Chapter 35 - Flashbacks, Fire Ants and Unexpected Friendship

NEWT'S P.O.V - The Next Day

It hurts.

It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts - why are those lights so bright? TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF! There are ants in my head and they're biting and it hurts and you're making it worse. Worse, worse, worse. STOP! STOP LOOKING AT ME! People in their yellow room with their clipboards and their bright lights, go away, go away, go away. I scream at them and it hurts my throat, more pain, more fire.

"Isaac!" Tall man, blonde hair, stethoscope, doctor stereotype, you don't know me, with your hands up like that. You've handcuffed me, so how can I reply? Go away, go away, away! I scream and there are words in it, and he moves away. Good, good, go away, go away. Don't touch me. I'm a monster, you know? Don't touch me.

These white clothes itch on my skin, the ants have crawled out of my head and they're spreading and biting so I itch everywhere and I'm on fire - did you know your bloody eyeballs can itch? I didn't, I didn't, I didn't before the ants told me. I want to scratch them, knock them off but I can't, I can't, because you've cuffed my hands and I can't move. No, no, no. Where am I? I've done this before, I've been a prisoner before, I'm not letting anyone take me again - bright lights, stethoscope, clipboards, not again. WICKED isn't any bloody good. What do you want, what to do you want to do to me now? NO, NO, NO. You can cry and scream and the same time too, you know. I'm very good at it.

There's too much noise - too many voices inside, outside my head. Too many people in the room, too many people in me. I can't hear you, speak louder, speak louder - not that loud! It hurts. It bloody hurts. I can see your room, your people, but there are colours and pictures that my head wants too - concrete walls, Ma still on a carpet, Lily laughing in a forest, dustbins in a Denver street, a Berg in the Scorch - and they play their own noises. I can see your people talking, Doctor. How sweet that you think I can hear them. Too much, too much, no, no. I don't want to be a guinea pig again, I'm broken anyway, broken, broken and a monster. I scream and scream and I twist but I can't move my hands. The people with the clipboards shuffle back. They look scared. Good. Leave me alone, don't hurt me again. Please, please, please.

"Newt!" My name. A new man. Small, smaller than me. Brown hair. Hands up too. I can't do that. "I'm Will - can you talk to us, Newt? Come on now."

Will is frowning. But he has kind eyes. Green ones. He looks worried, but not worried like he's scared of me. Worried like he knows. Do you know it hurts, Will? I step towards him, and I want to speak, I want to tell him that I'm on fire but there's a gunshot in my head and I'm jumping back, hands on my ears and I scream because it's so, so loud and I keep hearing it and I can feel my head hitting the concrete and my shoulder feels like a hole. Tommy. No, no, no. I scream and kick at the people, don't touch me. Don't touch me. It hurts.

"Lily!"

What? Some of the people are shouting her name and looking at me. You've trapped her too. No, no, no. She's good, she's good, she doesn't belong here. She's not broken, she's perfect - she's a bird, you see, but you can't keep her here. Don't cage her now. Let her go, let her go, let her go. I scream, for her, for me. A man, thick glasses, a shirt that's too small shouting: "Lily, Newt! Think about Lily!"

I always think about her. Always, always. You don't have any right to think about her - please don't hurt her, not again - no right. No right.

I don't need hands, I can still hurt you.

The people panic when I run and some of them disappear. There's a door somewhere. The tall man has a spiky pen and he grabs my arm. I throw him off, hearing him crash against a chair, but not before he sticks something in me that I can feel all the way up my arm, shaking. It hurts, it hurts, but it the hurting is stopping. I can still feel the ants but the ants are slowing down. I'm on the floor - how did I get here? It's not concrete, its a carpet, soft, soft and fluffy. The ants are slowing down and I can't move my hands, but I can't move my arms or my legs either. What have you done to me? I try to scream but it's more of a mewl. The panic is so strong it's a pain in the pit of my stomach. If I could move, I'd be sick.

"Okay. I'm with you, Oxford. I think there's something in it. But we're talking long-term sedation here. Four months at least."

"Alright. Alright, just let me try and help him."

What? Help me, yes, help me, please, I can't move. And I can't hear anymore and the noises have stopped playing in my head and I'm frightened. I'm frightened but it all goes dark.

SIX MONTHS LATER

The ceiling is blue. That's the first thing I notice. The ceiling at WICKED was always white. Where am I? I'm tired of asking that question. I'm tired. I'm just tired. I try to turn my head to see the room, but it feels like I'm moving through a sea of treacle, it happens so slowly. My muscles feel like they've rusted together, rusted with my bones and tendons, and it hurts to even move my neck like that. It hurts.

The yellow room. The spiky pen. Blackness. It doesn't hurt so much now. The itching is still there, I realise, scratching away at the back of my head, enough to make it pound with the beginnings of a headache - shuck it, ow, ow, ow - but I'm not screaming anymore. I can think. It's like thinking through a swamp that's someone's thrown litter and shopping trolleys and bits of metal into, but I can think.

The room isn't all that big. There are two padded chairs in the corner, a rug on the floor, some crutches by the door, a table with nothing but a desk lamp and the bed I'm lying on. I push myself up onto my elbows, muttering 'Ow, ow, ow' as pain lances up my arms from my wrists. The black worms are still there, dark and raised on my skin. Go away. Above the bed is a whiteboard with the words: "Isaac 'Newt' Newton" and 'Care of Will Oxford' scrawled onto it. Will Oxford? Who's that - a scientist?

I push myself up even more until I'm sitting up, tiny bolts of pain shooting from all the muscles I try to move and making me gasp. This is a different kind of pain. I don't know if it's better. As I do, something tugs on my arm and I look down. There's a drip in one of the veins of my hand. I pull it out. Ow. Just then, the door opens.

I jump and a tic in my neck starts up, the muscle spasming so my head snaps to the side, jarring my whole body and sending a wave of irritation through me.

"Hi Newt." I recognise the man standing on the rug. He's got brown hair and green eyes. He frowns, like he's worried and says: "Sorry - I didn't mean to make you jump. That looked painful."

"It was." I slowly swing my legs round to the side of the bed, grimacing as my head snaps to the side again. "Where am I? Where am I? Who are you? Is this another bloody experiment?"

The man looks sad and takes another step towards me, warily, slowly, so I know what he's doing. "No." He's shaking his head vehemently. "No, Newt, it's not. I promise all that's over now. You're in New York, in the biggest Flare Rehabilitation Centre in the city."

"What does that mean?" I shoot back at him. "What does that mean? Sounds a lot like the places WICKED used to shack us up."

The man sits down slowly on the far end of the bed, and I shrink back. Don't touch me. I'm a monster.

"It's a hospital of sorts, I guess." The man says, "You were brought here from Denver 'cause you were really sick, Newt. Do you remember that?"

Laughter bubbles up in my chest and I can't help it, even though it hurts, I'm laughing until I'm doubled over, until the sound rings off the walls. "Remember that?" I manage through the laughter. "Oh yes, yes, yes, yes. I think I remember that!"

I'm shouting the last few words, the laughter dying in my throat as quickly as it showed up. Remember that. I think you'd remember that. Remember being trapped in your own bloody skull. Remember fighting and screaming and itching and-

"Of course - I'm sorry. That wasn't a great choice of words, was it?" The man looks sorry. "I haven't done this many times. Anyway, you're here firstly because you're cured. There isn't a trace of the Flare virus left in your cells. But, you have suffered some serious mental damage as a result of the Flare, so you'll be here with us for a couple of months until your mind has recovered as well as your body and you'll be back to yourself. My name's Will - I'll be your supervisor while you're in here, your go-to-guy."

