the burden of death weighing them down despite not having witnessed Winston perform the task of suicide. For hours they traveled along more sandy ridges, mountains growing closer and closer with every hour that passed by until the hills finally flattened out and the surface they walked on was no longer covered in rubble. After several more hours, night finally fell and they were forced to prioritize looking for shelter. Minho silently led them towards a large blob of a structure, only realizing that it was ship after travelling closer to it.
The giant naval vessel, lying on its side as if it had completely given up itself, was an indication that the large flat plain they were walking across had once been a massive body of water. None of the survivors commented on this, their curious spirits remaining significantly dampened by the fact that their numbers had now been reduced to seven. The group took shelter against the ship's starboard side, seeing as it blocked most of the wind raging their way and allowed them shelter enough to build a campfire by it's wall. Aris ventured into the ship several times to retrieve wood, and after producing the final logs necessary for fueling the campfire until the morning he sat down in between Minho and Newt. At some point everyone had cracked out the blankets out of their packs, grateful that they had remembered to grab everything they needed before leaving the compound full of monsters.
"I thought we were supposed to be immune," Minho broke the silence, twiddling his knife around in his fingers as he stared into the fire with a clenched jaw. His question ruffled the feathers of his friends sitting around him as they shifted uncomfortably, though few of them redirected their gaze to look towards him.
"Not all of us," Teresa clarified, eyes connecting with Thomas' across the fire. Neither of them mentioned what their conversation had consisted of before Winston's untimely end, as they had silently agreed not to mention that Teresa had gotten her memories back and was inclined to head back to WCKD's base for a reason Thomas had not been able to fish out of her.
"If Winston was affected we should assume the rest of us can too," Newt spoke up from his place beside Inka. The small girl was huddled up in her blanket, and Newt had spared his own to drape over her as well when he realized that her form was still trembling. Despite slapping on all the clothes she had worn and the two blankets coating her body she remained shivering, teeth clattering being the only noise in the background besides the crackling fire. The British boy had simply draped an arm around her after he noticed this, noticing that her shivering decreased significantly after he sat closer to the girl.
"I never thought I'd say it," Frypan muttered, firelight illuminating his face where a single tear streak was visible. "But I miss the Glade."
With that final loaded comment something inside Thomas cracked, and he stood up silently only to make his way over to a log a ways away from the campfire. None of the group went after him at first, but after several seconds of staring around at his friends' faces Newt murmured to Inka that he would return after a moment and got up to walk over to where Thomas sat.
The two boys shared a look as soon as Newt placed himself on the ground near his friend, and the ex-second in command could spot Thomas' fingers swiveling Chuck's figurine in his hand. It was clear at this point that Thomas was feeling extreme guilt after having lead all of the group outside of the Glade only to have more death and destruction rain down upon them, so Newt decided he needed to give his friend a speech very reminiscent of what he thought Inka would have had to say. He did not want Thomas thinking that their friends believed the Glade was better than the scorch, no matter what sort of comments the ex-cook made.
"You haven't slept a wink since we left the maze, have you?" He asked, having noticed that Thomas had been out patrolling the vents with Aris whilst back at the base and too paranoid the night prior to get any shut-eye. When his friend did nothing but grimace and tighten his hold on Chuck's tiny statue, Newt knew he was correct and pressed on. "Listen, Frypan was just letting off steam..."
"He's right though," Thomas sighed sadly, finally caving into the conversation. "I'm the reason we're stuck out here."
"No," Newt shook his head, large brown eyes contradicting Thomas's misplaced feelings. "You're the reason we're free," He emphasized the word, looking back towards the fireplace and towards Inka who would have agreed with him one hundred percent. "They others may have their doubts and that's fine – but they would follow you anywhere."
"They follow you too," Thomas shrugged, pursing his lips in thought. He had definitely acknowledged the way that Newt's comments had an effect on the team's mentality towards things, and when Newt suggested a plan of action his friends responded to it very well.
"Ah," Newt shrugged the comment off, staring out into the black desert as he made a face. "It's different with me though – you know it is. We all have our roles to play."
