A/N - I'm back! This is a bit of a filler chapter as it is building up to the arrival of Thomas and the beginning of the main plot. Thank you for being patient! Enjoy!

Chapter 9

We sit in the council building in silence. Trying to process what happened. In the middle of the room is Nick's torso, covered in a sheet. The blood pools on the floor beneath him, yet none of us can bring ourselves to move him. Winston and Jeff sit in the corner, faces so pale they look like they are going to pass out.

'Jeff, Winston, go check on the others.' The pair looked at each other and with similar grateful expressions they leave. 'Gally, go get some more sheets. We can't carry him if he is dripping everywhere.' He nods and leaves also.

I look at Alby, Newt and Frypan. Alby is looking at the floor, guilt seeping from every pore. Frypan's wiping tears from his face and looking anywhere but Nick. Newt on the other hand is staring at the torso, not being to drag his eyes away. I go to stand in front of Newt blocking the sight. He looks up at me, with a slightly hardened look. I recognise that look, it's on my face too. Calm exterior whilst on the inside you're screaming. I kneel down in front of him and take his hands.

Whispering to him, so that Alby and Frypan can't hear me, I say, 'We have to be strong. The others can't right now, so we have too. We can grieve later. Right now we have to move him away from here. We can't let them see him. Not even the baggers.'

At this Gally walks back into the room with sheets. 'Alby, Frypan keep the boys inside. All of them.' Alby leaves instantly. Frypan puts a hand on my shoulder and follows. I take a deep breath and take the sheets off Gally. 'You don't have to stay,' I say to Gally, 'Either of you,' I look to Newt.

'Were staying,' Newt says sharply getting up and gently taking some of the sheets from my hands. Gally nods and walks round to the opposite side of Nick. 'Okay,' I say putting one sheet onto the floor away from the pool of blood. 'We need to put him on this.'

I can see Gally and Newt looking at each other trying to decide where to best pick him up from. They eventually agree that no one wants to hold the 'leg' end and so pick him up by his sides. I move slightly so they can put him down gently. I walk up to the body and take off the top sheet, just enough to see his face. I stroke back his blood soaked hair and close his eyes. Replacing the sheet, I nod to Gally and Newt and we begin wrapping the sheets around him. I find myself humming the tune that I hummed to the others. It seems to have an almost calming effect on both Gally and Newt as I caught a small flicker of softness coming back to Newt's eyes. Once we had finished the boys picked him up and began to carry him towards the deadheads. I was in front making sure Alby and Frypan had done as I asked. They had. The Glade was completely empty.

We walked silently to the deadheads and buried Nick. I felt I had to warn off anyone from doing the same. On his tombstone I carved 'Let this half-shank be a warning to all. You can't escape through the Box Hole.' Underneath this I wrote 'Here lies Nick.' … I felt like I should write more but I couldn't think of anything else to put, so I didn't. I stuck the wood into the ground and stood back. I hadn't realised that Gally had left until I turned around and saw Newt looking at me. I sent a questioning glance his way.

'He's gone to get the others. To say their goodbyes.' He looked at the ground as I nodded. I heard him take a deep breath and say, 'I'm sorry I froze.'

I stared at him. 'What?'

'Before. In the council room. I froze. Sorry.' He clarified.

I chuckle quietly to myself. 'I think it's allowed, after seeing something like that.' I smile at him reassuringly. 'And you came back quite quickly. Couldn't have done this without you.' I said gesturing to the grave.

'Yeah well, it won't happen again.' He said looking up at me. His hardened eyes stare at me. I don't like it. That's not him. I walk up to him and wrap my arms round his middle. I can feel him stiffen slightly like he wasn't expecting it and then gently his arms curl round my back and tighten.

We stand there in each other's embrace until Gally comes back with the boys. I detangle myself from Newt and go to stand by the grave. The boys surround it with varying looks of sadness and guilt on their faces.

'What happened wasn't anyone's fault. I know you all want out of here, and we are working our hardest to find something, anything, to tell us how. But doing things like this is reckless. And not telling Alby, Newt and myself was even more stupid.' I can see a few boys look down at this. 'But I don't blame you.' Confusion swept through them. 'I can understand why you wouldn't tell us. I guess you knew we would tell you not to, and that wasn't an option for those of you who truly believed that this was the way out. It's a logical assumption that the box has to come from somewhere and its way would be our way out. That's why we tried it, Alby and I. We tied some wood to a rope and lowered it down. It come back up as a sliced bit of rope. We could have told you it didn't work. I'm not blaming you, I just want you to know that you can talk to us. My speech when we welcome Greenies talk about welcoming you as brothers. And that's what you are. Your family. Every single of you. Please talk to us if you have ideas and if we haven't tried it then we'll as a glade. As a family. Nick just lost faith in us. Please don't follow in his footsteps. Say your goodbyes and we will meet at the wall in 30 minutes.' And with that I walk away leaving the huddle of boys murmuring among themselves.