I don't have the Flare. There's a cure. I don't have the Flare. I want to laugh but then I just want to cry. So why does my head hurt? Why am I still seeing colours, why aren't the scars gone, why are all my tics still there? I can't answer at first, the swamp in my head makes it buggin' impossible to process his bombshell and talk at the same time.

"It still hurts." I whisper, touching my head lightly with my fingertips, tracing a line down to my neck. "Not as deep. But it still hurts. Hurts."

Will nods and slides a bit closer to me. That's close enough, close enough, stop.

"Yeah. I know. But most of that isn't your mind anymore, it's just your muscles warming up. You've been unconscious on the drugs for six months, Newt."

I try to stand up, pushing up on my hands, but something in my leg buckles and I fall back onto the bed. "Six months! Six shucking months!"

Will nods again and gives me a wry smile that somehow makes the panic shrink a bit. "Trust me when I say you needed it. As for standing up-" He gestured to my legs and then to the crutches by the door. "- again, you've been lying down for six months. You'll need those crutches for a while. We might even try a wheelchair today - short term, I promise."

I nod, even though I hate it, because this man is nice and this man is trying to help me. Will has a cut on his forehead, I realise. Ow. I reach out slowly, and he doesn't even flinch, letting me trace the scabbed gash with my fingertips. "Does that hurt?" I ask quietly.

Will wrinkles his nose and tilts his head to one side. "A bit, I guess. When you poke it like that, yeah it does." I pull my hand back quickly, muttering 'sorry, sorry, sorry' and he laughs. "Don't worry. It hurt more when I did it. It was a shelf I hadn't screwed in right - slid out the other morning."

I go to brush my hair off my forehead to show him my scar, but there isn't as much of it as usual. They cut my hair. I point to the scar connected to my left eyebrow. "I've got one like that. It was a cupboard."

Will laughs again, but not cruelly. "Yeah, I heard. Yours is a bit deeper than mine, I think." Another wry smile.

There's a plant that helps with cuts. I can't remember. We used it in the Glade but I can't remember. My ma used to show me, but I don't remember. Oh.

"Dock leaves." I mumble.

"What?"

"Dock leaves, dock leaves." I point at his cut. "Ma had a bottle of it. Used to help."

Will looks confused for a second, but then his face clears. "Oh - I always thought it was witch hazel. But I could try it - thank you."

He's smiling at me, but I've stopped looking at him, inspecting my war wounds. The black scars are on my legs too - go away, go away - but there's another one on the back of my right calf. A long puckered line, that wasn't there before, scarred white, thick and bulbous and I remember - it's dark in Denver. The streetlight isn't working and I'm too tired to move to somewhere else. Stupid, stupid, stupid. They found me. The hunters. And I'm too tired to run. The man leaning over me has breath that smells worse than the animal klunk in the Glade, his teeth are yellow, and there's a long wrinkled, white scar all the way down the side of his face. 'Bet you were a pretty one once, bucko...' His voice sounds like grinding metal. 'You ain't one of them no more - what makes you too good to be one of us, eh? Eh?' His knife is sharp and curved and I don't have one. He traces it along the line of my throat, while his pack cackle behind him. I'm shaking so much that he could kill me, one wrong move could kill me. I don't have a knife, but there's an iron bar in the dust. I don't want to, but, but...

"Newt!" Will, not the man. I can hear him, but I can't answer him. My knees are pulled up to my chest, my hands over my ears. Get me out, get me out, get me out. Nausea is pounding through my body and I'm shaking, I can feel the steel on my skin, I can feel it. Will takes my hand, gently, and runs his thumb over the back of it in slow circles, grounding me. "Hey, come on now," He says. "Come on now. You're safe here. Come on now."

Gradually, I wrestle my breathing under control and pull my other hand away from my ear, looking up at Will, still tracing the circles on my hand, who says, "It's okay. You had some surgery on that leg, to try and fix the damage you did at WICKED. That's all the scar is."

His face is blurring with the face of the man. I start to nod slowly, but then something occurs to me and I rip my hand out of his, skittering back to the head of the bed. The panic's starting up again. My brain doesn't seem to focus on one thing for more than one bloody second.

"How did you know to do that?" I snap, fear ebbing in. Will is frowning, but he doesn't speak. He's waiting for me to explain. "With my hand. My hand - how did ya' know that would work? My Ma used to do that. Lily used to do that. How did you know?"

"I saw-" Will starts, but pauses and starts the sentence again. "I've got two little sons myself."

He pulls a wallet out of his back pocket and holds it out to me. "Do you want to see?"

Yes.

I nod, moving forward a bit on the bed, my wrist snapping this time and Will grimaces in sympathy. He pulls out a photograph of him on some grass with two wee kids on his lap. One looks about five with messy dark brown curls, the other maybe two with lighter, golden brown hair. He's wearing a Spider-Man costume. They're right cute.

"I know because my youngest's convinced there's a bogeyman in the cupboard. I have to check every night, but he still wakes up screaming, even when he knows there's nothing there. Being a Dad has really streamlined my 'calming down' skills." Will tells me. "I don't have an ulterior motive, Newt. I promise, there's no villain this time. I just want to help."

Isn't there always a villain? Always, always, always. Show me a time in my life when there hasn't been a bloody villain. If it isn't you, then that only leaves...

"I don't think you're the bogeyman." I reply. "No...I don't. No. You were kind to me. When everybody was shouting and driving shucking nails into my skull?"

"What?"

"In that room, that room," My memory isn't good enough, it's all too bloody dark. "The yellow room."

Surprise raises Will's eyebrows. "Oh! I didn't think you'd remember that. And good, I'm glad to hear it."

"I do." I look back at the boys in the sunlight. "What are their names? Your sons?"

"That's Arthur-" Will points at the older one, "- and that's Danny. Daniel."

Danny. Danny. 'You see those fireworks, Danny? Those are the colours you paint your dreams with, okay?'

I smile a little, even though the name sends a sudden pang through my chest. "Danny... my name was Danny once."

Will nods, matching my smile and says: "Yes. Yes, Lily did mention that to me."

What? He's seen Lily. He's seen her. No, no, no, no, no. Has she seen me? I don't want her to know. She can't know. I don't want her to know. Her face in the alley in Denver, horrified, her hazel eyes enormous under the glare of the streetlights. 'You're one of the good guys, remember?' She really believed that then - if she saw me now, she wouldn't think that. She can't see me, he mustn't tell her, he mustn't tell her. Pure anger floods through me, almost as crippling as the pain. Will looks up, and he groans, rubbing his forehead with his hand.

"I forgot to mention, as she's listed as your next of kin, along with Min-"

"They can't know!" The growl rips from my throat, through my clenched teeth. "What the bloody hell are you telling them?"

Will puts his hands up in front of me, a gesture of innocent surrender that only fuels the anger. "Newt, there's nothing wrong, they understand that-"

"No! You don't know that!" I'm practically spitting, shaking. "I'm a shucking monster - I don't want them to see me! This isn't the guy who was their friend, okay?" I'm gasping for breath, inviting him to look at the mess I've made of my body. "You have no bloody right to tell them anything! Anything, anything!" The fury, the shame, is like a screen in front of my eyes, my senses, and I raise my arm to show him that no shucking psychobabble can ever make up for that, when he shouts.