"Inka would follow you anywhere," Thomas commented truthfully, feeling bold and watching as the blush rose in Newt's cheeks. "That's not different."
"Well," The British boy responded shakily, unsure of where his next statement was going until he blurted it out and tried to revert the subject back to it's original topic. "Hell - I'd follow her too. I'd follow any of you – I'm following you, aren't I?"
"I don't even know where we're going," Thomas admitted almost guiltily, looking towards his friend as he shook his head. "We're lost."
"We've been lost before," Newt pointed out, raising a brow at his friends antics. Was Thomas really growing discouraged after getting this far? They had a general goal; to reach the mountains. Even if the 'mountain people' plan was the most ridiculous thing Newt had ever heard, if he had learned anything from Inka it was that there was always an answer. If the 'mountain people' plan was the only lead they had for an answer other than WCKD, it was best they took that bait. Thomas could not lose hope at this point – he needed to keep pushing.
"Not like this..." Thomas continued, shaking his head once more.
"There is a place for us out there somewhere," Newt's brain formulated the words as if Inka had crept into his head and shaped the sentence for him, and for some reason he was completely overjoyed with the fact that the tiny girl had been able to influence him so strongly. "And I don't know where it is, but I do know that an awful lot of our friends have died for us to get this far," He looked towards the figurine that Thomas still held in his hands as he spoke, heart wrenching as he thought of all the losses they had bared witness to thus far along their journey. "And so we can't give up – you can't give up. I won't let you."
Thomas looked at Newt the same way Inka had looked at the boy when she had spoken of the 'thing' in his eyes, revealing the truth about what had happened a year ago in the Glade when the British boy had given up himself. He knew the consequences of that sort of mental blockade, and was trying to save all of his friends from the same fate. It was why Newt favored Inka so highly and loved her way of thinking so much; she had rejuvenated every fiber of being inside of him that he had felt when he had been a runner. The knowledge that there was always a way out and that they could find it if they did not give up was what had kept him alive for the first two years, and when he had lost that the spark inside of him had died. The minute Inka had sprinted out of that box right towards the walls Newt had known that they had a troublesome package on their hands, but he had not expected her to ignite such a chain of events – especially not in his own head. This revelation caused the British boy to smile towards Thomas, patting him on the back as a jolt of positivity flowed through him.
"Get some sleep, yeah?" Newt gave his friend one last smirk before heading back towards the fire, seeing as how most of the survivors were getting ready to sleep.
It wasn't until he approached his old spot near the firepit that he realized a certain British girl had gone missing, and stopped right in his tracks before opening his mouth to ask his friends – who were all looking towards him with an air of expectancy – where she had gone.
"Inside," Minho looked up at him and motioned towards the ship's hull before the question could even fly out of Newt's mouth.
The British boy nodded in thanks and traveled towards the ripped opening in the ship's side, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness before he began to look around for Inka's form. He saw her boots peeking out from behind what seemed to be a door, so he ventured towards it and slowly opened the wooden flap with one hand before speaking.
"Not you too?" Newt stuck his head inside the compartment, seeing her form sitting several feet away on a large hunk of metal he assumed had been part of an engine at one point.
"Sorry," Inka apologized through chattering teeth before he could even ask what was wrong, as she felt guilty for separating herself from the group when Thomas had already done so. "I just wanted to think."
"In the dark?" Newt questioned, not expecting an answer as he sat down beside her only to wrap one arm around her again and begin to rub her shivering form. "What were you thinking about?"
"Everything was so simple a month ago," Inka held her head in her hands, elbows leaning against her knees as she tried to wrap her head around the whole situation that they had been dumped in. "I'm debating whether or not I would have rather lived my life in ignorance in that green box rather than come out here and face the real world."
"Well," Newt began, tackling one problem at a time. "It wasn't really that simple, was it? You came up and then Thomas and Teresa came up and it was just one big cluster fuck and a half while we were trying to get out of there." His wording caused Inka to let out a huff of laughter before she quieted again, letting him carry on with a small smirk on his face at the fact that he had made her smile. "We figured out that people want to kill us and drain us alive, and that they were watching us the entire time before technically being killed by themselves which means they would have gotten to us eventually..."
