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Rating:
Explicit
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
M/M
Fandoms:
The Maze Runner (Movies)Teen Wolf (TV)
Relationship:
Newt/Thomas (Maze Runner)
Characters:
Newt (Maze Runner)Thomas (Maze Runner)Gladers (Maze Runner)Teresa AgnesAva Paige (Maze Runner)Assistant Director Janson Rat ManWICKED WCKDStiles StilinskiThe Pack (Teen Wolf)Background Cameo Characters
Additional Tags:
CrossoverAlternate Universe - Canon DivergenceAlternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody DiesBackground RelationshipsPOV AlternatingFake ScienceEventual SmutTop NewtBottom ThomasFirst Timethomas and stiles are twinsHappy EndingFix-ItNewt Lives (Maze Runner)
Language:
English
Series:
Previous Work Part 2 of Maze Runner Universe Next Work
Stats:
Published:2021-09-23Completed:2021-09-23Words:35840Chapters:4/4Comments:10Kudos:192Bookmarks:27Hits:3472
Don't Look Back
mintedwitcher
Summary:
WCKD wiped his memories before sending him into the Maze, but Thomas could have never predicted exactly how much they'd taken from him. A shocking discovery about his life and the lies he'd been told will make Thomas question everything.
--
Stiles was just 16 when WCKD wiped him and sent him into the Maze. Three years later, the Right Arm saved them and restored their memories. A week after that, Stiles finally found his brother again. But they had a traitor in their midst, and WCKD's plan for them all might just lead to their destruction. All Stiles knew was that WCKD had ripped apart their family once, and he wasn't going to let them do it again.
--
TW x TMR crossover where Stiles and Thomas are twins separated by WCKD. What will happen when the two meet again, after three years apart, and when one of them has absolutely no idea why the hell someone else has his face?
Notes:
This has been a nagging little idea in the back of my head all week. I originally didn't mean to go over 20k. Definitely didn't work out there.
Part 1 is definitely a bit of a speed run through the events of TMR and TST. The majority of the plot takes place over the events of TDC.
Chapter 1: PART 1
Chapter Text
He woke up in a box, water in his throat, and a terrifying blankness in his head where his memories should be. The box was moving, rising at speed, and he looked up to see a solid ceiling growing closer by the second. A deep and sudden dread filled him. He was going to crash; he was going to die here in this box—
He curled up on the floor and covered his eyes, and the box slammed to a stop. He lay there for a moment, waiting for the pain, or the crushing sensation, but it never came. Hesitantly, he opened his eyes, and the ceiling split open above him, revealing a large crowd of boys looking down at him.
"Go get him," one boy said. The metal grate above him opened, and a large boy jumped down in front of him.
"Hey, Greenie," the large boy said. Greenie, the boy in the box thought. Is that my name?
Before he could speak, there were hands grabbing him, hauling him up out of the box. Greenie collapsed on the ground in the middle of the group of boys, and immediately, the jeering started. Greenie freaked out, jumping to his feet and tearing off in a run, not even knowing where he was going, but just needing to get away from everyone. He heard cheers behind him, one boy shouted, "We've got a runner!" but he ignored all of it, spying a gap in the large wall ahead of him and aiming for it. He was so close, and then he tripped. Laughter rose behind him, and a prickling feeling ran up his spine.
Maybe it was just paranoia, but Greenie could tell there was something very, very dangerous about this place. The boys caught up to him, and he shrunk back from the hands grabbing at him, hauling him to his feet again. In a blur, the boys maneuvered him into a crude cell made of stone, wood and twine, and locked him inside.
Eventually they left him alone, and for a moment he felt a little less like a zoo exhibit. But then another boy approached, and leaned against the cell roof, looking down at Greenie with a patient expression. It turned out, the boy's name was Alby, he was the leader in this place, they called it the Glade. Alby introduced him to Newt, his second-in-command, and for the first time in this strange place, Greenie felt something akin to peace settle in his stomach. Newt was pleasant and kind, where the other boys had been rude and taunting. He even shook Greenie's hand politely, giving him a warm smile. Greenie found it was weirdly more difficult to listen to Alby's explanations when Newt had to go back to work.
The day went on, and Greenie met Chuck, a kind-faced kid who talked his ear off about every little detail about the Glade.
Finally, that night, the boys set up a bonfire and threw a party to welcome Greenie to the Glade, but he ended up sitting off to the side with Newt instead. Greenie liked Newt, he decided. Newt answered his questions, or at least he answered most of them. And when Newt laughed at him after getting him to try a sip of Gally's moonshine, Greenie didn't feel like he had when the others had laughed; Newt didn't have a cruel laugh. It didn't feel like Greenie was the butt of the joke when Newt laughed, it was more that they were sharing the joke. Like they were friends.
Newt walked him around the bonfire, pointing out groups as he went and explaining their roles - "That's Winston and the Slicers, and these are the med-jacks, Clint and Jeff, they spend most of their time patching up the Slicers," - and Greenie hung on his every word. May as well learn as much as he could if he was going to be living here.
But then Greenie got in a fight with Gally, and he hit his head, and he remembered his name, and the look of pride and joy on Newt's face almost made the potential concussion worth it when Newt cheered Thomas' name with the others.
He couldn't explain it, but somehow that look made him feel more at home than anything else.
Of course, all good things come to an end.
/
First, Ben got stung and banished. Then Alby went with Minho into the Maze. Then Thomas went in to try and save them and got himself trapped with them. And when they made it out, Newt gave him one day in the slammer and made him a Runner, to boot, which put him squarely on Gally's bad side. Teresa came up in the Box. Thomas and Minho found a potential way out of the Maze, the Grievers came into the Glade, people died… It got bad, quickly.
But through all of it, Thomas had Newt by his side. And if he let himself go there, sometimes he thought he could see a flicker of something in Newt's eyes when they met Thomas', especially after Teresa arrived. He told himself, though, over and over, that it couldn't be jealousy. Newt was his friend, and he was just concerned for Thomas, definitely not jealous of Teresa.
He shoved those thoughts away every time, though. They had much bigger problems to deal with. Like figuring out who the hell their 'rescuers' were.
"Until we know more, we should just keep our heads down and try not to draw attention to ourselves," Newt was saying beside him, but Thomas wasn't listening. The bodies he'd seen the night before were carved into his brain, and all he could think of was how Teresa had vanished suspiciously, right before Aris showed him those bodies being taken away.
He was on his feet before his brain fully caught up, following the small group of kids who'd been called up by Jansen. The guard at the door blocked his path.
"Woah, you weren't called," the guard said.
"I just wanna see my friend, okay, let me through," Thomas said, not even looking at the guard. He tried to shove past, the guard shoved him back, and Thomas fought back, making a scene on purpose to disguise the fact that he'd picked the guard's pocket. Jansen showed up again and had Thomas and his friends escorted back to their room.
"What the hell was that?" Newt asked. "You didn't really think they'd just let you walk right through?"
"Of course not," Thomas said, pulling the guard's ID card from his pocket. "I just needed this."
The air vent under Thomas' bed opened then, and Aris popped out with a grin.
"Got it?" Aris asked.
"Yeah, let's go," Thomas answered.
"Tommy," Newt interrupted, frowning.
"I gotta see what's behind that door, Newt," Thomas said. "Just, cover for me, alright? I'll be back as soon as I can."
Newt sighed but nodded. Thomas slipped through the vents behind Aris, and things got worse.
/
Thomas got back, told the Gladers who'd taken them, and got them all the hell out of there. He tried to ignore the look on Newt's face when Thomas insisted that they get Teresa out too.
They made it to an abandoned building, taking shelter from the storm outside. Though there was no shelter from his friends' tempers and confusion. They crowded Thomas, demanding answers, demanding to know what Thomas' plan was, and when he couldn't give them an answer, Newt's voice rose in anger and frustration.
"We followed you out here, and you don't even know where we're going?!" The look in Newt's eyes was unbearable. It wasn't just fear, or anger. It was a loss of faith. Thomas' stomach twisted at the sight of it. The knot got worse when he looked around at the others and saw the same look on their faces too.
"I heard something about a rebel group, they've got a place in the mountains, they can help us," Thomas said, clinging to that tiny piece of information like it was going to solve everything.
"People. In the mountains. Mountain people," Newt said drily. "Alright."
And of course, because life just couldn't give them a goddamn break, they got attacked when they were looking for supplies, and off they went again, running for their lives, and God, wasn't that just the theme, huh? Running, running, running, would it never end? They got out, but Winston got clawed up by Cranks, and Thomas felt a weight like a stone settle in his stomach as they all watched Winston slowly getting worse and worse as they travelled.
/
He was up on the crest with Teresa, scouting ahead.
"They just look further away," Teresa sighed, gazing out towards the mountains. Thomas sighed too.
"We can make it," he insisted. Then Teresa scratched at the back of her neck again, and Thomas frowned. "What's going on with you?"
"They did something to me," Teresa confessed. "At first, it felt like waking up… and then they started coming back."
"Your memories?"
"I think we should go back."
"What?" Thomas asked incredulously.
"I think we should go back," Teresa repeated.
"Teresa, we can't. After everything they did to us?"
"It's not that simple, Thomas."
"Yes, it is."
"No, you don't get it! Everything was fine until you—" she broke off, her unfinished sentence hanging in mid-air between them. Thomas frowned.
"How's it looking over there?" Newt called up, interrupting their argument. Thomas looked back, seeing his friend leaning casually against a stone pillar.
"Not much further," Thomas called back. Newt nodded and turned away. Thomas tried not to think about how, maybe if Teresa wasn't there, Newt would've been the one to climb the dune, stand by his side, and look out at the horizon with him. Thomas tried not to think about how much he'd prefer to have Newt up here instead. At least Newt wouldn't be suggesting they turn back.
A gunshot and a scream snapped Thomas back to reality, and he took off down the dune, Teresa following behind him. They skidded to a halt beside their friends.
"He just went for it, and tried to—" Frypan said, sounding distraught. Winston was laying back in the sand, panting and spitting black blood. Thomas' stomach twisted again. He's not gonna make it, he realized dully.
"Please," Winston whimpered, looking around at them all pleadingly. "Don't let me turn into one of those things."
Then Newt was stepping forward, prying the gun out of Minho's hand, crouching in the sand and handing the gun to Winston with a steady, unyielding gaze.
"Goodbye, Winston," he said solemnly.
One by one the Gladers walked away. Thomas told himself things couldn't possibly get any worse.
/
Minho gasped awake to the relieved groans of the Gladers inside a warehouse-like structure.
"What happened?" Minho slurred.
"You got struck by lightning," Thomas said, sounding almost giddy with relief. Minho groaned as his friends pulled him upright. They barely had a moment to breathe before a flashlight beam fell on a damned Crank, and everyone lost their minds, backing up and shoving into each other to try and escape, but the Crank wasn't getting any closer. More flashlights went on, lighting up more of the room, revealing more Cranks hiding in the dark. Minho thought he'd black out again from the immediate rush of adrenaline and fear spiking through him, before the clanking of chains registered in his ears, beneath the inhuman screeching. These Cranks were trapped, locked in place. It didn't do much to quell the Gladers' fears, though.