"Newt! Newt, you don't want to do that." You wanna bet? They mustn't know. Will jumps up and grabs a photo frame that I hadn't seen before. "You're better than that. I know it. They know it. Look-"

He tosses the photo frame into my hands as quickly as he can. "Look. Look. You might not feel like the person they love, the person they've told me you are, but that isn't going to last. You can fight this. You might feel alone, but every one of those people is behind you."

I look at the frame, running my trembling fingers across it. It's you, it's you, it's you. I don't know where the photo was taken. It's a big room with a purple sofa, high up - you can see skyscrapers out of the windows - Lily's perched on the arm of the sofa, smiling at the camera. 'This isn't you, N.' No. No, I know. I take a shuddering breath in, pulling the photo closer. Karly's next to her, one arm around her waist. 'Hear, hear', another breath.

"They love you so much. And they believe in you, utterly. So do I. You've got so many people in your corner, you just need to believe in yourself too. You haven't lost that person, Newt. He's still there. You don't need to be the same person, because none of them are. You've all grown, you've all changed, and that's not a bad thing - you're becoming something new, and you get to choose who that is. Nobody's choosing for you anymore."

Minho is sitting next to Karly wearing some bloody awful vest top and doing bunny ears behind her head. I start to laugh and I see Will's shoulders go down. Clint is next to Minho, doing finger guns and Gally - Gally, weird - is on the other side of him, sandwiched between Brenda and - no.

My head starts to spin again, my vision blurring as my memories try to suck me under. No, no. Tommy. No, no, no. Dark tunnels, the outskirts of Denver. A gun that I gave him. Kill me, kill me. No, no. He was crying. The concrete. The sky that was totally grey. The words I said - God, God, God.

"Get out!" I scream, the anger surging up again, making my throat seem no wider than a pinhole. I pull myself upwards on the bedside table and I can feel my eyes burning, tears mingling with liquid fury. Will moves backwards towards the door, his eyes wide. There's fear there now.

"Newt-"

"No! Get out!" Thomas was crying. I can't, Newt, I can't.' With all the strength I've got, I hurl the frame at Will, who ducks as it hits the doorframe and shatters on the floor. I scream again and again. "Get out! Get out! Get the bloody hell out!"

Will gives me a long look, but I can't look at him and he turns and leaves, the door closing with a click and the sound of something locking. Trapped, trapped, get out, can't get out now. I turn back, so I can't see the door, can't see the photo, can't see the glass on the carpet and I sink to the floor.

"Please just leave me alone."

2 1/2 MONTHS LATER

Click. I twist the blue puzzle piece around between my fingers - Click - which means I can get that yellow one in there - wait, no, purple one first - click, click. The green one slides in easily after that - yes - and I pick up the red one to snap it into place, but my fingers spasm and it goes skittering across the floor instead, smacking into the leg of the armchair where I can't reach it, because one of my hands is chained to the wall. Damn.

I put that one to one side and lean across to grab another puzzle from the bedside cabinet. Ow, ow, ow. The handcuff digs into my wrist, leaning a red line across it as I pull the next puzzle into my lap - a weaving-type thing - and start weaving the strands around each other with my free hand. It feels kind of weird to be practicing for a Flare Grade Test while handcuffed to the wall, like I'm kidding myself, but here we are. It's early, I think. Not long after 06:00 - breakfast here isn't 'til 7:30 but three years in the Maze wakes me up at 5:30 and I can't do much about it.

Red, green, blue strands, round and round my fingers. This isn't that hard yet. I wonder what the others are doing this morning. Does Minho have work? If not he'll definitely be conked out. Has Charlie fed the guinea pig yet? Is Lily awake? Is she looking at the birds and the people in the parks? I want to know even though every piece of information aches because it's secondhand. I haven't been working at this puzzle that long when a silhouette passes over the curtains outside my room and the door swings open.

"Morning, morning, morning!" It's Will. He's smiling and I hope Arthur's party went well.

"Hi." I answer as he closes the door behind him. My attention is torn between him, the puzzle and the red piece on the floor so I can't quite match his enthusiasm. Will walks over to the bed and looks over my shoulder at the weaving puzzle.

"Not bad, kiddo. Nice - how long'd that take?"

"Not sure. Five, five minutes? Can you pass me that one, please?"

Will scoops up the piece on the floor and hands it to me and I slot it back into the puzzle. There. I watch his eyes flick between the puzzle and my other hand, locked to the rail on the wall and he sighs heavily.

"I thought we were past this." He gestures to the rail. "You don't need to do that anymore, Newt."

Yesterday. That stupid comment. The red mist. The door I'd slammed and run from while I still could.

"I nearly hit him." I say, turning my eyes back to the puzzle. Will nods, tilting his head to one side.

"But you didn't. Newt, if people outside got locked up for what they nearly did, then there'd be more prisons than public toilets out there."

I laugh at that. "I don't know - there could be, for all I bloody know. But I nearly hit him, Will."

"But that was yesterday. And you didn't." Will walks over to a splintering dent in the plaster on the far side of the room and smiles, turning back to me to raise his eyebrows. "Good hole in the wall, though."

I glance down at my scraped knuckles. Ow. "Sorry, sorry," I murmur. "Just didn't want to risk it."

Will understands. He nods and says: "Safe call, I guess. To be honest, if he'd carried on being a misogynistic prick much longer, I might have hit him."

He drags the armchair over so it's facing me and sits down in it. "Did you sleep like that, Jailbird?"

Just then, a tic shows up in my shoulder and twists the muscle, making my whole body jolt backwards into the head of the bed and a dull thud echo around the tiny room as pain rushes through me and kips down in the back of my head.

"Shuck it," I hiss, "And no, no, no, I didn't." I glare at the offending shoulder and then smile. "Erin unlocked the cuff when she gave me my shot last night. Probably a good thing, if it'd've done that all bloody night. I'd've been dog tired this mornin'-"

"And much grumpier." Will adds with a teasing grin. He knows me by now. I hate shoulder tics and head tics more than anything. They're the only ones that can stop you doing shucking everything. "Why'd you put it back then?"

"My head hurts today." My head hurts all the time - ow, ow, ow - but I've learned to tune out, mostly. But it hurts like a mother today and it's already throwing me off - even without bloody shoulder tics. "Didn't want to risk it."

Too scared to risk it. Will nods again, like he isn't going to say any more about it, accepting my judgement and my eyes wander around the room again. My guitar is standing in the corner - a mahogany one with rosewood details. Lily, Minho and the others bought it for my birthday back in December - my twentieth birthday. I'm twenty. In fact, by now, I'm closer to twenty-one. It seems incredible that I've made it this far. But Will wouldn't actually give me the guitar until I'd passed my Orange Grade Test a month ago - which makes sense, I 'spect, in case I'd decided to throw it. I can play it again now, most of the time, and it's good therapy for when the Flare mist decides to descend and I lock myself in here rather than screw up anybody else's day. The wrist I've locked into the the handcuff spasms against the metal as I look - a reminder that I can't play anything today - and I wince.

"You okay?" Will looks up.

"In general," I reply. "Put this on the wrong bloody wrist and it hurts now. It hurts, Will. It hurts. Ugh." I growl at the repetitions I can't stop. "That won't get me past the buggin' Grade Test, will it?"

"Well, it doesn't sound great, but you weren't doing that as much a few days ago. The repeating. You're stressing about it, and I think that's making it worse."

I nod and lean back as far as I can, still attached to the wall, and close my eyes. "I know. But then I worry about bloody worrying about it. I can't win!"