Newt trailed off as he realized he was getting caught up in all the things that had gone wrong so far, when instead he needed to be focusing on what had gone right to help drag Inka out of this mood.
"My point is," He drove his point home, hoping that it would plant a seed in her mind. "That box wasn't paradise and you knew that long ago."
"Yeah, and now we've got a grilled planet on our hands," She sighed, running a hand through her choppy hair that had not grown very much in the last several days after their escape from the Glade. "How long before we get cooked too?"
"I agree that the responsibility of handling this problem should not have fallen into our hands," Newt remained positive despite her sarcastic views on the matter, trying to alleviate the spirits of the one person who had managed to repair his broken soul. "But we've got to do what's right. We need help right now – so if the mountain people are all we've got, fine. We'll get to 'em. But at the end of the day we've got to decide whether we want to do what's right or what's easy."
Inka was silent for a moment, biting her lip in thought as she mulled over what Newt was saying to her. It was true that they would be on the run from WCKD for a long time unless they did something about the problem, but for the time being they needed their questions answered, their bodies healed and their minds relaxed. They were in no state to save the world and there was no telling whether or not they would, but if the Right Arm had that sole objective in mind it was up to the survivors to decide whether or not they were going to shy away from the prospect of destroying the torturers who had done horrible things to them thus far or hide like cowards, ignoring the justice that needed to be served.
"Of course we're going to do what's right," She finally sighed, rubbing her forehead in frustration when Newt nodded once as if the option was obvious. "My point still stands true; things were simpler a month ago, but that doesn't mean I would rather be back there than here where I am right now. It's just that I'm sure if we knew the state that things were in out here a lot of us would have hesitated to leave so soon."
"Yeah well," Newt huffed, shaking his head and letting some of his old negativity seep through almost subconsciously. It was then that he realized Inka had a tight hold on him, as her sudden drop in mood took effect on his mind state almost immediately. "Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?"
Grey and brown irises fused once more as the two looked at each other, Inka sighing as she dipped her head to indicate that he had won the small debate. Her hope had not dwindled whatsoever, and her resolution to find answers was still strong, but she was merely debating whether all this loss of life and all of the risk they had put each other through would be worth it in the end. After all, WCKD could have been right around the next corner for all they knew firing real bullets instead of mobile tasers.
"Sorry," Inka shook her head and grimaced, the movement on her face wrinkling her scars. "I didn't mean to bring you down."
"You've no idea how much you've helped." Newt let the words slip out of his mouth before he could stop them, and nearly kicked himself after he realized what he had admitted. Surprisingly however, Inka did not react the way he had suspected her to and instead smiled almost disbelievingly as pink coated her cheeks.
"How so?"
Newt heaved a sigh at her question, not wanting to take her wonderful smile away with what was to come but deciding that it was finally time to tell her what had been hiding in his eyes ever since she had questioned it in the meeting hut back in the Glade. The last thing he wanted to do was dampen her spirits, but it was necessary for her to understand exactly how much she had helped him thus far.
"It starts a while back really," Newt stuttered a bit on his words before urging himself to go onward, knowing that this story was necessary to get off his chest. "Like I told you, I remember being dumped in the Glade with a bunch of boys, a lot of which died because it was utter chaos for the first year. People were running into the maze left and right – myself included – or jumping into the box to try and see if we could find a way out. We would try all day and we lost a lot of boys to desperation. When Alby took over after Nick and George there was finally some control, and because I'd survived he made me a runner."
At this point he stopped the tale temporarily, gauging Inka's reaction and watching how she recoiled slightly in bewilderment. She looked as though she had a fair bit of questions to ask, but Newt stopped her before the words could even bubble out of her throat.