Half an hour later we chip a line through Nicks name on the wall. I turn to face the crowd once again. 'Because of recent events we will suspend the greeting party until tomorrow. Tonight we grieve.'
I walk over the fire pit and sit down basking in the heat. Soon I am surrounded by the rest of the boys. Gally is handing round a drink to each boy. He walks to me and sits down. Handing me a drink he says with a loud voice, 'Nick.'

'Nick' the boys echo taking a sip of their drink. Coughing and spluttering interrupts the silence as the Greenie spits the drink everywhere. Laughter erupts around the fire. I chuckle at the sight of the 14 year old boy being patted on the back as he tries to recover from the burn. 'You get used to it' I hear Alby say to him. The Greenie smiles slightly sits back. Refusing to let us sink back into silence I say, 'Who remembers the time that we all pranked Nick and he practically clunked himself when he woke up in the Slammer?' The boys again erupt into roars of laughter at the memory of Nick waking up in the Slammer after a party and us refusing to tell him what he had done to be there.

Winston adds, 'His face when we told him he hadn't actually done anything after he followed Kira round all day in apology was priceless.' Other boys started talking about their own funny memories of Nick and the mood was thoroughly heightened. I walked over to the Greenie where he was sitting with Alby.

'Hey, do you mind if I steal the Greenie for a bit. We've not had a chance to talk really.' Alby nods and the Greenie gets up and follows me to the sleeping areas. I pick a sheet from the side and begin making him a hammock.

'Hell of a first day, huh?' I say to him as he watches me make his bed.

'Yeah,' He replies quietly.

'I promise every day is not like this. It's pretty calm normally.' He looks at me, a shine of fear in his eyes. 'Hey, what's up?'

'I can't remember anything.' I sigh.

'None of us can. You'll get your name back soon. They let us keep that.'

'What about my parents?' I look at him slightly shocked. I hadn't thought about my parents for a very long time. 'Will I remember them?'

'No, sorry.' He looks down, tears dripping into his lap. I walk over to sit by him and put my arm around his shoulders.

'You never know, you could be the first.' He looks at me, his face slightly puffy from crying. 'You should do something for them.' He looks at me confused.

'Like what?' I get my knife out and a bit of wood from the wood pile and give them to him. 'Carve them something. An animal maybe.'

'An owl.' He says quietly. 'I'll carve them an owl.' I smile at the concentration on his face when he turns the piece of wood in his hands. 'I don't know where to start.'

I smile and get my own piece of wood and begin showing him how to carve things out of wood. He's a quick learner and soon is working on his own bit with a renewed sense of excitement. I smile at him and get up. 'I'm going to get some sleep, you should too. Big day tomorrow.' He smiles back at me nodding and continues to work. I chuckle heading into the forest. I'm not going to sleep. How can I sleep right now? Thousands of thoughts begin rushing through my head. I need a task, something to do. The blood. On the floor of the council hall. It needs cleaning. Grabbing a bucket in run back into the forest and to the water. I fill it and take it to the council hall. As I open the door the pool of blood is the first thing I see. I kneel down beside and start to wipe it up. It's started to dry at the edges so I begin to scrub at the floor, harder and harder until the door opens.

'Oh Kira' Newt says as he rushes to my side. I begin to feel the tears falling down my face as a cling to Newt. 'There's nothing you could have done.'

Sighing I sit back. 'I know.' Newt looks surprised. 'Shut up.' His face settles in a small smile. 'It's just, I have a feeling that we are so close. So close to getting out I can almost taste it. Nick was here almost as long as I was. He deserved to get out. It's a shame.' I look back at Newt. He's smiling at me. 'What?'

'You're so much stronger than the rest of us.' I look at him completely bewildered.

'What? No I'm not. There are much stronger people than me. Gally for instance. Barely anything fazes him.'

'And yet when it does who does he go to help him. You. Everybody goes to you when they need some support and you give it them. That takes someone incredibly strong in my book.' I chuckle and flex my muscles at Newt. He laughs and pushes my arms down. 'That too. Your ability to keep joking about and keeping the mood up at the darkest of times is admirable.' I feel heat I my cheeks. I can't look at him. Why is he complementing me so much? I don't mind it. In fact I like it, a lot! But why?

'Thank you. You know you're not so bad yourself. The boys adore you. Especially Jak. He couldn't stop talking about how great you were when he first got here.' Newt blushed slightly at my words.