We both laugh - it's getting easier to laugh at the Flare's enigmas than to cry about 'em, now I know I can kick it - and Will pulls two thermos cups out of his rucksack.

"Tea?" He asks.

"Yes, please." This means that we're about to have A Serious Discussion. That's when Will cracks out the thermos. He pours two cups out and hands me one, while I brace myself. Please don't be about my Triggers...

"How close to yourself do you feel you are, now, Newt?" Will asks, scooting forward in his chair and leaning his elbows on his knees. And there it is...

"That's a big question for 6:30 in the morning." And not one I really want to search my shucked head for the answer to. Maybe because I've never been that sure of 'myself'. Will doesn't let me ignore it, watching me with his sharp green eyes, and even if I didn't say anything, he'd read it in my face.

"Don't swerve," He chided. "Yeah, it is. Think about it for me."

I think about it. "I'm stronger now than I was. I can stand and run. I don't need the stick much. My limp's actually better - you can't really even see the thing."

'Okay, so that's physically. How about you?"

I think about it. "I'm still a bloody hothead... and I was never like that. That was one of my best qualities, I reckon, that I never really got mad like the others did."

Will nodded, skilfully leaving a gap for me to elaborate in.

"I'm still meaner, I think. I give people less room for stuff. And mood swings-"

I shoot Will an apologetic look and he laughs and finished the sentence for me, "-are still a problem. I'm just glad you've stopped throwing picture frames at me."

He took a long sip of tea, then leaned back in the chair, his eyes half-closed, like he was picking his words. Oh no. "I'm going to throw a strange phrase at you now, Newt."

"Okay."

"Would you ever say you were a bad person? As a Crank?"

Yes. The voices in my head - both the Flare and my own paranoia - spat the answer straight back at me. But then Lily's voice breaks in: 'you're one of the good guys, remember?' And it's just not that bloody simple. This time, Will doesn't rush me because he can see that I'm thinking about it.

"I think..." I say slowly, twisting the handcuffed wrist until it stopped clicking. "I think I could be. Past tense, I mean. I think there were times when anybody watching would have called me a bad person in Denver. And I guess the worst bloody part is that I don't remember. I ain't gonna remember - I could be a serial killer and I ain't gonna remember-"

"You aren't a serial killer." Will said. "You'd remember enough of that. Carry on."

"Okay. So I might have done bad things in Denver, but I...I don't know that that makes me a bad person. I've been thinkin', now I've met some other Cranks in here, and think about the Cranks I met out there...I'm not sure that the people being cruel, being bad people, wasn't about where we were. Wasn't because of how shucking frightened we were - doesn't matter whether you were old, young, fast, slow, innocent, all-knowing, you were bloody frightened. Wasn't about just tryin' to survive. I've met people now that are as sick, sicker than me, and I wouldn't call anybody here bad. We're just sick. And now we're here, we don't have to be sick and do the really awful things to keep bloody breathing. We're just sick."

Will doesn't reply for a while, just watching me, considering it as he drinks his tea, so I shoot back at him.

"What do you think?"

His eyes widen in surprise and now he answers quickly. "Oh, I don't think you're a bad person, Newt. I think you're an inherently good person, in fact. But yes...I see what you mean about good people being forced to do bad things. I think that's it. I don't think merely having the Flare necessarily makes you a bad person, though it can do, if you're not careful."

I look down at the black rope-like scars on my arms, I can feel them standing out on my neck, can feel the itching in the back of my skull.

"But it's funny," I say, crossing my legs under me. "I'm not that much bloody better, am I? Am I? Am I?"

"You're a lot better." Will argues as he glances at his watch and packs the thermos away, scary questions fired. He chuckles lightly. "You don't remember much of that first day, but McAdams was convinced you were going to kill him."

The tall man. He's been nicer to me since than I probably deserve.

"Have I told him I'm sorry? I don't think I have told him I'm sorry. Tell him I'm sorry, Will."

"Will do, kiddo." Will gets up and fishes the key for the handcuffs out of the top drawer. I don't question it.

"How sick do you reckon I am now?" I ask as Will twists the key in the lock. He wrinkles his nose and makes a humming sound.

"Honestly? I'd say 30, 35%, maybe? Won't know for sure 'til your Test later."

Later. What if I fail? I can't do another test for a fortnight if I fail and that's another fortnight that I'm not out there. But there's another voice whispering too - what if you're not good enough? What if you're still batshit crazy and they just haven't noticed? What if you've still got the virus? What if what if what if. I don't answer and Will guesses what I'm thinking, like always. He gently detaches the handcuffs from my arm and sits down next to me. I can manage close now. Will is a friend. I've got that far in my head. But I can see too how he'll be a good father. Like now - he rests one hand on my shoulder and turns me so I can see his face.

"Newt. You can pass this test. Okay? It's one of many and one of many that you're going to excel in. Your control and your percentage are well into Yellow Grade territory. You're not an Orange Rated patient anymore on anything but the documents. All you've got to do is answer a few questions, walk around a bit and solve a few puzzles - much easier ones than you're already doing on your own. Don't stress. You'll walk it, kiddo."

I hope so. Then Will lets go and moves to put the handcuffs back in the medical drawer.

"Aren't you going to put those back on?" I ask, offering him the wrist that hasn't got tiny scratches all round it from the last two hours.

He shakes his head and holds his hand out to me - first thing in the morning, anything is possible with the Flare, including falling straight over when I try to stand up - and I take it with a questioning expression.

"Nope," Will tells me. "Come on. It's nearly seven on a Thursday morning, Newt."

And he moves off towards the door. He's still holding my wrist, supporting me and I don't have any choice but to follow the guy.

"And that means?" I question as we start to make our way down the outer corridors of the Rehab centre, which are starting to fill with all the usual morning characters and general hubbub. We walk past old Mr Oak's room as he opens his curtains and he flaps his hand at me in a frantic wave. I smile and start to wave, but my wrist tic spasms my arm backwards instead and he laughs.

"You'll see." Will replies. This makes me nervous and makes my neck tic twitch. Surprises have become one of my least favourite things, but I decide to change the subject.

"How was Arthur's party?" I ask him. It works. Will's face immediately lights up as we reach the corridor with the all the big windows onto the city, waking up too.

"Oh, so good!" Will grins. "My mother in law didn't make a single disparaging comment, Danny had fun too, Arthur loved the fire engine I picked - he loved the tiny fireman you made him out of that wood and said to say thank you. He also wanted to know if you could shed your skin, like the newts in class?"

I bark a laugh as we approach the corner of the corridor overlooking the Main Street outside. "No, unfortunately. Damn, that'd be cool though. Tell him I wish I could."

"Will do. The cake was a huge success too, though there was a hairy moment when-" Will stops mid-sentence, looking out of the window nearest to him. "Look. Come here, Newt. Look there."

At first I don't see anything. The grass verges look exactly the same as they always do from these windows. The buses going by are the same, the signs haven't moved, the same amount of slow-moving traffic inching its way along the road outside. That's not to say I couldn't watch it for hours - I could. When you've lived the life that we have, there are some things that don't get boring. But then I do see it. There's a path that winds from the nearby parks into the Centre that cuts across the grass verges below the window. By the gate is a small figure in a red duffel coat, navy boots and a white beret. It's a girl, walking quickly, because it ain't all that warm out. She's got dark brown hair, spilling out under the beret, and there's something about that springing, determined walk that always comes back to one person. But that can't be her. The figure walks past the first few entrance buildings along the path over the verges and suddenly stops outside our building, 'A' Block, slap bang in the middle of the path.