"Then when boys started coming up monthly he started handing out roles, you know?" He continued, wanting to get the ordeal over with so that the worst part would pass. "Establishing order and making a society out of what little we had. Minho came out about two years ago, and he and I would run the whole day mapping the maze out as best we could. We finished the whole map just last year – I remember filing down sticks for it every single night until my hands were numb."
Newt shook his head at the memories, seeing the truth in Inka's previous statement now that he made the comparison between the simplicity of the problems he had been faced with day to day back in the Glade and the massively complicated ones he was facing now.
"And then..." He blinked away a few stray tears as he began to recall his downfall into the deepest pits of his mental state where he knew his demons were still dancing. "We couldn't find anything. We couldn't find a way out. We kept coming up empty handed day after day after day."
He knew Inka was watching him and letting him speak, and reminded himself to thank her endlessly for allowing him to do so instead of interrupting him with questions. She knew that this was the reason behind his eyes that darkened significantly whenever the subject of a way out was discussed, or the way that Newt had been reluctant to assign Thomas the position of the runner. Inka had watched Newt's reactions to certain words and the way his friends had phrased things around him, structuring a thesis around what the sensitive topic could have possible been. Now that he was telling her, he appreciated the fact that she was certainly going to respect him opening up and not interrupt him.
"It took a year for me to break," Newt went on, remembering the fateful day as if it had just been yesterday even though equally traumatizing events had been occurring throughout the past week. Inka's face began to grow more and more concerned as she realized that the story wasn't as simple as what she had expected, even though she had predicted a fair amount of darkness to come along with it. "I started to think we were all going to die in that stupid Glade with no answers and no memories, and then I got desperate. I thought that if this was all we had there was nothing to live for, really," Newt was rambling on at this point, but he did not care and continued to speak as if Inka was not even sitting next to him anymore. "We were just stuck in a cage alone and I didn't really care to wait around for answers if there was no way out, so I climbed up one of those stupid bloody vines that didn't even go all the way to the top, and I jumped."
There was a beat of silence, and then Inka's petrified tone as if she was hoping that she had heard something incorrectly.
"What?"
"I jumped," He repeated himself pointedly, watching her face fall even further and morph into one of incredulous horror. She stared down at his leg, the fact finally clicking in her brain that this had been the reason for his limp all along. "I jumped, and I fell."
There was another moment of silent as her mouth opened and closed like that of a fish, trying to understand why or how he had convinced himself to do such a thing. To her, the only mind state possible when running and touring the maze was the unbreakable belief that answers lay out there somewhere. She knew that Minho was existing in some sort of altered mentality where he believed the fact but had also doubted it, but for her there was no other way to tackle the test that had been trapping them in for so long.
"And for a long time it was hard to -" Newt interrupted himself as a sob forced it's way out of his throat, choking him up and forcing him to pause as he covered his mouth to calm himself down before speaking again. His voice was still shaky and his mouth still trembled as it forced itself to contain the howls he wanted to let out, but he persevered just as Inka had re-taught him to do. "It was hard to see the light in things."
Inka fixed him with a soft expression he could not read, but it reminded him of the word respect so much so that the memories of his time trapped in the med-jack hut wailing himself to sleep nearly faded away completely. The image of her and the positivity she had brought about the Glade despite her rude arrival coerced him into continuing his tale, and he took a short breath before speaking again.
"And then you came out of that bloody box," Fresh tears sprung into his eyes as he described her first day all over again as if it had been a miracle rather than a horrid addition to the experiment they had all been a part of. "After three years – you came out of that box and you convinced everyone that there was a way out without even finding one. All it took was you pushing – you believed with everything you had and I haven't seen that in a long time. It changed everything."
There was a large pregnant pause as the two stared at each other, and then Inka gently clasped Newt's hand in hers only to envelop it with her other fingers. She held it tight as she blinked away her own tears, still disbelieving that he had shared such a dark memory with her and that Newt – the boy who was so wonderful at calming her down and had been the pinnacle of stability for her – had demons the size of the sun that he had hidden away. And yet here he was, telling her how she had successfully turned his mentality around from a suicide back into what it had previously been when he himself had been a runner.