'Okay let's just agree were both fabulous and move on, yeah?' He said with a cheeky smile on his face.

'Totally.' He got up and helped me off the floor.

'Want me to help you with that?' He said nodding at the stain.

'Yeah, please.' We get some clean water and begin scrubbing at the stain again, in hopes that it will disappear.


It must have been a couple of hours since he fell asleep. I'm such a creep. Sat here watching him sleep. God if he knew I was watching him; mortifying. Newt confuses me. 1 minute he is normal Newt, my second in command, my best friend. Then he is … Newt! Newt that complements me for no reason. Newt that every time I see, my heart hammers against my ribcage so hard I can't breathe. What is going on with me? When did this happen? This change. The door squeaks slightly as it opens. It's Alby. I put my fingers to my lips and point to Newt. He nods in understanding and walks quietly to my side and sits down.

'You got the blood out?' He asks. It took ages but we finally had managed to get the stain to something we could hide with a sheet if needs be.

'Yeah, eventually.' I nod still looking at Newt.

'Why didn't you go to sleep?' He asks. I shrug. I don't know the answer myself. One minute Newt fell asleep and the next Alby was coming in the door.

'I got a few hours,' I lie. Why did I lie! What does that accomplish! Idiot!

'He okay?' he asks nodding to Newt's sleeping form.

I nod. 'I think so. He is now at least. There was a moment before when he froze but he pulled out pretty quickly.'
He looks so peaceful. I should ask Alby what he thinks about Newt.
No I shouldn't what they hell did I think that for?
Maybe you should?
But he'll know I like him?!
Do you like him?
I dunno. Do I?

'Kira.' I snap back to attention. 'What's going on with you?' He looks at me with wide eyes.

'What?'

'You keep zoning out.' He states.

'Guess I've got a lot on my mind. Nick, the Grievers, this weird feeling I've got that this is coming to an end…'

'Newt.' Alby interrupts.

'Hu?' Shit, how did he know?!

'I see the way he looks at you.' He says quietly. The way he looks at me. What way does he looks at me? 'Don't tell me you can't see it.' I look at him blankly. 'You don't? Oh boy! It's times like these when we need another girl around.' He takes a deep breath. 'Okay. Newt likes you. Like, romantically.' Alby stares at my blank face with utter confusion. 'How can you not tell?!' He whisper shouts still trying not to wake Newt.

'Why would you tell me this?' I ask Ably extremely confused as to why we were having this conversation.

'Because you're my sister and I love you and I want to see you happy. And because I am getting sick of seeing him stare after you like a long lost puppy!' Alby whispers throwing his arms up in the air for dramatic effect. I laugh and rest my head on his shoulder.

'I love you too, Big Bro!' His chest rumbles as he laughs.

'You better not start calling me that!' I smile at him as he gets up, helping me up as well. I stretch out my back and muscles. Sitting on the floor all night does nothing for you back!

'I better go find the Greenie, See if he has had any luck with his name.' Alby announces striding out of the hall. I walk over to Newt and shake his shoulder. He opens his eyes and looks around the hall and if wondering what he was doing here. Eyes falling on me, he seems to remember and spins round putting his feet on the ground. I smile at his unkempt hair and reached over to brush it off his face. He blushes and tries to flatten it down himself.

'Morning sleepyhead.' I say laughing at him.

'Hi,' He answers, his voice slightly raspy from sleep.

I get up and move over to the bucket of cold bloody water and cloths and begin tidying up. 'How'd you sleep?'

'Yeah, fine.' He said getting up and helping me carry the buckets out of the hall.

As we walk out of the forest, I watch the Gladers going about their daily routines as if nothing happened. I guess you learn to adapt in a place like this. I smile seeing the Greenie and Jak animatedly talking about work. Leaving Newt's side I walk up to them. Catching their eyes I smile at the pair.

'Hey Kira,' Jak calls and waves. The Greenie does the same.

'Hey you guys. Excited about trying the work placement Greenie,' I ask.

'No Kira, he remembered his name this morning. Tell her!' Jak said excitedly.

'Chuck. My names Chuck.' He beamed at me.

'Congrats. Nice to meet you Chuck.' I clapped him on the shoulder. I saw Minho standing by the wall. 'Good Luck today Chuck. Look after him Jak.' I said pointing at the kid.

'Ok,' He shouts as I walk towards Minho. I see that he has my vest in his hand.

'Ready,' he says, handing me my vest.

'Yep,' I reply as we run into the maze.

So what did you think? Thank you to Thetruehero, divergent7135 and Maddy for reviewing the last chapter. Please let me know what you think of this and whether you are excited for the arrival of Thomas!

Zoe xx