"What's she doing?" I ask Will. "Has she forgotten something?"

"Just look at her, Newt." Is all he says.

Right then, the girl looks up, her face blushed and rosy in the cold, and I feel like someone's reached into my chest and squeezed my heart, so hard it's beating double time, blood rushing through my body. The hazel eyes, that I can't see from here, but my memory fills in, the tumbling brown curls, the way she's bouncing on the balls of her feet, looking at the windows, like she's only waiting for the wind before she takes off and flies. Lily.

Lily, Lily, Lily. Lily. The two syllables thrum in every heartbeat and I freeze, everything in me aching, but Will doesn't. He knew and he waves. Lily sees him and starts to wave back. But she freezes too. Because she sees me.

No, no, no. She thinks I'm a monster. She can't know.

She can't know. I go to turn, to run back, but Will's support of my arm has morphed into an iron grip and I can't move. She can't know. But Lily is already moving - nothing stops her for long, she's continual motion - one hand over her mouth, she's bouncing again but she's waving this time. She's waving at me. She moves her hand and she's smiling. But she's crying too - I remember the way she'd sweep under her eyes with her fingertips. Lily's there. She's really there. And bloody hell, I've never seen anything more beautiful.

I miss you, I miss you, I miss you. And I wave back, smiling. You're real. This is all real.

"She does that every day. On her way to 'C'." Will says softly, even though he knows I'm not looking at him.

"But why's she crying?"

"Because you've never been there before."

Oh, Lilybird. Bloody hell, I miss you. So much. So much. She waves and cries and smiles, but then she jumps and pulls something out of her pocket. It's flashing red and even I know what it is - a ringing pager. Lily looks back up at our window and waves one more time, before pointing back, almost apologetically at C Block, just out of sight. I nod and smile and wave and watch her until she disappears around the corner. And then I watch the space she had occupied on that corner, the image of the girl in the red duffle coat holding me in place until the Flare gives me a kick along with the shock and my knee buckles. I slide down to the floor, my back against the cool plaster of the wall. My heart is beating like a drum and I can feel the echoes of each one, like ripples on water, through my chest. I'm shaking, but I'm not afraid. As if it was glass, not leather, I run my fingers over her name on the leather wristband she'd given me the day I'd guessed her other one. The day I'd promised her I'd bring it back. Almost there, love. Almost there.

Will just stands there, leaning on the windowsill, waiting. Eventually, I look up at him and he smiles and offers me his hands.

"Was that a test?" I ask, accepting his offer and staggering to my feet.

"Not a serious one," Will replied, looking out over the morning commuters of New York. "I did want to see if you could take it - seeing her again, the memories. You did really well."

"I-I-I loved it. I love her."

That's when Will's gaze returns to me. He's still smiling, and I watch him twist the ring on his left hand around once, and he's looking at me with that strange mix of an invested friend and an analysing psychologist. He loops his arm through mine again - if I wasn't sure I could make it down here before, I definitely bloody can't now - and we start to walk back towards the main rooms together.

"Do you want to do that again tomorrow?"

"With you?" I check. "Yes! Yes, please. But not on my own."

"Of course." Will understands. He knows what I'm afraid of. We walk for a couple of turns in silence, my eyes darting around the corridor like they always do, from person to door handle, to equipment to brightly-coloured curtains and then I say:

"Why did ya' test me today? If Lil's always done that. Why did you test me today? Is it to do with the Grade Test?"

Will pulls a face as we turn back into our corridor. "Sort of." He replies, again putting his words together carefully, as if this conversation is a jigsaw that won't quite fit together otherwise. "If you pass your test today, I'm considering giving you a roommate in a few weeks."

"A roommate!" Somebody I can't run from. They'd have to see things, parts of me that are only passing over me for a while, parts that I'm choosing to throw out. They might help me do it. Maybe I could help them. Start what I'd always told the others I would do - something worthwhile.

"Yeah," Will pushes open the door to the Dining Hall and follows me in. "With your permission, obviously - I'd never force anything like that on you. But we had a guy come in a few weeks ago from a settlement near the old WICKED Complex - he'll be under sedation for another few weeks - but I spoke to your friends and I hear you know him, and that might be good for both of you."

It's my turn to wrinkle my nose - though not as effectively, 'cause my head snaps to one side simultaneously, sending a bolt of pain down my spine this time.

"Who is it?"

"A boy called Jackson."

A MONTH LATER

I'm curled in one of the armchairs in my room - our room, now, I guess - trying to finish the book Will's lent me, but my attention keeps wandering from the letters on the page. It's a good book - just looks like my head's not playing ball. I've been helping out the nurses with the shelving in the Common Room and I'm tired, which - now I'm at 20% and Dark Green Graded - is the only time my Flare really plays up, beyond the occasional snap. Instead, I lean back on the sofa arm and look up at the ceiling and count the lines on the air vents, running my fingers around the green plastic band on my wrist, then twist all the way back to watch my roommate.

Jackson's asleep on the other bed, still in his clothes from the co-ordination session he had with Will before lunch. From the look Will shot me over our tomato soup a few hours ago, I'm guessing it wasn't a sparkling session. Jackson looks almost exactly how I remember him. Coppery curls, blue eyes, shorter than he'd like to be, plus the twisted black scars up his arms and ankles. Jax was always effervescent - bouncy to the point of being annoying back in the Glade - but now, it's a bit like someone's taken that light and drawn some curtains round it. It's still there, but it ain't anything like as bright. We were never the best of mates in the Glade - he had his brothers and I had mine - but we'd always got on, I've always liked the kid. He's been my roommate for two weeks now, and I still like him. I want to help the shank.

He was a lower percentage when he got in here - 57 rather than my bloody rabid 83, god knows how - his scars don't go above his elbows and he's already on Orange Grade and coming down faster than me. He's got the Yellow Grade Test the day after tomorrow and swings between feeling just about okay about it and screaming mad about the whole thing and calling it all off.

Right now, he's collapsed on the bed, but he ain't sleeping easy. Tiny frowns keep scuttling over his face, and he makes these small gasping sounds, flinching a little. I frown too and try to pick up my book again. The words are all blurring on the page. Well, that ain't happening. I go back to counting, the tiles on the carpet this time, when Jackson's murmurs turn into cries:

"No! No, please!" He's thrashing suddenly, his hands out to beat off an invisible enemy.

I'm on my feet in a second and over by his bed. I know what those dreams feel like. I wish I didn't.

"Jax!" I call, putting my hand on his shoulder. "Jackson!"

"Please don't!" He's almost sobbing, poor kid, not seeming to feel my hands. "I'm, I'm sorry, please!"

"Jackson!" I kneel on the edge of the bed and shake him, roughly. "Jax - it's me, Newt. Come on, brother, it's not real. Jackson!"

Jackson flies bolt upright with a muffled gasp, almost slamming his forehead into mine and making me cringe back, reflex taking over. I wait for him to come back into the room, sitting cross-legged on the floor, where he can see me. Gradually, his breathing gets less ragged, his eyes lose that shucked haunted expression and he looks down at me, as if it was me he was seeing, not what was in his head.

"Newt? S-sorry. Sorry- I - sorry..."

I wrinkle my nose and pat his knee from my spot on the carpet. "Sorry? Sorry nothin', ya' lug. Where were ya'?"

He rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands, his hair sticking up in every direction. "That village. The one with the cult...shuck it, I thought they were going to kill me,

Newt. They said they would. For what 'you people do'. They said they'd kill me, kill me, kill me."

He's shaking and I trade the carpet tile for a seat on his bed, putting an arm around his shoulders. Jackson's only couple of months younger that me, but it feels like years right now. "I know," I tell him. "But you're safe here. Nobody can get ya'. Nobody's ever going to now. We kick this bloody bug and we're free. For real, man."

He nods slowly, leaning into my arm and eventually replies, "Yeah...yeah. But is it always going to be like this?"

Jackson's expression is bleak as he waves his arms at the blue bedroom. I don't understand.

"What do you mean?" I ask. He growls, and I know that frustration, not getting the words in your head out of your mouth, but then he says:

"I mean - are we ever going to be free, really? Or is that just more shuck psychobabble to stop us freaking out on them? What's the use in being 'free' if every time I close my eyes I'm back there, every time I blink, I'm back back back in the Homestead listening to the Grievers or fighting in the Maze, or being blown apart in the Scorch or eating dead cats in some backstreet somewhere 'cause I'm slowly going crazy?"

I shiver, his words triggering a convulsion in my own head. I didn't need that detail.

"Like, does it ever get any better than this? Than this?"

I could bullshit, I think. I could tell him that it's all going to be roses and unicorns from now on, and hey, maybe it will be. I was always the man with the plan in the Glade and he'd probably listen to me. But that could be a lie. I take a deep breath before answering him.

"I don't know." I say, because it's the truth. "I really don't know. But I hope it does. I've had less flashbacks the longer I've been in here, so I'm pretty sure that gets better. But if we don't try, Jax, then we ain't ever gonna buggin' know, are we? We've gotta make new memories, meet new people, crowd out all the total klunk with the good stuff and then we'll see. Yeah, the past bloody sucked, but we can't live there. We've gotta live in the now."

Jackson pulls back a little and turns ninety degrees to face me, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He's thinking about it.

"Is that what you're doing?" He asks.

"Trying to," I reply. There are days when the voices are too strong. Days when I don't get out of bed, days when I can't speak to anyone because I'm too deep in my head to hear what they're saying. But there are days that aren't like that and I manage to smile at the younger boy and say. "Honestly? I'm too bloody stubborn, I can't let 'em win. WICKED. The Flare. Even if I don't think I'm strong enough, I want to be stronger than they thought I was."

"Yeah. I get that. And that's how you know you're gonna get out?"

"Oh, I'm getting out!" I laugh, looking around the blue room with its tawny armchairs and glass observation windows. "I mean, this place is nice, but I'd rather go somewhere where people in white coats can't watch me sleep, ya' know? Seven years of that's enough for anybody. I'm getting out. It's just what I do then, I guess."

Jackson looks confused, glancing down at my wristband. Lily's Dad's wristband.

"Won't you go back to Lily? And the others?" He asks, his brow furrowed.

A pang shoots through me at the million dollar question that I've asked myself a thousand times and I look over at my bedside table, where Lily's letters are tied up with a shoelace. I'm too frightened to answer them, though I read them again and again. What if it doesn't sound like me? What if she can tell? I've sent cards and photographs through Will, but I've spent all day checking them, sending them through the nurses, some other Supers as well as Will himself. Above the bedside table is a notice board, a growing collage I'm making of the photos they send me. Lily at the Christmas party in 'C' Block, juggling toddlers in her arms. Karly and Minho at a racetrack somewhere. Clint sitting on a railing with a girl I don't recognise. Lily and Charlie cradling guinea pigs - Smudge and Pippin - on the purple sofa, next to a photograph of Isla and Savannah Davenport riding a swan boat in the parks (both of whom have written me more letters than I can count). Gally and Lily at a pizza joint on Valentine's Day (there was a letter explaining that one), Lily trying to get him to pull faces for the camera. All of them sitting round a table in a café somewhere with a woman with grey hair and a spotted pinafore patting Charlie and Clint on the head - Mrs T. She sent me a lovely Christmas card. The group picture makes me think about the words stained into my neck, overlapped now with thick black blood vessels - I was the 'Glue' that held them together, but the one who fell apart. Ironic, really. The old me would have laughed.

"Newt? Won't you?" Jackson prompts, that irrational irritation that I'd heard in my own voice so many times since I got sick lacing his words.

"I...I'm not sure. Depends, I guess."

"On what? I always thought you loved her-"

"I do!" I snap, anger filling my voice for a second. "That's why it depends. If I never go back to the way I used to be, the person she loved, then maybe it's better if I go somewhere else...at least for a while. Work out how to be friends, and then come back."

Jackson nods and doesn't push it - he doesn't look convinced, but I don't want to talk about it. His gaze drifts over my shoulder and fixes on something on the wall. I crane my neck around. Our whiteboards were still on that wall - his on the left, mine on the right, reading: 'Isaac 'Newt' Newton, Green. Pacifiers - 'Lily', 'Minho', 'Alby', 'Sylvia'. Triggers - 'Thomas', 'Denver' (major), 'Maze' (minor).' I look back at Jax and he's frowning again.

"And is that part of it too?" He gestures to my board. "What's up with your thing with Thomas? With Thomas? You guys were always like that!"

Jackson links two of his fingers together and raises his eyebrows. I flinch and rub my temples with my fingertips, the Trigger making the ache in my head spike.

"Yeah." I manage after a few seconds, not wanting to shut him out but not wanting to talk either. I'm not sure how much control I have on this one. "It didn't exactly end well."

I haven't opened that door in my brain, and as soon as I put the key in the lock for Jackson, it starts to rattle, the memories, the impending flashback pushing on my consciousness. 'I bloody remember you, Tommy. I can't go completely crazy in a few days.' I grit my teeth. No. I don't want to go there. Bugger off.

"Thomas shot you, right?" Jackson probes. "But he missed - you can't be all that mad, can you?"

Agh. The edges of my vision go dark and I screw my eyes shut. No. I don't want to go back. "Just shut up, you shuck traitor! You can't do one last, lousy thing for me? Gotta be the hero, like always!" Bugger off. I can feel the shaking starting up in my fingers and I clench my fists and tell Jackson:

"It's complicated."

"Complicated? You sound like an old cliché married couple." Jackson laughs and pats my shoulder.

His laugh startles me out of my head and I open my eyes, the contrast of the comment pulling a sudden smile onto my face and I sigh. "Well, it'd make one hell of a musical."

Now I'm looking at him again, Jackson looks a bit contrite. "Are you okay to talk about it? Are you okay? Didn't really think about it being a Trigger."

I take in a breath that's only slightly shuddering as the blackness recedes for the moment and I reply, "'S not my favourite topic, bein' honest. Yeah, he shot me."

I can feel the lumpy scar through my shirt. "But it - it's not that."

My chest feels tight. I've only tried to say this to Will. It's taken me months to sort it out in my own head - why Tommy is a Trigger for me. Why his name is enough to make me sick, to catapult me back into my memories, into the grimy streets of Denver, when Lily and Minho and Alby can almost always bring me back. Jackson is watching me intently.

"It's not that he shot me. I-I asked him to - begged him actually. In a weird way, I guess I'm grateful for that. It's not even really him exactly, it's my-"

"Are you really saying 'it's not him, it's me?' Really, really?" Jackson says. The smile is tugging on his lips again.