Then a light turned on across the room, a doorway opened to reveal a slight figure with cropped hair and a long coat.
"I see you've met our guard dogs," the woman called to them, sounding amused yet wary. "What are you doing here?"
"We're looking for the Right Arm," Thomas rasped in response, his eyes flicking between the chained Cranks and the strange woman. Minho would've cursed him for his honesty, but yeah, he'd make the same choice if he was in Thomas' place; better to trust a human than be left with Cranks. The implication of a guard dog was that it could be unleashed at the owner's whim. The woman strode towards them, picking a careless path through the room, always staying just out of arm's reach of the screeching, snarling creatures around her.
They planned this well, Minho thought reluctantly. He knew a maze when he saw one, and he'd learned the hard way to respect it.
"Come with me," the woman said, her face a picture of suspicion. She turned on her heel and led them back through the room, and the Gladers followed in a single file, with Thomas and Newt in the lead, as always. Minho and Aris took the centre, and Fry held up the back of the line with Teresa.
They followed the woman in silence through what looked like an encampment, and for a moment, Minho wondered if this was the Right Arm, if these were the rebels they'd been searching for. He privately thought that if these were the rebels, the Gladers might've had a better shot against WCKD on their own. The people looked rugged, bloodthirsty, but not in a Flare-infected kind of way. They looked like brutes, for a lack of a better word, and Minho found himself casually dropping back behind Fry and Teresa. He'd have to find a way to get them out if something happened; Fry wasn't a fighter, and Teresa… no one knew her well enough to know what she was, except maybe Thomas, but he got that weird shifty look whenever anyone asked, so no one asked. He knew Newt and Thomas would cover Aris, so Minho didn't worry too much about him.
The strange woman led their group to a man who swayed around the room like he was hosting a party, not housing a potential rebel force.
"Jorge," the woman said. "We found them in the warehouse."
The man – Jorge – looked over, meeting the eyes of every Glader for a moment before settling his gaze on Thomas.
"Three questions," Jorge said. "Where did you come from, where are you going, and how can I profit?"
"We're looking for the Right Arm," Thomas said. "We heard they had a base in the mountains. We came through the Scorch to find them."
"Right," Jorge said, sounding thoroughly unconvinced. He nodded to someone behind them, and suddenly the Gladers were grabbed, shoved back, while a brutish man forced Thomas to his knees. The woman grabbed some kind of machine and held it to Thomas' neck while he struggled.
"Calm down," the woman scolded. The machine beeped and her eyes widened. She looked to Jorge. "You were right," she said, handing over the machine. Whatever it said, Jorge's eyes lit up.
"Oh, sorry, hermano," Jorge said with a smirk. "Looks like you're tagged. Know what that means? It means WCKD will pay us a nice reward to get you back." Thomas battled against the guy holding him, and Jorge just grinned. Minho's mind was spinning a mile per minute as he desperately tried to figure out a way to get free. "Chain them up," Jorge instructed, and then the Gladers were being dragged away.
Swinging upside down, tied by the ankles, over a ten-story drop, Minho really tried to focus, but the bickering around him was making it kind of difficult, especially when Newt chimed in.
"Mountain people, Thomas? Great plan, mate."
/
After Jorge's interesting interrogation method, and WCKD's arrival announcement, the Gladers were left swinging over the drop. Newt looked around, calculating. Teresa was hanging closest to the lever Jorge had pulled, the one that dropped them. A plan formulated and he spoke into the now-silent room.
"We've got to swing," Newt said.
"Do you want me to be sick?" Frypan groaned nearby, but Newt ignored him.
"We swing Teresa to the edge, she can pull the lever and drop us low enough to get free," Newt explained. "Teresa, you need to build momentum, alright? Swing back, Minho and I will push you forward, got it?"
"Got it," Teresa grunted, already crunching her body to make her rope swing. It was a slow process, but eventually she built enough momentum to swing back and bump into Minho and Newt. They clasped hands, letting her movement pull them along. On the backswing, Minho and Newt grabbed Teresa's torso, and pushed as hard as they could on the forward swing. Teresa reached out her hands, trying to grab the mental bars that surrounded the lever. A collective groan rose from the group when she missed it. They tried again, pushing Teresa as far out as they could manage, and her fingers tapped the bar that time. One more heave and shove, and Teresa's hands latched onto the bar, and she hauled herself onto the concrete, grinning at the boys as she stood and reached for the lever.
She timed the pull perfectly, just as the others swung out towards the edge, she dropped them, and the Gladers latched on to the edge of the concrete, hauling themselves up onto solid ground.
Newt untied the ropes around his ankles, watching as the others did the same, and then they were all on their feet and turning to the door, but a guard – the brutish one that had held Thomas in Jorge's office, stepped in front of them. He had a gun in one hand, trained on Thomas, and a radio in the other. With a slow, cold grin, he raised the radio to his mouth.
"Janson, I've got them. We're coming down now, don't shoot us."
Things moved quickly after that; the woman – Newt learned her name was Brenda – knocked out the brute, and led them on a mad dash through the compound back to Jorge, who set up a record player in the corner of the office and a zipline from his window. Newt watched as his friends went down the line, and he followed them, only to realise when his feet struck solid ground again that Thomas hadn't followed him. He looked back across the divide, and his stomach sank when he noticed he couldn't see Thomas on the other side at all. But Jorge was there, grabbing Newt by the scruff of his jacket and hauling him along, and Newt staggered after his friends, sending up a desperate prayer in his mind that Thomas would make it out of there alive.
They were running for their lives when the explosions began, and the Gladers all froze, looking back at the collapsing building with horror in their eyes.
"THOMAS!" Minho yelled, making to run back to the building, but Jorge grabbed him.
"Not now! We've gotta go!" Jorge shouted over the din. "Come on!" Jorge yelled, dragging Minho with him. Newt forced down the bile in his throat and sprang back to action, herding Fry, Aris and Teresa along behind Jorge and Minho. He had to focus, he couldn't give up now, Thomas would kill him if Newt got captured or hurt trying to find him. No, he had to believe Thomas made it out. And he had to keep moving. Beside him, Teresa was running, tears carving clean lines down her dirt-smeared face. Just ahead, Aris and Fry were stumbling over the rocky ground, but they didn't stop, and leading the way, Minho had broken out of Jorge's grip and the two were running side by side. Inwardly, Newt was almost impressed by the old man's stamina.
They rounded a corner in the path, and Newt could see the ruins of a city up ahead.
"This way!" Jorge yelled to the group, and somehow, he got faster. The others pushed themselves to their limits to keep up, and Newt grunted as his foot awkwardly rolled over a rock. A stab of pain shot up his leg, but he ignored it, steeled himself against it, and pushed on. He had to keep going, he couldn't risk falling behind. Teresa slowed a fraction beside him, and he reached for her arm, dragging her along at his pace.
"Keep going, come on, almost there," Newt rasped, and Teresa nodded, pushing on with him. Finally, Jorge slowed up ahead, leading them towards one of the buildings and skidding to a stop in the dirt. Jorge slammed open the door of the nearly destroyed building and ushered them all inside. The Gladers rushed in, and jolted to rough, abrupt stops inside what looked like some kind of large open room. Newt thought it might have once looked nice, as he glanced up at the high ceiling. He wondered, not for the first time, what the world might've looked like before the Scorch. Going by the look of this place, he guessed it must've been posh. He gasped for breath, looking around at their group.
Minho was the most composed of them all, being a Runner for three years, he was used to this kind of intense activity. He stretched his legs, taking deep breaths through his nose to slow his heart rate, and Newt followed suit.
"Gotta stretch," Minho huffed to the others. "You'll hurt yourselves if you run on tight muscles."
Newt noticed the others start to copy Minho's movements, even Jorge. Newt felt some kind of calm come back to him, even though they'd lost Thomas, they still had Minho. Minho could lead them, Newt was certain of it. He and Minho shared a look, and Newt nodded, wordlessly telling him that Newt would back him here, that Minho could take the reins and Newt would be at his side. Ever the Second in Command, he thought.
Flashlights got passed around from Jorge's pack, and the group scanned the room carefully, in pairs, looking for supplies or anything that could help them get through the night. They settled in the middle of the room, and Jorge passed around some of the food rations he'd brought. It wasn't much, and it certainly wasn't Frypan's stew, but it filled their bellies and gave them back some of their energy. Newt looked around at his friends. They'd gotten so lucky, he knew that. Any number of things could've gone wrong back at the encampment. He should be glad and grateful that nearly all of them had gotten out and survived. But there was still a gnawing presence in the back of his mind that begged him to turn around, go back, go find Tommy. He forced himself, instead, to look at each person in the circle, and use them to steel his resolve.
Aris. Frypan. Teresa. Minho. Jorge. They were depending on him to stay focused. Minho needed Newt as his Number Two. Teresa looked lost and adrift, her hand continually rubbing at the back of her neck. Fry looked like he was ready to pass out any second. Aris had his legs tucked into his chest, his arms wrapped around his knees, and his gaze fixed, unseeing, on a point in the floor. And Jorge looked like he wanted to go and rip something – or someone – apart with his bare hands, since Brenda hadn't made it out either. Newt could only hope that Thomas had gotten her to safety, too.
So he pushed down the urge to leave, and he forced himself to focus. If – when – they found Tommy again, Newt could give him what for then. But for now, he let himself rest. He'd need his strength.
"Tomorrow, we push through the city," Jorge said. "There's a commune here, in Section A. We're looking for a guy called Marcus. He's my in with the Right Arm. We find him, we make him tell us where the Right Arm is hiding out. Then we go and find Brenda and Thomas, and we get the hell out of here before WCKD comes back."
The others nodded their understanding. Minho and Newt shared another look. There were only a couple hours left until sunrise. They all needed to sleep.
"Get some rest, if you can," Minho said, taking the words right out of Newt's mind. "And stretch when you wake up, you're gonna be sore," he added. Newt could tell his words were mostly directed at the greenies of the group, at Aris and Teresa. But they all needed the reminder. Newt rolled his ankle carefully, relieved at least to find he could still move it. Probably just a sprain, then.
"I'll take watch," Newt said. Minho frowned at him, like he was going to argue, but Newt raised a hand. "You got struck by lightning a few hours ago, mate. The rest of you lot aren't runners, either, so you all really need to rest. I got plenty of sleep before we got to the compound. I'm taking watch. I'll wake you when the sun rises."
Minho hesitated, but nodded. He laid down on the hard stone floor, and Newt watched as the others followed his lead without arguing. Good that, too, since he really didn't have the energy to argue with them all when they only had a couple hours left to sleep. He hadn't lied, really, he had gotten some sleep in the sand before the lightning storm hit. But mostly, he wanted to take watch, because he didn't know what images would light up behind his eyes if he tried to close them now.
So he sat there, with a flashlight in one hand and a knife in the other, and he waited for the sun to come up.