"I didn't even know I made that much of a difference," Inka murmured, blinking rapidly as her shock overcame her for a brief couple of moments. "And to think I've been leaning on you for support."
"We've both been leaning on each other," Newt corrected, the two not even looking at each other anymore as they sat side by side, closer than they ever had before. There was not an ounce of space in between them as they held hands, silently making a pact to continue pushing forward together. "And I don't really think that's a bad thing."
"I don't either," Inka admitted, sharing a short side glance with him where they both let the corners of their mouths twitch upwards.
"How did you do it?" Newt began suddenly, still marveling in the way that Inka had believed so boldly that there was a way out of the maze. "How did you just keep believing that there was a way out of there?"
At that, the girl beside him let out a long huff, seemingly debating the answer to the question in her own head before speaking.
"I don't know," She admitted, breathing a shaky sigh as she thought back to what Janson had told her about her trials. "But I would have to assume that after eight hundred bloody trials I would have had to have developed some kind of unbreakable mentality, no?"
Newt swallowed heavily, not wanting to have touched on the subject of her torture during the conversation but knowing that at this point it was unavoidable.
"Three years..." Her hollow chuckle filled the small compartment as one breath of joyless laughter left her lungs. Newt did not know what to say, as the moment was still too sensitive to touch base on and he did not was to upset her any more. Inka seemed to sense this, but as soon as she was about to make another bitter jab towards her past she had a revelation of sorts. "You know what I think? I think when we feel fear, we feel hope."
Newt looked towards her at that point, watching as her jaw clenched and the smooth skin filling the space around her scars tightened with it.
"And I think hope is the only thing stronger than fear."
The British boy briefly pondered that there was in fact another emotion just as strong as hope, and that perhaps that specific emotion conquered all, but knew that in this moment it was not right to bring the subject up. There were a great many things that could have been talked about in that moment, but the ex-second in command knew that he would eventually have the time to speak to her about what was truly on his mind.
"Do you remember when you told me about that tugging in your stomach?" The memory came back to Newt out of nowhere, as if it had a mind of it's own.
Inka frowned for a moment, digging through the little memory she had, and nodded briefly. "Why?"
"I don't think I realized it at the time," Newt began, taking a leap of faith as he did not know what her reaction would be like. "But I know what you meant. The entire time I knew exactly what you were talking about – it's like someone is on the other end of that string and they're pulling as hard as they can."
Inka fixed him with a gaze that Newt could only describe as uncertainty before a small smile spread over her face and she nodded, eyes growing softer with every second. He assumed she would have been happy to hear that someone else finally felt the same thing she was feeling; it would have been a relief to know that she was not alone in her thoughts. He did however, desperately want to explain to her that the pull he felt was directly towards her. She had immediately been a source of interest for him, catching his attention as soon as she had sprung into his life and creating a vortex of support and motivation for his broken soul. Unknowingly, Inka had lifted his spirits back up to the place that they originally had been and held them there without a problem.
"I know you don't like to talk about it," The girl in question interrupted his train of thought as she frowned slightly, staring off into space. "But a lot of things you do feel familiar – like someone has done them before."
"Like what?" Newt held his breath, knowing fully well what she was trying to explain but wanting to hear it from her lips.
"Like when you help me after a nightmare," She gave the first example rather sheepishly, as if the idea was stupid. "Or when I have those awful panic attacks. I don't know – it just feels...recognizable."
His heart practically stopped when his brain reminded him that there was, in fact, a large chance that many of them knew each other before they had entered the Glade. It would not have been possible to know her very intimately if she had spent all of her time running trials – but Newt felt the same way in the sense that the deja-vu associated with the moments that he comforted her was a constant reminder of the fact that the possibility of them having known each other prior to the Maze Trials was high. And now, Newt was fairly ready to embrace those odds.
"I remember you asked me why I thought we were both British," Newt began, trying to ease the topic into play softly. "And I remember I didn't want to talk about it at all – mostly because I was scared. I didn't like the fact that no matter who we might have known on the outside those connections were erased. We were forced to start over, and I didn't even want to bother thinking about who I might've known because it was too painful to think of all the severed ties."