"Shut up." I smile back, but it fades as I remember. "It's not though. Tommy didn't do anythin' that I didn't ask him to. It's me. It's me. It was me-" Pushing against the forces in my head is almost a physical effort. "I was cruel to them all, but I was a bloody monster to him. I said stuff I knew would hurt him that day, stuff I can never take back. Never. Not if I live to be a hundred."

A van. A man with a Launcher. The gun I pressed into Thomas' hands. 'I hate you! I always hated you! Gotta be the one people remember, the one people worship! We should've thrown you down the Box hole!' Lies. Nothing but evil lies dug straight from his greatest fears. 'I should rip your eyes out'.

Jackson let go of his knees and shuffled a bit closer. "That's why? Newt, you were sick. You still are sick. You can't blame yourself-"

"Now, who's a bloody cliche?" I ask and Jackson rolls his eyes and we chant together:

"Your Flare is not you. You mustn't judge your morality by your mental corrosion." The line that played on all the cringey Rehab tapes they'd played at the start - thank god they'd overhauled them lately to something that didn't make you feel six years old and ninety at the same time. We both laugh but then Jax turns to me again:

"Seriously though - that wasn't you. It wasn't. Wasn't. It was a version of you, sure, but that doesn't mean you meant it."

"But it was me. I said that stuff because I knew it would hurt him. Nobody else would know it but me. And maybe Min."

"Dude, if I heard some jerk showing off about their Louis Vuitton bag and it pissed me off, and so I told them it was really shucking ugly - even if I thought it looked great - that doesn't mean I meant it, just that I knew it'd take them down a few pegs. Just because I knew it would hurt, doesn't mean I meant it."

I can't help but smile at that and the frankness of his expression, and I say quietly. "It was a bit worse than that, Jax."

'I hated every second of every day. And it was all . . . your . . . fault !' Tommy was crying as much as I was. I was worse than a monster - how had he tried to save me after that?

"But you know what I mean, Newt. Thomas's is one clever shank - we all knew that - he'll have worked it out. That you didn't mean any of it."

Jackson's words hit something in the back of my head and I suddenly remember what Lil said to me once, back on the Berg. 'The people that matter will always know the difference.' I hope you're right, Tiger-Lily.

"Plus," Jackson adds, leaning back against the wall by the bed and spreading his hands - or trying to, until a wrist tic catches him out and slams them back together again. "Shucking, ow - it was a pretty unique situation, man. I feel like you deserve a bit of leeway - it's not every day you're standing at gunpoint asking your friend to blow your brains out."

"Or sittin' in on a private cult meeting as the No. 1 prisoner." I say. "Aren't we special?"

All it takes then is eye contact and we're hysterically laughing, laughing until the tears in our eyes are tears are fuelled by that rather than panic and regret, laughing until we're leaning on each other, until Erin - one of the nurses - sticks her head round the door to check we're okay. We flap 'yes' at her and it isn't even that funny, but, like I tell Jax when I can get a breath in:

"Bloody hell, if you don't laugh, you'd just cry, wouldn't ya'?"

"Why limit yourself?" Jackson murmurs with a grin. "I do both."

We sat together in silence for a minute, leaning against the wall, turning over the conversation, turning over the madness of the whole thing in our minds until Jackson leans into me with his shoulder and says: "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure, knock yourself out."

He shifts a little so he's still leaning against the wall, but looking at me.

"Whatever you want to say about it, I've always admired you, Newt. In the Glade, I looked up to you all the time. All the time. You were always so sure of stuff - a leader, but you still managed to be nice to shanks without biting their shucking heads off every time they asked a question. You never seemed scared-"

"First of all, I'm a terrible leader," I say, shaking my head with a slight smile. "You saw with Minho in the Scorch - I like people, I can get shanks to listen to me, but I'm too bloody emotional, when it comes down to it. Look at the last five minutes! I've cried, shouted and laughed like some kind of maniac - me normally is just that scaled down a bit. And second of all, I'm sure of absolutely buggin' nothing, Jax. I'm just really really good at pretendin'. It's all part of the 'good leader' mirage, ya' see?"

Jackson looks like he's considering it, but then he reaches out and pushes me lightly.

"You didn't let me finish, you slinthead." He says. "Don't interrupt, interrupt me when I'm complimenting. I was going to say that I still do."

I don't answer for a second, not sure how respond. I've never felt like that about myself - I've always done as much as I could, found out what needed doing and got on with the bloody thing, making sure I trampled over as few shanks as possible. I've never thought that was admirable, just necessary, just human. And I hated myself when I couldn't do that anymore. I can't show Jackson how much those few words mean, how much I can't say that to myself, so I just reach to the hand he's clasped on my shoulder and pat it firmly.

"Thank you."

"No worries. I wish I could do that though - pretend. Stay all super calm and collected. I'm bouncing off the freaking walls every five minutes over this Grade Test and nothing seems to get to you - that thing with Thomas, that's the only thing I've really seen you freak over." Jackson frowns again, his attention back on the orange band on his wrist, a reminder of the looming exam.

"Oh, there'll be plenty of time for that." I chuckle drily. "I still 'freak' often enough. Plus, you don't have to be like me - don't be, Jax, I'm a bloody mess." I'm grinning and he's shaking his head. "Hey, do you remember when we used to do Dance Classes together and we were the only guys there? And that time Mr Aleksandrov got us to do that ballet routine to Lord of the Flies?"

Jackson nods and I carry on. "And I spent hours and hours and hours in the training room, trying to get every move exactly right technically, and then you absolutely destroyed me in the exam?"

"Yeah," Jackson says. "I never understood that. You were perfect."

"No!" I lean forward, waving my arms, determined to make the point. "See, I did! I was technically perfect, and you fluffed a couple of steps, but you lived that dance, Jax. I hit every mark, my form was textbook, but I was so focused on getting everythin' perfect that my face was a total blank. You painted every emotion you had on your face and through your body and you knocked 'em dead. And that day I wanted to be like you."

Jackson looked up from his wristband, his eyes shining. Then, he shuffled a bit closer and leant his head on my shoulder - just like he used to do with Stan in the Glade - and said:

"Aww. Thanks, Newt." He yawned hugely. "Gosh. This deep stuff's exhausting, man. I've just spent all my beauty sleep in twenty minutes. This is what I mean, though - is it gonna be like this forever? Freak out and soul searching every five minutes. I'm going to have so many wrinkles by the time I'm 30. Wrinkles. So many wrinkles."

"At least we're gonna get to be bloody thirty. Didn't think I'd be twenty. But no, I actually don't think it is, ya' know? I think our heads are so full of klunk and nightmares and all the pent-up emotion we've squashed into them for months and years that we just need to get it all out. Tell another person, prove that it was real. Doesn't matter how we do it, we just need to get this stuff out of our brains."

"You know what they say - a problem shared is a problem halved!" Jax smirks.

"Oh don't!" I grimace and push him. "Stop. Pretty sure I saw that on an inspirational toilet door poster this mornin'." Jax just laughs, but I've thought of something else. "Actually...you know how I was sayin' we need to crowd out the bad stuff? Turn our minds to other things, right?"

"Mmm?" Jackson swivels his gaze up to me.

"Didn't dance class always do that for you? No matter how much the others called us sissies, you never thought about that - about anything - when you were dancing?"

"Yeah," Jackson isn't catching on. "So?"

"Why can't we start a dance class? Find one, start one - a proper one? I had a few movement workshops a while ago and they were great, but nothin' serious. It's give us something to get back into when our normal thinking brains are giving us gyp. Right?"