/
Aris couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Rachel hanging in that WCKD lab. He didn't sit up, though. If Newt wanted time alone, Aris would give it to him. He'd only known the guy a couple days, but he could tell Newt wasn't taking Thomas' disappearance well. He knew the feeling. He hadn't handled it well when the girls from his Maze vanished, either. He clenched his shaking hands into fists as he thought about Sonya and Harriet. They were two of his closest friends, next to Rachel. He wondered what happened to them. He hoped they were alive, somewhere, and that they were safe. God, he hoped they were safe.
In the silence of the room, he could hear Newt's breathing hitch. Aris' heart hurt for him. He didn't know much about this particular group, but one thing he'd spotted right away was how close they all were. Not just metaphorically, either. They stood shoulder to shoulder, like they were terrified that someone or something would tear them away from each other. He wondered what had happened to them to make them behave that way.
Thinking back, he remembered Winston in the sand. The grim, resigned way everyone looked at him. The pain on all of their faces, in their voices, when Newt handed the gun to Winston and said goodbye. The way they'd walked away without a backwards glance, like they were already used to losing people. Aris heard Newt's breath hitch again, and silently he promised himself that if they survived this and made it to the Right Arm, Aris would take the time to learn about his new allies, and that he'd make sure they were never separated like this again. Because Newt could put on a good show for the others, but Aris recognised the way his eyes had looked when those bombs went off in the desert. He knew it intimately, because that was the way Aris' eyes looked when he and Thomas found Rachel strung up.
The sky outside began to turn that hazy kind of purple, right before dawn broke, and Aris watched from his spot in the circle as the sun lit up the ruined city outside. He waited until he heard Newt start moving before rolling over, feigning a yawn, like he'd just been woken by the light. Newt was on his feet, his eyes focused on the doors and the growing brightness outside. When he looked down, his eyes met Aris', and Newt's jaw clenched. Aris nodded once, a gesture meant to reassure, one that said, don't worry, I won't tell them, I've got your back. Newt nodded back, and the moment was broken as the Glader went around waking his friends.
Jorge pulled a knife on him when he woke, and Newt stepped smoothly out of the way. Like he was used to it, Aris thought again. So much could be learned by the simplest actions. Jorge woke fully and tucked the knife back in his jacket, shrugging apologetically. No words needed.
Once the group was up and moving, Aris fell in step beside Newt. He didn't say anything, and Newt didn't speak either, but Aris felt something click into place between them. An understanding between them, one that built on the fragile foundation of their acquaintance. The group made their way through the city, with Minho and Jorge in the lead. Aris glanced back at Frypan and Teresa. Both of them looked vaguely uncomfortable, and Aris wondered if it was just the heat. Teresa gave him a sheepish smile when he looked at her, and something tugged in the back of his mind, almost like a memory. He tucked it away, they had bigger problems to deal with today.
/
Thomas' head was spinning, disoriented from whatever the hell he'd been forced to drink ("Entry fee," the club owner had called it, with a leer that still made Thomas' skin crawl). He and Brenda pushed their way through the crowds, but they were separated by a wave of partygoers, and Thomas lost her. He stumbled around, trying to find his bearings again. He reeled at the sight of a Crank on a chain, surrounded by a group of laughing, probably drunk or drugged, people, and he nearly puked when one guy started dodging around the Crank and put a bullet through its skull. Th club owner laughed at his reaction, and Thomas staggered weakly back through the crowd, calling out Brenda's name. He had to find her, protect her, save her, get her back to Jorge and get himself back to Newt—
Brenda appeared in front of him, a dazed, blissed-out look on her face as she swayed with the music.
"We've gotta go," Thomas said.
"What's the point?" Brenda asked, her gaze fixed on Thomas' mouth. "Marcus isn't here, he can't lead us to the Right Arm. Your friends are gone… we're never going to find them, Thomas. It's over."
"So what do we do?" Thomas asked, because hey, maybe she had a point… maybe this was all totally hopeless, and this club really wasn't that bad, honestly, and—
"This," Brenda whispered, tilting up and kissing him soundly. His hands flailed for a second before resting on her shoulders, and Brenda sighed, leaning closer. They pulled apart after a moment, and Thomas' head spun as he saw Newt's eyes looking back at him, a concerned look on his familiar face. Thomas stumbled back, blinking, the vision of Newt disappearing to be replaced with the very real image of Brenda, looking at him like he'd just slapped her. (Oh God, he didn't slap her, did he?)
"You're not him," Thomas mumbled, shaking his head. Brenda looked devastated, and she staggered away, melting into the crowd again. Thomas cursed himself silently and pushed forward, trying to find her again, but instead he ran into another partygoer, who snapped at him for Thomas' clumsiness. Thomas tried to shove the guy out of the way, and he saw the fist rise, and then he saw nothing at all.
He woke in a bed, groggy and disoriented, to find Frypan and Teresa looking down at him worriedly. His heart thumped heavily at the sight, glad beyond words to see them alive.
"Welcome back, Greenie," Fry said, grinning.
"We've gotta stop meeting like this," Teresa said, a small smile of her own curling her lips. Thomas chuckled at that.
"Good to see you're alive, Tommy," Newt's voice carried to him, and Thomas sat up, his gaze going immediately to his friend. But Newt wasn't looking at him. His gaze was focused across the room, and that's when the first sound of impact reached Thomas' ears.
"Tell me where they are, Marcus," Jorge said, looming over the man from the club. Thomas' brain tripped over itself, registering the name against the information that guy had given them earlier.
"Wait, that's Marcus?" Thomas asked, standing up and walking around the bed. He ended up standing beside Newt. A glance around the room revealed Brenda curled up on a chair, Aris crouched on top of what looked like a dresser, and Minho leaning against a wall like Newt was doing.
"I told you, I don't know where they are," Marcus replied, his voice thick with blood. It looked like Jorge had been working the guy over for a while.
"Look, Marcus, I don't enjoy hurting you," Jorge said. "So just tell me what I need to know."
"You think I wouldn't just tell you, if I knew?" Marcus protested weakly. Jorge raised his fist again, and Thomas noticed the glint of metal wrapped around his hand. Classy, he thought. "Woah, hey, fine! Alright, I might know something." Jorge waited, and Marcus sighed. "Look, last I heard, they're holed up in the mountains, okay? That good enough for you?"
"You're supposed to be the in-between, Marcus, how'd you go from exact locations to this?"
"Let's just say the Right Arm doesn't pay half as well as WCKD," Marcus scoffed. A thrill of stress went through the room at that. Jorge glowered, looming over him again.
"What do you mean?"
"Well. I throw a party, kids show up, and then WCKD comes in and uh, separates the wheat from the chaff," Marcus gloated, a smug look in his eyes that Thomas personally wanted to gouge out. Jorge scoffed.
"You know how I said I didn't enjoy hurting you?" He asked. "I'm gonna enjoy this." He slammed his fist into Marcus' face, sending him toppling backwards in the chair he was bound in. Marcus spluttered, spitting blood, his eyes rolling from the double impact to his head. Jorge grunted as he hauled Marcus' chair upright. "How far is the mountain?" Jorge asked.
"At least a week's walk, maybe more. They're way out past the city," Marcus said, sagging in defeat in his chair. "Are we done now?"
Jorge considered it for a moment, and then leaned down, clapping both of his palms to Marcus' shoulders, resulting in a pained groan from the bound man. "Where's Bertha?"
/
They stopped twice on the way to the mountains. The first stop was mostly just to let everyone stretch their legs. Bertha was a big truck, but everyone was basically crammed on top of each other in the back seat. Newt – the bastard – had gotten shotgun. Bloody shank had all the legroom in the world.
Minho wasn't jealous, though. Well, okay, maybe he was, a little, since he ended up in the back with Aris sitting half on his lap the entire drive. That kid was basically a twig, tiny and thin, with the pointiest bloody elbows Minho had ever seen (or felt, for that matter). But no, Newt could have shotgun. Especially since he kept looking back at them all and grinning like he didn't have a care in the world.
It also didn't help matters that there was this weird, tense, awkward silence between Thomas and Brenda. Minho didn't know what happened to them in that club, but the fact that they'd found Thomas unconscious and bleeding was a pretty good indicator that it had been bad. Brenda had also developed a limp, and Minho wondered if she'd hurt her ankle or something during her escape from the compound with Thomas. It wasn't his place to ask, though, and honestly, Brenda already looked like she was ready to bite Jorge's head off if he asked her how she was feeling again.
The second stop was just outside the mountain range. They found a deserted town, and Thomas got them all out to search for supplies, divvying them up to cover more ground. Minho went with him to search the outer edges, since they were the fastest in the group. Aris, Newt and Brenda went in one direction, while Fry, Jorge, and Teresa investigated the tiny gas station in the hopes of putting a bit more fuel into Bertha before they headed off again.
Minho and Thomas jogged side by side, and it was as easy as it was in the Maze. The buildings here were smaller, spread out wider, than the walls of the Maze, sure, but the wordless communication between the two Runners was familiar, and it put Minho at ease. They ended up by a warehouse right at the edge of town. The door was bent out of shape, like someone had crashed a car into it, and a heavy chain and padlock was all that kept the door closed. Minho and Thomas shared a glance, both wondering the same thing: Is it worth the risk?
Winston's death had been a rude awakening to the bleak reality they faced. They'd assumed they were all immune based on one tiny snippet of information from a recording they now knew was a lie. But Winston had been infected. Ava Paige had said the younger generation could produce an enzyme that fought the disease, and the Gladers put all of their trust in the idea that just because they'd been selected for the Maze Trials, it meant they were all safe. But now… they had no idea which of them could be next. Any of them could potentially get infected. It was a risk they hadn't been prepared for, or even considered.
So now, they stood by the bent doors of a warehouse in the middle of a desert town, reading the danger of the situation in each other's gazes. Thomas clenched his jaw, Minho nodded, and they turned back. Not worth it, too risky.
/
"Can you help her?" Thomas asked Doctor Cooper, as the older woman crouched over Brenda's seizing body on the ground. The Right Arm soldiers stood in a loose circle, all with hands hovering over weapons. Thomas' friends watched the situation warily.
"I can't," Mary said, standing and meeting Thomas' gaze steadily. "But you can." She looked to her soldiers. "Get her to the med tent. Thomas, come with me, I'm gonna need your blood."
Thomas trailed after Mary in a daze, his head still spinning as he tried to connect the dots of what she'd just told him to his fuzzy, sporadic memories of life before the Maze. Could it be true? He gave the Right Arm information about WCKD… well it would certainly explain why they sent him into the Maze. Why they wiped his memories. If he was the leader of a deranged, single-minded organisation hell-bent on torturing children for this elusive enzyme, he certainly wouldn't want to keep a traitor as part of the inner circle. But why not just kill him?
The questions swirled in his mind as Mary took his blood. He watched as she mixed the blood with a variety of different ingredients, his mind still turning over all the new information he'd been given. Until something Mary said caught his attention.
"You worked for WCKD?" He asked, wary and incredulous at once.