"But connections don't die out just like that," Inka argued, remembering how her memories had come back as if someone had forgotten to clean those certain parts of her brain. "I don't think you can erase all of that – we all remember how to do things, but not why or when we learned how to do them. We remember feelings, smells, names of things, touches – but not when we learned them or why we feel them. We had to learn all of that again, but that doesn't mean that we might not feel the same way we did towards someone."
Newt waited for a split second in awe, hoping that she was not finished with her point as his eyes roamed over her scruffy hair and sharp jawline. Despite the long scars coating her features and furrowed brows he found her the most beautiful sight he'd ever laid eyes on, and couldn't take his gaze off of her.
"I don't know," She finally looked towards him, the light in her grey eyes reflecting into his brown irises. "Maybe this is a shot in the dark, but you're different – I feel closer to you than the others. The string pulled me to you."
Seconds after she uttered the last sentence the remaining space in between them closed, their lips fusing and eyes slamming shut while Newt's hands deftly clasped any part of her he could reach as proof that he felt the same way as she. Her small fingers intertwined themselves in his hair before her hands traveled down his neck, shoulders and finally rested on his chest. Beside their soft breaths and heady touches there were no other noises in the small compartment that almost felt as though it was sheltering them from the rest of the world, hiding them from the horrors and nurturing the intimacy of the moment. Though the lack of memories in the past served as a mental blockade, the muscle memory of holding each other and skin on skin contact was like second nature to the pair. The physical memories ran too deep for any swipe to erase, and it was as if their skin had absorbed each other's information. Their movements flowed like clockwork and both parties felt how easy and natural it was to shift against each other. Touches, smells and the tastes all felt like home – as if they had just returned from a long journey and were feeling each other for the first time again. Their senses latched onto each other and welded together, performing a dance that had been buried by years of time but not forgotten.
What felt like hours passed by as they shared the intimate moment, only halting the dance when it came to a natural end and sharing dizzy, flushed expressions. Swollen lips and red cheeks were all that seemed to matter in the galaxy for several short minutes, but the two were abruptly interrupted and robbed of any more time when a soft knocking reverberated through the empty belly of the ship.
"You guys still alive in there?" Minho's echo reached their ears from the location of the hole as he took one step inside, not being able to see them clearly half because of their position and half because of the dark.
"Yeah," Inka called back quickly, feeling brave even though her voice came out hoarse and throaty.
"Okay..." Minho seemed hesitant to leave them alone, and made no move to retreat from his position until he had informed the lone pair that the team was going to head to sleep. "We're all gonna get some shut-eye, just so you know."
"Good that," Newt called back, waiting until his friend had left before he turned back towards Inka who had cleared her throat quietly. "We should get some rest."
He made a motion back towards where Minho's voice had come from, and Inka nodded briefly with a shy smile playing on her lips before standing up and moving out of the compartment. She carried both blankets on her shoulders still, only handing Newt's back to him as they clambered out of the torn hole in the side of the ship and reestablished their positions amongst the group. The two noticed that Thomas had rejoined the circle of survivors and copied their actions, huddling himself around the fire as the night sky grew darker and the temperature dropped.
To battle this and to stop Inka from freezing overnight, Newt quickly draped both of their blankets over their forms and huddled her to his chest, leaning his head back on his pack as to mimic a real pillow. He ignored curious glances from his sleepy friends, instead choosing to focus on the way Inka's body reacted to the immediate heat and quickly fell asleep nested into his side. It took several minutes for Newt to fall into the dream world himself thanks to the considerable amount of tingles that were affecting his stomach and making his hold on the small British she-bean tucked in beside him tighten, but he was soon able to match his breathing with hers and close his eyes for the final time that day.
A/N: I'm aware I'm following the movie's timeline more than the books, since I feel that it's easier to follow for people who are new to the series and the books are really, really complicated. I don't intend on having this story to be more than thirty chapters, so there needs to be a cutoff point and writing after five books does not meet that goal. Bear with me!