Jackson sits up and nods enthusiastically. "Ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That could be cool actually - it'd get out some of the pent-up energy shit as well. Maybe we could work people's tics into routines - give them a use for half an hour and stop them pissing people off so much."

"I really like that!" I grin. "I've got a session with Will this afternoon, I'll have a plan by then."

Suddenly, as if I've summoned him with magic words, Will sticks his head round the door.

"Ah - hey boys! You alright, Jackson? Great - page me if you want a hand, kiddo, any time." Will turns to me. "Newt, are you coming down to help settle the Newbies? We've had a ton of new people in from some villages in Hawaii and I thought you'd want to pitch in."

"Hawaii?" I ask, already scrambling off the bed and starting for the door. Now I was getting almost total control over my body, I was allowed to spend a lot of time helping out the rest of the Centre rather than going stir-crazy in my room. "Yeah, sure - they all okay?"

"As okay as they can be," Wil replies. "The Flare got there pretty late, so there's nobody really over forty, but they're all a little frightened."

"On my way." As I swing out of the door, Jackson sings after me, his voice teasing and completely opposite to the breathy panic when he woke up:

"See, Newt? You're all heart, you softie. I knew it all along!"

"Ahh, put a buggin' sock in it, Jackson!" I call back, picking up a cushion from the armchair and lobbing it at him, swinging the door shut behind me. That is obviously a step too far for tired Jax - the door hasn't been closed more than a second when a dense object bangs hard against the other side of it, making the hinges rattle. My Flare reacts before my rational brain and I hit the ground in half the time, my hands pressed over my ears - loud noises, gunshot, reflex reaction. Ow, ow, ow. When I regain control of my body a second later, Will is holding his hands out and he helps me up and I'm laughing even though my neck is spasming painfully.

"You sure you guys are getting on?" Will arches an eyebrow at me and I just nod, still laughing quietly.

"Oh yeah," I point back at the closed door and the spot where I'd curled up like an armadillo. "We're -we're working on that!"

2 1/2 MONTHS LATER

I'm walking down the main corridor with Will to the Grade Room and I haven't felt this bloody sick in weeks. The corridor looks spiffy, all done up now it's December-time - there's tinsel strung across the ceiling, little Christmas trees in the reception and the Social Room. You can see the Christmas lights of the shopping street outside the centre from the Social Room, and I could sit there for buggin' hours, watching them - I did, when they switched them on. It's all so beautiful - like the whole Centre's taken on its annual layer of magic. But, I still feel sick, however lovely I find the tinsel.

As we pass the nurses station, Erin catches my eye and breaks away from it, running over and pulling me into a hug. I hug her back, rocking a little, grateful for it. I really like Erin - a small, bouncy nurse with curly blonde hair and a sparkling smile, who's always looked after me in the Centre, come in for a coffee, psyched me up for tests and made me laugh. She pulls back and she's grinning.

"Come on, boy," She says. "You're gonna do it now - okay? I'll be sending all the good vibes your way!"

"Oh, please do." I grin back but I can feel the nerves making me jittery. "Thanks, Erin. I think I'm going to need 'em."

She makes a derisive snorting sound. "No, you're not. You can do it, Newt."

The head nurse calls Erin back over, shaking her head at the younger girl, but he's smiling too and shoots me a thumbs up. I've been here so bloody long that they all know me pretty well.

Walking down the hallway starts to feel a bit like a procession - to what, I'm not sure? Mrs Connor, the dance teacher that the centre hired a few months to teach us all, catches sight of me from the reception and frantically waves, making a telephone sign and holding it up to her ear, 'Call me'. 'Will do', I mouth back, but I can't stop or I'll be late. Mustn't keep the Senior Doctor waiting.

We're just walking past the Social Room when a shout comes from behind me.

"Hey Newton!" We stop and it's Jenna, leaning in the doorway of the room, her breathing slightly fast. She pouts at me, mock frowning. "I went to your room and Jax said you'd already gone - do you know how fast I had to run down here? Don't you dare go off there without hugging me, you total asshole."

Jenna is one of the other patients here, came in maybe a week before Jax from somewhere in Boston. I'd always got on with her, but when Jackson and I started sitting in the Social Room together, when we'd started the dance class, Jenna had become one of our group - and our weekly dance trio - and a bloody good friend.

When she's finished squeezing all the air out of my lungs, and Will says "Don't hurt him, Jenna!", she pats my face and tells me:

"Aww, the first Musketeer to face the board. Go in there and smash it, Newton. I don't want to see your face in here again, okay? Much as I adore you."

I laugh. "Yep. First Musketeer - won't be long before you're standin' here, Jen." I hug her again. "Thanks - see you on the other side!"

We have to powerwalk now we've stopped twice, which is good, in a way, because it proves I can do it - two months ago I'd have fallen over - and we arrive at the Grade Room with a few minutes to spare. I turn to Will.

"Bloody hell, I'm nervous." My hands are shaking, but, for once, it's got nothing to do with the Flare. Will grabs them in his and squeezes hard, looking me in the eyes.

"Come on, Newt. It's been a long ride, but I wouldn't've put you up for this if I didn't think it was right, okay? I'm convinced you're at zero now, I've thought that for at least a week, and I just need you to go in and show them how brilliant you really are. Show them like your family showed me last Christmas. And hey, if it all goes to hell, we'll just do it again next week. Yeah?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Will." He slaps me on the back then takes hold of my arm again, rolling my jumper up to look at the scars there, grey now rather than black. He snaps two fingers down onto the raised blood vessel on my wrist and it goes white on the impact. I count the seconds - one, two, three, four, five, six - before the ashy colour starts leaching back into it. Will nods, like that confirmed whatever he'd already been thinking.

"Yep. Those'll fade within the next two days, I reckon. They're going already."

I smile, just as the door to the Grade Room swings inwards, making my stomach writhe into sudden knots. The doctor standing there is older that some of the others, white hair taking over the black, and he's wearing a pair of thick black glasses and a reassuring smile over the clipboard he has in his hands.

"'Newt' Newton? Here for your Silver Grade Test?" He asks and I nod. "In you come then, lad. Let's get this over with."

As I go to follow him into the room, Will claps my shoulder one more time. "Good luck, my friend. Sock it to 'em."

Hi everyone!

Well, this was definitely an emotional one - going on Newt's journey with him at the Rehab Centre. I hope you guys are looking forward to what might be coming next! :)

Which part did you like most/find most interesting or sad this chapter?

Hope you guys enjoyed it and I'll see you next Wednesday to see what's happens with the Test! :)

Star * xx

REPLYING TO REVIEWS:

AnwynB03: Haha, yes - that one was one of the first ones for a while that wasn't desperately sad! And yes, it always reminded me of that too. Hope you enjoyed this one xx

Gracie Miserables: Yes! He loves Alby too, but like Lily said, he'll also take a chance and fight for it! Hope you liked this chapter and are looking forward to seeing what happens next for Newly :) xx

sarah0406: Yes - I think that Newt is more Minho's advisor than vice versa, and he same with Thomas because he's younger, but Alby is the person he always went to with the big things as an older brother, so it seemed fitting :) I agree, actually, but Newt's never made peace with himself over that. Hopefully, this chapter sort of explains the timescale skip! Xx

Guest: You're welcome! I'm glad you liked it :) xx

Leanna Brasslin: Hi - good point, I hadn't actually thought about that. Gally escapes because he was rescued by the Right Arm but I don't know what happens to Beth. She could have escaped, but the gang certainly never see her again x