"I did," Mary said, nodding. "But when I realised what they were becoming, I knew I had to leave. I could do more good out here, rescuing kids from them, than in those labs. And thanks to you, Thomas, we've rescued over a hundred kids from WCKD compounds and trials." She loaded a syringe with the electric-blue serum as she spoke, and walked over to Brenda's side. She performed the injection carefully, and sighed when the tension in Brenda's body finally abated. "It's not a cure. It'll give her time, though."
"How much time?" Thomas asked nervously. In his mind, all he could see was Winston, in the sand, begging them to kill him. Begging Thomas to look after the others.
"I don't know," Mary admitted. "Months? Weeks? That's the problem. She'll always need more. But for now, she'll be okay."
Thomas nodded, wishing away the ill feeling in his gut. Weeks… it wasn't a lot of time. And then, what? He has to watch her suffer all over again? He sighed. Mary gave him an understanding smile, and it looked sad.
"Get some rest, okay? You're gonna feel a little dizzy for a while," Mary advised. She walked back around Brenda's cot and laid a reassuring hand on Thomas' shoulder. Then, without another word, she left the tent. Thomas rolled his sleeve down, and watched over Brenda. She looked younger in her sleep, he realised. He wondered how old she was. Hell, he wondered how old they all were. He didn't know when his birthday was, and it wasn't like there was some kind of internal body clock he could check. No, that information had been taken from him by WCKD, along with everything else about his life. A slow anger built in his chest. Who were they to decide what Thomas was allowed to know? Who were they to take every piece of knowledge about his life away from him? From all of them?
He glanced at Brenda again, forcing himself to calm down, and that's when he noticed the locket. Carefully, he picked it up, unlatching it to show a grainy photo inside. He wondered who it was…
"My brother," Brenda said quietly, her voice scratchy and dry. He hadn't even noticed her waking up.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—"
"No, it's okay," she said, smiling a little. "You remind me of him, sometimes."
"Yeah?" Thomas asked, glancing down at the photo again. "What was his name?"
"George," Brenda whispered. "WCKD took him. They had both of us, did a bunch of tests, but they didn't want me." She smiled again, though her voice broke over the words, and Thomas took her hand gently. "They wanted him, though. Guess now I know why."
"I'm sorry," Thomas said sincerely. He and Brenda lapsed into silence for a long moment. Then the tent flap opened, and Jorge rushed inside. His eyes went immediately to Brenda, who smiled at her father-figure. Thomas let go of Brenda's hand and stood. "I'll give you two a minute," he said softly. Before he could leave, Jorge grabbed him and wrapped him in a hug so tight, Thomas felt his spine click from it.
"Whatever you need, hermano, you got it," Jorge swore, his voice gravelly with emotion. Thomas nodded, and Jorge released him, moving immediately to Brenda's side, and the stool Thomas had just vacated. Thomas turned away again, and the flap of the tent opened a second time. Newt stuck his head in, his eyes wide and a little too shocked to be entirely comforting.
"You need to see this, now," Newt urged, disappearing as quickly as he'd arrived. Warily, Thomas followed, stepping out into the sunshine and following Newt down a rocky path away from the med tent, to where the other Gladers stood facing another group of kids. Minho was front and centre, up in the face of a lanky guy in the middle of the other group. Newt stopped Thomas a few feet away from the group. "Remember when you went and stung yourself with that Griever needle?" He asked urgently. Thomas blinked, but nodded. "Well, I hope you got enough of your memory back to explain this."
Newt pointed.
Minho moved.
And Thomas found himself staring at his own face on another shank's body.
"Hey there, bro. Long time, no see."
/
Stiles was six years old when his mother handed him and his twin brother over to WCKD. He never saw her again, but he supposed it didn't really matter, anyway. WCKD put them through school, fed them, clothed them, and raised them. It was almost like he didn't have a mother, really. When they turned fifteen, and WCKD put him and Thomas to work in their labs, running tests, supervising the mazes. Stiles learned all too quickly that WCKD really had no place for hyperactive little shits like him, though.
Eventually, after one-too-many screwups, on his sixteenth birthday, WCKD gave up on him. They wiped him, put him in the Box, and sent him up with the monthly supply.
That was how Stiles met his best friends.
Three years later, the sky of his Maze darkened, and a huge black helicopter hovered above what they called the Preserve. The man who dropped down introduced himself as Vince, said that his people were fighting against the people who put them in the Maze to begin with. Promised them freedom, security, and a safe haven where WCKD couldn't touch them again. All it took was one look between the boys, and they clambered up the rickety rope ladder into the helicopter. Stiles remembered looking down at the place he'd called home for a year, seeing the nearly endless labyrinth beyond the walls, and puking out the side of the chopper.
Looking back now, that nausea was almost laughable. Because this was really a kick in the nuts. His twin brother stood just ten feet away from him, looking like he'd been struck dumb as he stared back at Stiles.
"They wiped you, too, huh?" Stiles figured, the pieces clicking together. Thomas said nothing. The scrawny British kid at his side just glared at him. Stiles shrugged, he was used to being glared at. He moved to step towards his brother, but that jock kid got in his way.
"Stay the hell away from him, shank," the kid snarled, and Stiles nearly laughed.
"What, you think I'm gonna kill him?" Stiles scoffed. "Dude, I weigh 180 pounds soaking wet, alright, sarcasm is literally my only weapon. I'm not gonna hurt him, I wanna talk to him. Hello? Same face? Twins?"
"Twins?" Thomas spoke at last, his voice high and shaky like this was a genuine shock. Like he'd never even heard the word before. The British kid muttered something to Thomas, but Stiles was too far away to hear it.
"Yeah, Thomas, twins," Stiles said. He looked around at the strange group of kids his brother had apparently collected. "See? None of you said his name, how would I know it?"
"Working for WCKD," the jock kid snarled suspiciously.
"Heard Mary say it back there," the skinny blonde kid supplied.
"What's next, I'm a mind-reader?" Stiles scoffed again. "Look, Tom, can you call off your guard dogs for a minute? Please? I literally just wanna talk."
He really should've remembered about his brother's temper, but hey, sue him, he'd only got his memories back recently, alright? Either way, he probably shouldn't have been too surprised by the way his brother ran forward and decked him right in the mouth.
Stiles fell back against his friends, and immediately he flung his arms out to the side to hold them all back. "Woah! Hey, no, we're good, it's alright, we're good."
"We are not good, and you are not my brother," Thomas growled in his face, and shit, that was weird.
"Uh, I'm pretty sure I am, dude, unless WCKD worked on cloning in their spare time, and we both know they didn't do that, so," Stiles said with a shrug as he righted himself again.
"Both? Wait, I'm confused, you said you didn't work for WCKD?" The skinny kid asked.
"Never actually said that," Stiles corrected. "Yeah, me and Tommy—"
"Don't call me that!"
"Yeesh, alright, me and Thomas worked for them. Raised by them, actually. I remember your little girlfriend, by the way," Stiles said with a side glance at Teresa, who was hanging back away from the group. "Anyway, I was no good at my job, so they wiped me and put me in the maze. Ironic that they did the same thing to you."
"They put me in the Maze because I betrayed them," Thomas said. "Gave up intel to the Right Arm."
"You were the Source," Stiles said, nodding in understanding. "Makes sense. Must've been one hell of a shock to see your own brother in the Maze."
"I… I never saw you," Thomas said, frowning. "At least, I… I don't think I did, I… sorry, it's all kind of jumbled."
"You haven't gotten your memories back?" Stiles asked, concern rising against his will. He could feel his friends shifting anxiously behind him.
"No, I mean, is that even possible?" Thomas asked back.
"Yeah, Mary did it for me – all of us, actually – as soon as they got us out," Stiles said, gesturing to the guys behind him.
"Can she do it for us?" The British kid interrupted before Thomas could say anything else. There was a weird desperation in the kid's eyes, and Stiles was suddenly reminded of Liam, the boy they lost to the Flare just a few days after they were rescued. Less than a week before Thomas and his friends arrived. God, it really hadn't been long at all…
"I think so," Stiles said, pulling himself back to reality. "The chips in your necks, they're neural blockers. Simple enough to reverse the effects."
"Hang on, I though you said you were bad at your job," Thomas said suspiciously.
"Oh, I definitely was bad at it. Nothing worse for a teenager with ADHD than to be sat in front of a computer with a bunch of medical readings and told to stay there. But the tech stuff, well that's easy enough to pick up once you know what you're looking for. Vince taught me the specifics when we got here, but I picked up a lot in the Maze," Stiles said in one long breath.
His brother's friends all stared at him like he'd grown another head, and behind Stiles, Jackson scoffed.
"You think that's bad, try being stuck with this dick for three years," Jackson said. His comment sparked exasperated groans from his group, and surprised – yet amused – glances from his brother's. Then the British kid smiled. Like, actually smiled. Then he turned to Thomas.
"Okay. Now I see the resemblance," he said, and he laughed when Thomas swiped out a hand to hit him in the gut. It was clear that whoever these guys were, Thomas trusted them. So Stiles did what he did best, and dived headfirst into the madness. He stepped forward and stuck out his hand to the Brit.
"I'm Stiles," he said, waiting. He hoped he'd made the right pick here, but he was pretty good at figuring out group dynamics at a glance. The Brit hesitated, glanced at Thomas, and then shook Stiles' hand.
"Newt."
/
Newt watched as Stiles introduced himself to the other Gladers, making a note of how he avoided Teresa, and he felt Thomas' elbow nudge him.
"Well?" Thomas asked in a mutter, his eyes on his twin brother. Newt sighed, and Thomas nodded. It was funny how they rarely needed words to communicate. Not just the two of them, but all of the Gladers. Even Aris was catching on. The sigh meant I don't know if we can trust him, keep him at a distance for now, see what he can tell us, don't let your guard down. "Yeah," Thomas agreed.
In the time it took to come to that conclusion, Stiles had started introducing his own friends.
"-is Scott," he was saying when Newt tuned back in. "He was our Leader in the Maze. This is Jackson, he's a dick but he's useful in a fight, great with knives. That's Derek at the back there, if you need a favour, don't ask him, he'll just give you the Eyebrows of Doom and make you feel bad for shit you haven't even done yet. Our Maze was co-ed, no idea why so don't ask, but the girls are off getting check-ups.
"And to round us out, we've got Mason and Corey. They were the last two to come up before the rescue," Stiles pointed to two boys huddled together a few feet away from the main group. Newt's stomach twisted when he recognised the look of grief on their faces.
"You lost someone?" Newt asked, his voice low and careful. Stiles nodded.
"The virus," Stiles said.
"Us, too," Newt offered the information carefully, unsure of whether Thomas' brother would take it as a challenge.
"Sucks, huh?" Stiles said instead. Newt nodded. He glanced at Tommy, who was still seemingly shell-shocked by the discovery of not just a brother, but a twin.
"So. The chips?" Newt said, changing the subject swiftly. "How soon can we get our memories sorted out?"
"Gotta ask Mary," Stiles said, shrugging. He glanced up behind Newt, and raised a hand in greeting. "There's the girls, hang on. You're gonna like them."
Newt turned to see four young women approaching them, and even he could admit they were beautiful. Minho apparently agreed, given the way his jaw dropped. Thomas kicked his ankle subtly. Thankfully, the women either didn't notice, or didn't care. Two of them had their hands linked together between them, the other two walked with their arms looped through each other.
"Hey, what'd we miss?" The shortest of the group, a pretty redhead, asked as they reached the group. Then she seemed to notice Thomas, and her eyes widened. "Oh, this is going to be interesting," she said. She nudged the tall girl on her left, the one holding the hand of a slim Asian girl. "Malia, don't freak out, but there's two of him."
The tall girl – Malia, apparently – turned to look, and her eyes bugged out almost more than Minho's had before.
"Well, shit," Malia said. Behind Newt, Stiles groaned. (Newt would like to think it was a testimony to how well he knew Tommy that he could tell the difference between his groans and his brother's.)
"So, this is my brother, please don't be weird about it, Malia," Stiles said, sounding like he'd had similar conversations before. Newt wondered what the relationship dynamics looked like with Stiles' maze group, because already, Newt was confused.
"I'm not, I'm just wondering if identical means identical, you know?" Malia said, shrugging like she hadn't just said that. Newt's throat was suddenly very dry, hm, must be the mountain air. Minho choked on his own tongue. And Tommy… Tommy turned on his heel and walked away, leaving them all in the dirt. Everyone was quiet as they watched him go, but then Malia spoke up again. "What? What did I say?"
/
Thomas walked. He didn't know where he was going, or where his feet were going to take him, but he just moved. Across the dirt paths worn flat by trucks. The sights and sounds of the rebel camp floated around him, like he was underwater, or in a bubble. Or some other metaphor. How could he not know he had a brother? How could Teresa not tell him? She had her memories back, didn't she? That's what she said, right? So how could she keep this from him?
To keep you on her side, a voice in his head supplied. It sounded suspiciously like Newt's voice. To keep you loyal to her without having done anything to earn it.
No, no, that couldn't be it. Teresa was his friend, wasn't she? She escaped WCKD with them. She helped them get out of the Maze. She was on his side. She had to be.
Wasn't she?
A hand grabbed his arm suddenly, and Thomas spun, coming face to face with Newt, who looked like he'd been running.
"Hey, Tommy, talk to me," Newt insisted, putting both hands on Thomas' shoulders. The echo of his brother's voice rattled in his head. Me and Tommy. "Thomas!" Newt snapped, shaking Thomas to make him focus. "Hey, don't fall apart on me now, mate. Talk to me, what's going on in that head of yours?"
"I don't know," Thomas said honestly. "This… he… I don't know, Newt."
"Okay, that's alright, we'll work it out," Newt said, squeezing Thomas' shoulders. "It's been a rough day. I get it. I wasn't exactly prepared to run into a Tommy doppelganger today, either."
"Yeah," Thomas said. He stepped back, and Newt's hands dropped off his shoulders. Newt folded his arms over his chest instead, not bothering to take offence at the distance. Thomas sighed. Newt needed to know, he decided. "Back in the Facility, WCKD gave Teresa her memories back," he confessed. Newt watched him steadily, not even a flicker of emotion on his face. Thomas sighed again, this time in relief. This is what he needed, Newt's objectivity. "She told me when… the day we lost Winston. But she never mentioned…"
"She never told you that you've got a brother," Newt finished when Thomas trailed off anxiously. "And now you're wondering if she's been telling us the truth at all, whether we can trust her."
"Exactly," Thomas said, relieved that Newt got it, got him. "I just don't know what to think, you know?"
"Yeah, Tommy, I get it," Newt said. He frowned slightly, glancing over his shoulder. "Look, we agreed to keep our distance, right? Gather intel with our guard up?"
"Yeah," Thomas said, frowning in return.
"I say we hold her to the same standard," Newt said. "She's done some good, I can acknowledge that. But, Tommy, if you don't trust her, we're with you, alright. We follow your lead on this."
"Thanks, Newt," Thomas said with another sigh. "God, it's so weird, isn't it? I have a brother. A twin brother."
"I think it's kind of cool, honestly," Newt admitted with a grin. "Always wanted a twin, personally."
"Two of you? The world couldn't handle it," Thomas teased, letting go of his worries now that he'd shared them with Newt. He got a slap to the arm for his joke, though, but Newt was grinning at him, so Thomas took it without complaint.
/
Stiles spoke to Mary, who spoke to Vince, who promised they could start on the memory retrieval procedure the next day. Stiles passed the info along to Newt, who presumably passed it on to Thomas, and then Stiles went back to his friends.
"What do you think?" He asked the group at large once they were all ensconced in their large tent. He looked around at his friends, his found family, and waited for their verdicts. Scott spoke up first.
"I don't think we can trust them. Not fully, at least," he amended at Stiles' frown. "Look, I know he's your brother, but… WCKD wiped him. And we don't know how long he was working for them before he got wiped. It could've been weeks, maybe years. I just. I think we should feel them out before we get too invested."
Silence followed Scott's verdict, and then Lydia added her opinion.
"Newt's the one we need to win over," she said, like it was obvious. And sure, to her and Stiles – who nodded at her statement – it was. The others looked at her with confusion on their faces, so she sighed and elaborated. "When Thomas walked off, Newt was the only one who went after him. Minho even stopped the others from following. Which means, Newt is Thomas' Second. He's the one we need to get on our side if we want Thomas to trust any of us."
A chorus of "Ohh," went around the group as they understood.
"And how exactly do you plan to win Newt over, Lydia?" Jackson piped up, letting the insinuation in his words linger, just to be an asshole.
"Oh, please, if anyone's going to have any luck with that type of bonding, it'll be Stiles," Lydia scoffed, examining her nails as though she didn't have a single care beyond her cuticle health. Stiles rolled his eyes, but thankfully Jackson shut up.
"We don't need them," Mason's cold, sad voice spoke up from the edge of the room. Stiles turned his head to meet Mason's eyes. In the boy's hurt gaze, Stiles could hear everything Mason wasn't saying aloud.
"I'm not trying to replace Liam, Mason," Stiles said, carefully.
"No? So all the brother talk was just for show, huh? Just for a laugh? And this bullshit meeting about trusting them? You don't wanna ally with the guy who might be the reason you were stuck in that maze for three years, the reason I lost Liam?!"
"We all lost Liam," Scott said coldly. "Not just you. And most of us knew him a lot longer than you did."
"Fuck you, Leader," Mason spat, standing and storming out of the tent. Corey followed, as silent as a shadow. Stiles sighed.
"Nice going, Scott," Stiles said tiredly. They'd been having the same argument ever since they lost Liam, and Stiles was so far over it by now he was basically cosmic.
"Shut up, Stiles, it needed to be said," Scott snapped.
"No, you just needed to say it," Stiles corrected. He stood, brushing the dirt from his jeans. "I'm gonna go for a walk. Cool off before I get back, and make a decision on what we're gonna do from here on out. Leader."
And yeah okay, maybe the dig at Scott's status was unfair, fine. But Stiles had had enough of the temper tantrums and the childish bitching. In the Preserve, things were so much simpler. Everyone knew their place, knew their role, and stuck to their routines like glue. It was easy, then. But ever since the Right Arm got them out, it had been nothing but chaos. Stiles knew, logically, that everyone was still adjusting. But logic didn't make it less frustrating.
Stiles sighed as he walked around the compound. The sun was starting to drop overhead; Stiles guessed it was somewhere around mid-afternoon. To his left, he saw Mason and Corey, wrapped around each other for strength. Stiles swerved right to avoid them. He didn't need another fight right now. Instead, he scanned the faces around him for someone familiar. There. Up by the med tent, he spotted Newt and Minho. Thomas was with them, but his back was to Stiles, so he couldn't even gauge his brother's state. It was still so weird knowing he had a brother. He wondered about their mom, suddenly. Then pushed that thought away, because he really could not do that right now. He picked his way up the path, making his approach obvious, so Thomas' friends had time to warn him, and Thomas could get away if he wanted to.
Apparently, he didn't want to.
He turned to face Stiles, and for a brief moment, Stiles wondered if he was about to get punched in the face again. But then Thomas waved him over, looking almost defeated. Stiles jogged up the path, stopping in front of Thomas.
"We need to talk," Thomas said, and Stiles nodded. Finally. "They're coming too," Thomas added, tipping his head to indicate he meant Newt and Minho. Stiles' stomach sank a little, but he nodded again. If this is what Thomas needed to feel like he could trust Stiles, so be it.
"Alright. Where?" Stiles asked.
"Follow me," Thomas said. Newt smirked at the words, and Stiles wondered what the hell was so funny about that. Some inside joke, apparently. Stiles felt oddly off-balance at the realisation, because he didn't have inside jokes with Thomas. WCKD robbed them of that along with any chance of a normal childhood, a normal life, a normal family.
He wondered what their dad looked like.
Thomas led them to an empty tent near the edge of the compound. Stiles noticed as they passed, Thomas nodded to the skinny kid – Aris – and the two girls he was sitting with by the side of a truck. Their tent, he guessed. Some guys get all the luck.
He entered the tent first, followed by Minho, then Newt, then Thomas. The flap fell shut behind them.
"What do you remember?" Thomas asked immediately once everyone sat down. Stiles noted how Newt sat closer to Thomas than Minho did. Useful information, his brain supplied.
"About what, specifically?" Stiles asked.
"Us. WCKD." Thomas seemed to hesitate before the next word. "Teresa." Newt and Minho stiffened at the name, just slightly, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it, and boy, was Stiles looking.
"Our mom gave us to them when we were kids," Stiles started. "WCKD raised us. Gave us jobs when we turned fifteen." Thomas frowned but nodded, waiting for Stiles to continue. "I got wiped at sixteen. They put me into the maze. I was the second one to arrive. Derek was the first."
"I thought you said Scott was your leader?" Newt interrupted. Observant, Stiles noted.
"He was. Derek… well, you guys had creatures in your maze, right?" Stiles asked.
"Grievers," Minho said in a low voice, like the mere mention was enough to bring one to their door.
"We had wolves. Or, well, kind of? I guess? Part wolf, part machine… part human," Stiles said darkly, remembering the sound. "We called them Omegas."
"Derek had a run-in?" Newt guessed, but Stiles shook his head.
"His girlfriend, Jennifer," Stiles said. "Derek was in charge, back then. And he, well. He missed something, one night on his rounds. An Omega got inside the walls…" He could see them all getting tense, so he stopped. Truthfully, it wasn't even his story to tell. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, Derek was never the same, after that. He tried to make me the Leader, and make Scott my Second, but I just kept spinning it off, giving Scott the final say. Eventually people stopped asking me first. Went straight to him, instead. I don't think Derek's ever really gotten past that."
Minho was nodding understandingly, Thomas was frowning, and Newt… Newt was looking at Thomas. Bingo.
"What else do you want to know?" Stiles asked, steering the conversation.
"How long were you in there?" Newt asked.
"Three years, give or take."
"But your group…" Minho started, before probably figuring it out for himself. Thomas started to look sick beside him. Stiles guessed there was a story there, too.
"Not all of us got out," Stiles said solemnly. "And some of us who did get out, didn't stick around."
"Tell me about Teresa," Thomas said suddenly, staring at the floor like he couldn't bear to face his friends, or his brother, with the request.
"What do you need me to tell you, that you haven't already guessed on your own?" Stiles asked pointedly. "She was WCKD's favourite. Right next to you. Tom and Tess," he said, a little bitterly. "That's what you called each other. Among other things."
"Meaning?" Newt asked harshly.
"They were together," Stiles said. "Thomas didn't think I knew, but Teresa never missed a chance to be smug about it. She hated me."
"Alright, I don't care about the domestics," Thomas snapped. "I need to know if she's trustworthy."
"No," Stiles answered bluntly. "She was WCKD's favourite for a reason, Thomas. She was – probably still is – just as single-minded as the rest of them. She supervised the subjects before they went into the Maze. Before we went into the Maze. All she cared about was finding a cure. Doctor Paige mentored her directly."
One look around the room told Stiles everything he needed to know: Teresa had lied to them all, and they were kicking themselves for believing her.
"Didn't you ever wonder why they sent you into the Maze instead of just killing you, Thomas?" Stiles asked quietly. Thomas looked up at him, and Stiles nodded. "Obviously, I don't know for sure, I was already in the Maze by then. But I have a feeling she might've had something to do with it."
"Trust your feelings, do you?" Newt asked angrily, though Stiles could tell that the anger wasn't directed at him.
"Yeah, do you trust yours?"
/
That night, WCKD came for them, and Thomas was running, too slow, away from Teresa and her confession, running to his friends, his family, his brother, his throat burning as he screamed a warning that came too late—
The explosions knocked him off his feet. He got back up.
He kept running.
/
Dawn broke, but it wasn't beautiful. The sunlight reflected off broken glass, bullet casings, and twisted metal. And a group of survivors, standing around the pyre they'd spent the last few hours constructing for the dead.
People looked to him, Vince looked to him, and Thomas uttered the words that would change everything.
"I'm gonna kill Ava Paige."
Chapter 2: PART 2
Notes:
Here's where the fake science tag comes into effect!
Chapter Text
Six months. Six months of planning, tracking, researching, preparing… and all of it for nothing.
Minho wasn't in that train car.
Newt slammed his fist down against the table, and swore, loudly, at the sharp sting of pain. It didn't really hurt, not really, but he needed to yell. He needed to release some of the rage and disappointment he'd felt when they unloaded those kids and not one of them was the one they were actually trying to save.
They got Aris and Sonya back, so Newt forced himself to remember that it wasn't a lost cause, not entirely. And Stiles had nearly collapsed in relief when Lydia stepped out of the car. So that was another win. But they'd done all of this for Minho, and he wasn't there. Newt leaned against the table, bracing himself on his closed fists, and sighed heavily. He shut his eyes and went still, trying to calm himself down before he had to go back out there and pull everyone else together.
That was Newt's role, and everyone knew it. He was the glue that held them all together, and if he lost it now? The rest of them were done for.
The door creaked open behind him, and Newt sighed.
"Not now, Tommy," he said, without looking up, because of course Thomas would be the first one to look for him. Instead, there was an awkward shuffling noise behind him.
"Wrong twin, sorry," Stiles said sheepishly. Newt bit down the angry retort he wanted to make. Stiles didn't deserve Newt's temper. So he sighed again, and turned around. Stiles had his hands in his pockets, somehow looking a lot younger than he should for his twenty years. "Look, I just. I'm sorry. About Minho."
Newt didn't say anything, because really, what was there to say? That he wished Minho was on that train car? Obvious. That he was pissed Stiles got his best friend back, but Newt didn't? Unfair.
"We'll find him, Newt," Stiles said after the silence stretched between them for just a bit too long. "Anyway. Thomas is with Vince now, setting the new kids up. Do you want me to go get him for you?"
"No," Newt said, shaking his head. "No, that's okay. I'll go to him."
"You always do, don't you," Stiles said, tipping his head to the side just a fraction, like he was figuring something out. Tommy did the same thing, Newt realised. The brothers were alike in more than just appearance. Suddenly, Stiles straightened, his eyes going wide, and Newt knew what he was going to say before he spoke. "You love him," Stiles said, his voice going soft. Not a declaration, or an announcement, just a statement of fact.
A fact that Newt had been successfully avoiding for a very long time, thank you very much.
He sighed, resigned. "Don't tell him, alright?"
"Not my secret to tell, dude," Stiles said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. With that, he left the room, and Newt slumped his shoulders. He leaned back against the table and rubbed his face tiredly.
One minute, he decided. He'd give himself one more minute to feel the hurt, the rage, the sorrow, and then he'd walk out that door and go find Tommy.
One minute.
/
Thomas worked on automatic, walking side by side with Vince, leading the new kids around the docks, showing them where they could sleep, eat, and bathe. He was steadfastly ignoring the looming fact that Minho hadn't been there, just as he was steadfastly ignoring the memory of Newt's disappointed face when Thomas told him.
Just as he ignored the distinct lack of his Second at his side as he walked around.
Vince nudged him, suddenly, and Thomas tuned back into the world. He blinked, looking down to meet the eyes of a kid who couldn't be more than fifteen years old. The memory of Chuck hit him like a train, and Thomas sucked a breath through his teeth.
"Are we safe here?" The kid asked, apparently not for the first time, if his tone was anything to go by.
"This is a stopping point," Thomas said, repeating Vince's words from a few weeks back. "We're not staying here long, but the place we're going? You'll be safe there. Promise."
"If you say so," the kid said, sounding annoyed. "The last place promised we'd be safe, too."
"Kevin!" Another boy called over, and the kid in front of Thomas turned around and walked away without another word. Thomas tried not to let it bother him.
"Hey, Tommy," Newt's voice was like a balm, and Thomas turned with a smile to face his Second. "Busy?"
"A bit," Thomas replied. "You good?"
"Always." Newt's smile didn't reach his eyes, but Thomas let him fake it anyway. He turned to Vince.
"Can you handle the rest?" Thomas asked. Vince sighed, but nodded.
"Go on," Vince said, waving them off. Thomas nodded his thanks and moved away, Newt falling in step beside him like always.
"I'm sorry," Thomas said when they were far enough away from everyone. He kept his eyes on the ground, shame burning up his spine. "If I'd just—"
"Hey, no. None of that," Newt interrupted. Thomas glanced up to see Newt giving him that stern gaze. "It's not your fault, Thomas."
"It was my plan," Thomas said. "I told you which car to cut loose. If I'd just listened for a minute longer… I could've picked up Minho's voice better. Picked the right car."
"Thomas," Newt repeated sternly. "This wasn't your fault. And it wasn't a total loss, alright? We got Aris, Sonya, and Lydia back by picking that car."
"But WCKD still has Minho."
"And Minho is probably raising hell right now, fighting like always," Newt said. "He's alive, and he's out there, and we are going to bring him home. You understand me?"
It took him a moment, but finally, Thomas nodded. Newt was right. He couldn't give up now, couldn't give in to the self-pity or the hopelessness. Minho needed them.
Thomas nodded again, more firmly this time, and met Newt's firm gaze with his own.
"Let's go bring him home."
/
Minho didn't hear the words being said to him. He stared at nothing. There were links of cold metal around his wrists, and the hard edge of a table dug into his forearms. He didn't hear the words, but he knew the voice. He remembered the last thing that voice had promised him. They won't hurt any of you! That's the bargain I made! Rage bubbled up his spine. He heard a resigned sigh, followed by the sound of a chair being pushed back.
You're not getting away this time, bitch, he thought furiously. He forced his voice to work.
"Teresa."
She turned. Stepped closer. Minho could smell the disinfectant she used on her hands before coming here. He looked up. Her face swam into focus, and the rage overflowed.
"YOU'RE A TRAITOR!" He screamed in her face, lunging upwards. He grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her onto the table. "YOU'RE A TRAITOR! I'LL KILL YOU!" Guards swarmed inside, and Minho spotted Teresa's hairpin on the table before they did, and he grabbed it. "YOU DID THIS TO US!" He yelled at her as she ran away. "I'LL KILL YOU! TRAITOR!"
A jolt of electricity ran through him, and he slumped against the table. His last desperate thought before he blacked out was that the guards wouldn't bother to search him when they dumped him back in his cell.
/
The lights at the docks went out that night.
Thomas stood in the dark, in between his brother and Vince. He spoke into the night.
"You're right. We can't stay here."
Stiles looked over at his brother and heard the words he wasn't saying.
Vince went out and spread the word, and Stiles went to find Newt.
/
"Where do you think you're going?" Newt asked, turning on a lamp as he saw Thomas sneaking down to the truck in the dark. Maybe it was a little dramatic, but he didn't care. Thomas looked at him guiltily, a backpack hanging limply in his hand as he realised he'd been caught. "Don't be a twat about it. I'm already in." He stepped up and took the bag from Thomas' hand, and that gesture seemed to reboot him.
"No," he said firmly. "No, Newt, not this time."
"I told you, Tommy, I'm following you," Newt said, stopping by the side of the truck.
"It's too dangerous," Thomas insisted.
"Better not go alone, then," Newt said. He opened the door of the truck and Fry leaned forward with a grin. Newt watched as Thomas resigned himself to Newt's plan. "Get in. Let's go bring Minho home."
Newt walked around to the passenger seat, and Thomas let himself into the back. Newt didn't need to look back in order to picture the shock on Tommy's face as he realised his brother was there too.
"No," Thomas said firmly, again.
"Dude, who do you think told them you were gonna go off on your own? I'm coming with you," Stiles said. Newt nodded at Fry, and the truck switched on, pulling away from the docks and driving out into the Scorch again. Towards WCKD. Towards Minho.
/
Thomas didn't remember throwing the punch, but suddenly, Gally was on the floor, and Thomas was being dragged backwards by three sets of hands. He couldn't see straight. Everything was tinged with red hot rage. He killed Chuck, he killed Chuck, he—
"I know," Newt said, and it took a second for Thomas to realise he'd spoken aloud. "I also know that he was stung, and half out of his mind."
Gally got to his feet and waved off the rebels behind him, rubbing his jaw with one hand. Thomas nearly lunged at him again, but Jorge kept him back. Brenda had a hold on his other arm, and though they both eyed Gally with suspicion, neither of them let go of Thomas.
"It's alright," Gally said to the soldiers. "I probably deserved that. Anybody else? Newt? Fry?"
Newt backed up a step and looked at Gally properly. "What- how… I don't understand, we watched you die."
"No, you left me to die," Gally said. There was no malice in his voice, no anger, just a fact. Thomas forced himself to focus, because Gally was literally the least important thing in that moment. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Minho," Thomas said curtly. "WCKD has him. We're looking for a way in."
"I might have one," Gally offered. "But first, who's the shank?"
In unison, Newt, Fry and Thomas turned to look at Stiles, who was watching the interaction with interest. Thomas turned back to Gally.
"He's my brother."
/
Newt couldn't tell them. He rubbed his arm absently. He couldn't tell them. The black veins were spreading, had been ever since the tunnel. He wanted to tell them. He wanted to pull Tommy aside and lift his sleeve and let the ugly black marks say what he couldn't. That he wasn't immune. He was ordinary. He was a variable. He was dying.
He couldn't tell them.
Any of them.
So he didn't. Instead, he wrote a letter.
/
The Flare was an ugly, unstable disease. It twisted the mind, manipulated the emotions. The tiniest spark could set it off, and once it started burning, there was only one way to put it out.
"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Newt yelled, slamming Thomas – Tommy – against the wall. "Don't. Lie. To me." He repeated. Under his hands, Thomas floundered, his eyes wide and shocked, his mouth gaping around words he couldn't find. The jealous rage that had sprung up at the mention of Teresa's name vanished in a flash as Newt realised what he'd done. He dropped his hands, backing away like Thomas was the one burning, not him. "Sorry, I- I'm sorry."
He left the room in a rush, going straight for the roof. He should throw himself over, he thought, end all of this now before it gets worse. Before he hurt someone. Before he hurt Tommy.
Instead, he ended up sitting on the edge, his hand rubbing over the spot where the black veins protruded. He sat there, he didn't know for how long. Eventually, the door opened, and he looked over to see Tommy walking towards him. Shame crept up his spine at the sight. Tommy had a red mark on his jaw, Newt didn't remember how it got there, but he'd probably knocked it when he'd shoved Tommy into the wall.
"Sorry about that, back there," he said, aiming for a casual tone. Thomas' eyes met his, and he sighed. "Guess I can't hide this anymore." He pushed up his sleeve and let Tommy see for himself. He heard the gasp, and he shoved the sleeve down again. "I always wondered why they put me in the Maze," he mused. "I suppose it was literally so they could tell the difference between immunes like you, and people like me."
"Newt," Thomas sighed, crouching beside him. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"It's not about me. This is about saving Minho," Newt insisted. "Getting him home, remember? And we will." He swallowed, and continued bluntly. "No matter the cost."
Thomas was silent beside him for a long time, and Newt thought – hoped? – that he'd just agree, that they'd go and get Minho, and maybe someone would put a bullet through his head before he cranked out. But then Tommy spoke.
"Newt. If the cost is your life? I'm not gonna pay it."
/
Stiles sat silently in the meeting room, watching the others react to the news. Newt was staring pointedly at the wall above everyone's heads, avoiding everyone's eyes. Stiles had already guessed; he knew the symptoms of the Flare now, he wasn't going to miss them again, not when he'd missed it the first time, with Liam. But still. There was a pretty big gap between guessing at something, and being told the truth.
The room was silent for too long, apparently, because Newt huffed.
"I'm not about to crank out or drop dead, you can breathe, you shanks," he said exasperatedly. A dry chuckle followed his words, and Stiles saw the look on his brother's face. Newt didn't look, though, he didn't see it, but Stiles did.
Stiles saw everything.
"Look, we just need to get our hands on some serum, to give him some time," Thomas said to the group, looking away from Newt.
"We could use your blood, Thomas," Brenda spoke up beside Stiles. She'd been quiet for so long, Stiles had almost forgotten about her. "Like we did at the Right Arm, for me."
"You made a serum out of Thomas' blood?" Gally asked. "When was your last dose?"
Brenda shifted uncomfortably, and Stiles guessed that this particular information wasn't meant to be shared. Thomas answered anyway, though.
"Six months ago, give or take," he said. Gally's eyebrows shot up at that.
"She should've needed another dose," Gally said. "Lawrence is on a drip of the stuff, he can't come off it for more than an hour, and you're telling me that your blood made a serum that's lasted six months?"
"We didn't really think about it," Thomas said, shrugging. Stiles supposed it was fair, the last six months had been insane, to say the least.
Gally seemed a little thrown by that. Stiles watched as he rubbed a hand over his face.
"Okay. New plan," Gally said. "We get Teresa, make her get us inside WCKD. We get Minho, we grab everything we need to make the damn serum, and we get the hell out."
"I hate to play the Devil's advocate," Newt interrupted. "But Teresa already betrayed us once. How can we be sure she won't do it again?"
"She won't get the chance," Gally said. "We'll have eyes – and guns – on her at all times."
"We had eyes on her six months ago, she still found a way to contact WCKD," Newt pointed out. Stiles could see his hands curling into fists at his side. Problem.
"How does Lawrence get his supply?" Stiles stood to ask the question, diverting the attention away from Newt. He hoped it would give him a second to calm down. "I'm guessing you're not raiding WCKD labs every day?"
"No, we've got a doctor," Gally said, crossing his arms and tilting his head at Stiles. "Why?"
"What if we mix up a serum here? Just to give us enough time to get in and out of the city."
"Like I said, Lawrence can't come off the drip for more than an hour," Gally said.
"Yeah, but he's further down the line than Newt is," Stiles pointed out. "Maybe it'll give him a bit longer."
"I mean, it's a possibility," Gally mused. "Who's gonna supply the blood? Can't be Thomas, we'd need more than he could restore in time for the rescue."
"Take mine," Stiles said with a careless shrug. "I'm Thomas' twin, I've done the Maze trials, I'm immune. Our blood should be similar enough to work."
"Maybe," Gally said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Guys? Thoughts?"
"I'm not risking Newt's life – and Minho's life – for a maybe," Thomas said bluntly. "Whatever you need, take it from me. I'll be fine."
"And send you in there half out of your mind from blood loss? No," Newt argued. "I need you on top of your game, Tommy."
"And I need you alive and not cranked out," Thomas argued right back. "I can take a little blood loss, alright, I've done it before."
"Yeah? When?" Newt snapped.
"Six months ago," Thomas answered coldly. Newt paused. Stiles watched the two of them, watched the anger drain out of Newt's eyes, saw the coldness slide out of Thomas'.
"You never said—"
"You never asked."
"New plan, take half from me, half from Thomas," Stiles interjected. "That way, we both have time to recover before we have to go in, and hopefully, our blood will be similar enough that it'll make a decent serum for Newt. Everyone happy?"
By the looks on everyone's faces, no, everyone was not happy.
Problem.
/
"We've got a problem," the doctor said, holding up the two labelled blood samples in his gloved hands. "I just tested these, and only one of them has the enzyme we need for the serum."
"No, that doesn't make sense, we're both immune," Thomas argued, confusion making him angry.
"I don't get it either," the doctor said, shrugging. "But if you want that serum, it has to be your blood alone."
Thomas sighed. He was glad the doctor approached him on his own, because it meant no one was around to yell at him as he took a seat and rolled up his sleeve.
"Take what you need. It has to be enough for one dose," he said. The doctor nodded, pocketed the vials, switched his gloves to a fresh set, and started to draw.
/
It's worth noting, Newt hated needles. He hated it all the more when he caught sight of Tommy, pale and swaying, and realised instantly what had happened. The doctor injected the serum into his arm, and Newt grit his teeth against the stinging burn of it. He envied Brenda, who had been unconscious for her first dose. He wished he was unconscious, the damn serum was like fire in his veins.
Then it was done. The fire stopped, and the roiling itch of the Flare went out with it. Newt glanced down at his arm, and held his breath as he pushed up his sleeve. He only let himself breathe again when he saw the black veins fade away to nothing.
"It worked," he whispered. He looked up, his eyes going straight to Tommy, only to be reminded of why the damn serum had worked.
Thomas leaned heavily against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest like he could hide how much blood he'd given up. Newt scowled and stormed over, weaving around the people in his way, until he stood in front of Thomas.
"Thomas," he said, letting his annoyance show in his tone. Thomas at least had the brain power left to look contrite. "How much? Hm? How much did they need to take?"
"I'm fine," Thomas slurred. Newt turned to the doctor instead.
"How much did you take?"
"Two pints."
"Two—" Newt bit off his sentence. He inhaled deeply, turning back to Tommy, who looked downright ashamed now. As he should, Newt thought. "You… still every bit that impulsive Greenie, aren't you? God, Tommy, we have to be moving out in three hours!"
"You needed the serum," Thomas said defensively. "I was gonna tell you after."
"Yeah? Real smart, shank. You can hardly stand, and you thought I wouldn't notice?" Newt scolded. In contrast to his voice, though, his hands were gentle as he carefully herded Tommy to a chair.
"Stiles' blood wouldn't work," Thomas said, shrugging. "Couldn't mix the two, so I gave more of mine."
"Wait. More?" Newt paled. He turned on the doctor again.
"How much did you take the first time? For the test sample?" The doctor hesitated, glancing around the room shiftily. Everyone's eyes were on him now.
"He took about a half pint each," Stiles answered instead, remembering. "Said he needed at least one full pint for the serum. He took the samples from that first draw."
Nearly three pints of blood. No wonder Tommy's almost dead.
"If you only need one pint to make a single dose, why'd you take two more from Thomas?" Gally asked next, glowering suspiciously at the doctor. The doctor shrugged.
"Lawrence," he said.
And Newt… Newt wasn't infected anymore so the rage ripping through him couldn't be blamed on the Flare. No, that was all him. He hated that half-faced Crank bastard. He decided then and there, once they got Tommy safe, got Minho back, Newt was going to put a bullet through that rotting skull.
"Right. New plan!" Gally announced, and promptly turned and punched the doctor square in the face. The doctor reeled back from the hit, and Newt smirked maliciously at the pained whine he let out. Gally turned to Stiles. "You, shank, you're gonna sit your ass right here and give Thomas some of your blood. Greenie over there is gonna wake the hell up. And then, well, you all know the rest. Home before dinner, deal?" Then Gally looked at the doctor again. "Oh, Doc? Cross us again and I'll do a whole lot worse than break your nose. Good that?"
The doctor nodded shakily. Newt and Gally moved Thomas – now nearly unconscious – to the table so he could lie down. The doctor set up his tools again and Stiles planted himself in the chair Thomas had vacated.
"The half I took from you is in my lab," the doctor informed him. "He'll need at least one and a half to get his levels normal again."
"I'll get it," Gally said. "Details, I don't want to grab the wrong one."
"Grab both, I used the fresh blood for the serum, not the samples," the doctor said. "That's one pint there, so I only need another half from you. Lucky you're twins, it means you've got the same blood type."
"Just get on with it," Stiles said. The doctor obliged, and Newt kept a close eye on him as he drew from Stiles again.
The clock was ticking, and Newt was too keenly aware of time slipping through their fingers like the sand in the Scorch. They only had a very limited window. If they couldn't do this tonight… Newt debated whether it would be wiser to wait til tomorrow night. But then he thought of Minho, and his resolve returned. No. If Thomas was willing to go out there half drained just to save their friend, Newt was going to make it work.
/
Thomas woke to a weird itching sensation in his arm, and he reached to scratch it, but a warm hand closed around his wrist before he could get there.
"No, leave it alone," Newt said, somewhere above him. Thomas cracked his eyes open, looking down first. He spotted the needle, the dark red tube, and his eyes followed it up to an IV stand, where a bag of blood hung from the hook. The urge to rip out the needle returned, stronger this time, but Newt held him still. "It's a transfusion," he explained. "You blacked out. Doc took too much from you, on that shank Lawrence's orders. Stiles donated, so don't worry about your immunity."
"No," Thomas groaned, shifting like he was going to sit up, but Newt wouldn't let him. "Doc said Stiles doesn't have the enzyme, he's not immune."
"Tommy, he lied," Newt said. "We got it out of him when he was drawing from Stiles. He made it up, so you'd let him take more of your blood. Stiles is immune, otherwise he would've been just as far along as I was."
"You're okay now, though, right? Kinda missed that part."
"I'm good, Tommy," Newt assured him. He released Thomas' wrist to push up his own sleeve and show Thomas the clean, unblemished skin there. "It worked."
"Good that," Thomas sighed, and Newt chuckled.
"You still sound like a shank trying to use our slang," Newt teased.
"Just like Chuck," Thomas added with a weak smile. "It never sounded right coming from him, either."
"Well, he'd only been there a month when you showed up, Greenie," Newt said, the Glader nickname rolling off his tongue like an endearment. Thomas would've blushed if he had enough blood to do so. "He was still getting used to it."
"I wish he had," Thomas sighed, that familiar sadness rising in his heart again.
"Me too, Tommy," Newt agreed. He checked the bag, and then checked Thomas' pulse. "You're doing well. Just a while longer until you're safe to go."
"What time is it?" Thomas asked.
"Nearly eleven," Newt admitted. Thomas groaned and tried to sit up, but Newt just pushed him back down again, careful as ever.
"Hey, no, you're not strong enough yet," Newt warned.
"But the plan—"
"The plan conveniently involves a set of twins, now, doesn't it?" Newt said pointedly. "Stiles went out in your place. Tell you what, he does a damn good impression of you, Tommy."
"Teresa will know—"
"Not right away, and that's all we need," Newt said. "All Stiles has to do is get her attention. Then he'll lead her to Gally, and they'll be back within the hour." Thomas groaned again, and Newt chuckled at him. "Don't worry, you'll be there for the interrogation. Just need to get a bit more blood in you first, and then we'll be off to the rendezvous."
"Remind me not to save your life again, you get way too cheerful about it," Thomas complained, not meaning a single word of it. Newt must've known that, because he just grinned down at Thomas with that rare, genuine smile, and Thomas couldn't stop himself from smiling right back.
/
"Thomas?" Teresa whispered as she stepped into the abandoned corridor. Stiles smirked to himself, before composing his features into his best impression of Thomas' sad expression. He stepped out from the alcove he was hiding in, and faced her. Inside, he was giddy, the plan was working. "What are you doing here?" Teresa asked, her eyes wide and hopeful.
"I had to see you," Stiles said, in Thomas' voice. "Just once."
"You can't be here," Teresa insisted, stepping forward.
"Just answer me one thing," Stiles said. The question had been Newt's request, and it was Gally's signal to get into position. "Do you regret it? What you did?" He waited for her answer, though he was sure he already knew what it was going to be.
"No," she said. "And I'd do it again."
"Good," he muttered. His gaze flicked to Gally, and the bag was over Teresa's head before she could even look around.
Getting her to the van, however, ended up involving the butt of Gally's gun and a potential concussion, but it was worth it to make her shut the hell up.
Gally got them out of the city, and up into the abandoned church they'd decided on as their rendezvous point. With Teresa knocked out, they had time to wait for the others to show up. It didn't take long, thankfully. By the time everyone had arrived and taken up their deceptively casual positions across from Teresa, she was starting to wake up.
Stiles watched Newt and Thomas the closest; Thomas was still pale, still a little unsteady on his feet, but looking vastly better than he had a few hours ago. Newt helped him settle into a chair, and then leaned his skinny frame against the table beside him. Gally paced at the edge of the room. Brenda and Jorge set up in the back, where Brenda immediately pulled out her card deck, and Jorge started innocently going over his ammo supply. It was a blatantly posed picture, one meant to intimidate, and Stiles really hoped it would work.
Thomas gave the nod, and it started.
/
Newt had long since gotten past his teenage crush on Gally, but he was only human, after all. Only human, and exclusively attracted to men who knew when to take charge, when to play it tough, when to ease up, and when to strike. Watching Gally now, he remembered why he'd found the guy so appealing in the first place. He only hoped it didn't show on his face.
The thud of Gally's chair on the floor drew him out of his memories and he tuned back in.
"Why are you looking at him?" Gally asked Teresa, drawing her attention back. "Don't look at him, look at me. He's not gonna help you."
Yeah, that was why.
Focus!
"It won't work!" Teresa argued. "You need a thumbprint ID."
"Gally, ease up," Thomas warned from his seat when Gally got more aggressive with his questioning. Perfect timing. "We still need her."
"Do we?" Gally asked, rising from the chair. He dragged it back to the table and picked up a scalpel. "We don't need all of her. Just her thumb." He turned back to Teresa, and Thomas hauled himself up from his chair.
"Gally, back off," Thomas repeated. Playing the hero, letting Teresa think she was still trusted by someone. Newt would applaud if it wasn't literally vital to the plan that Teresa kept believing Thomas' act. "That's not the plan."
"Can be," Gally said coldly. Thomas walked over and took the scalpel from his hand. Gally resisted just enough to make it look real. "Fine," he huffed in surrender.
Thomas walked to Teresa, slowly, to conceal how weak he still was from the blood loss.
"It won't work," Teresa insisted earnestly. "The chips—"
"Yeah, we know, we're tagged," Thomas said. He knelt down beside Teresa's chair and held the scalpel up. "You're gonna help us with that, too."
/
It worked, all of it, well… most of it. Thomas's heart pounded in time with the banging on the consult room door, and he glanced frantically between his friends. Minho met his gaze. Thomas didn't think he'd ever been so glad to see the Runner. But now they were stuck, trapped in a room on the twentieth floor, with Janson and WCKD guards right outside trying to bust in and recapture them all. Thomas dashed over to the huge window and looked down. Yes! Down below, a pool glittered in the light from the building. It was crazy, absolutely crazy, but it was a way out.
In every sense.
If the pool was deep enough to fall into without killing themselves, they'd be able to get away from WCKD. If it wasn't… well… WCKD had no use for dead test subjects. The enzyme they needed had to come from living donors. Either way, they'd be free.
Thomas grabbed a metal stool and launched it at the window, grateful beyond belief when the glass shattered easily. Bad building design, but a definite life saver for them right now. Newt and Minho rushed to his side, looked down at the pool, looked back at him, looked at the door behind them being shoved open against the barricade, and made up their minds in an instant, no doubt coming to the same conclusion that Thomas had. They all stepped back, glanced at the door again, saw Janson's ugly face peeking in, and they ran.
Falling was weird. Falling while recovering from massive blood loss, was even weirder. Thomas felt like he was being pulled apart by the wind rushing past on his way to the pool, only to be slammed back together again as he plunged beneath the crystalline surface. The water was cold, and it shocked his system with adrenaline, enough to push to the surface. He saw Newt and Minho come up seconds after him, and they all grinned at each other for a moment. Then Thomas looked up, and saw Janson at the window.
Thomas lifted a gloved hand out of the water and flipped him off, just like he had all those long months ago at the Facility. It was just as satisfying now as it was then.
Thomas, Newt and Minho dragged themselves out of the water, coming face to face with four WCKD guards almost instantly. His frustration quickly turned to relief, though, when one of the guards turned out to be Gally. He shot the others down quickly, and turned to Thomas and their friends, before casting an exasperated look up at the building they'd just jumped out of.
"You guys are nuts," he said bluntly. "We gotta go, come on." Gally led the way through the city, but they all came to an abrupt halt when the outer wall exploded skyward. Gally stared, bewildered. "We were supposed to take down WCKD, not the entire city," he muttered disbelievingly. He stared a moment longer and then shook it off, leading them forward once again.
Thomas forced himself to push through the fatigue he could feel creeping through his body. He'd spent an entire night in the Maze being chased by Grievers, for shuck's sake, he could handle a run through a damn city, especially with Minho by his side, and Newt running ahead, free of infection. He could do it. He had to do it. For Newt, for Gally, for Minho, for Fry, for Brenda, for all of the immunes they'd just broken out of the sublevel. He could do it. He could. He could. He—why was he slowing down? Wait, no, wait—
He collapsed.
/
Minho yelled in fear as Thomas dropped to the ground. Immediately, he stopped, circled back, and started checking Thomas over for any kind of injury that would explain this. A gunshot wound, a broken bone, the damned virus, but there was nothing.
"NEWT!" Minho screamed, his hands already digging into Thomas' jacket, trying to lift him, haul him up. A memory hit, the night he'd tried to drag Alby out of the Maze the same way, the night Thomas got himself trapped in the Maze, saved Alby's life, and got them all out the next morning. Minho choked back his emotions, he couldn't fall apart now. "NEWT!" He screamed again, glancing up to see Newt and Gally sprinting back to him.
"What happened?" Newt demanded, falling to a crouch on Thomas' other side. Minho shook his head.
"I don't know, one second he was right next to me, and then he just dropped," Minho rushed to explain. Newt and Gally shared a look that was probably significant, but Minho didn't know the meaning of. "We've gotta get him up."
Gally stepped forward and pulled Minho up by his shoulder. He handed Minho his gun.
"Cover us, I've got Thomas," Gally ordered, and Minho nodded. He adjusted his grip on the weapon, watching their surroundings as Gally leaned down to haul Thomas to his feet. "Newt, get his other side," Gally grunted. Newt slipped under Thomas' left arm, and they balanced their leader between them. "Okay, let's go."
Minho took point, gun raised at the ready, and the four of them pushed forward. They made it through most of the war-torn city, and just as they reached the tunnels, the announcement came over the city speakers.
There's a cure, and it's your blood, Thomas.
Teresa's voice rang in their ears when the announcement was cut off by a power surge. Minho looked down at Thomas, grateful to see he was still unconscious.
"We can't take him back there," Newt said immediately. "He's lost too much already, if they take any more, he'll die."
"Then we can't tell him, either," Gally agreed. They looked to Minho, who just nodded bleakly. Thomas was definitely in no shape to be giving up any more of his blood to WCKD. Not now, not ever. They'd keep this secret, for him, for now.
They dropped into the tunnels, and left WCKD behind.
Chapter 3: PART 3
Chapter Text
Stiles paced the outer edge of the room, his gaze flicking over to where Thomas was laying on a table, another IV bag set up to the side. He'd collapsed, apparently, and Stiles' heart had plummeted when he'd been carried in by Gally. Thomas had been white as a sheet, and his skin was cold to the touch. It probably didn't help matters that his clothes were drenched.
Stiles had stayed behind when the others stormed the city; his job was to coordinate between Jorge, Brenda and Fry, to help them get those kids out of the city. And his part had gone off without much of a hitch, the kids were out and safe. Jorge and Brenda were already taking them back to the docks, they'd picked up Fry on the way, but Stiles had insisted on staying put in the church to wait for the others.
And now, he was here, watching uselessly. Thomas was still unconscious, the blood transfusion slowly dripping through the IV, bringing a bit of colour back to his face. Newt and Gally had taken care of the wet clothes, and wrapped him in every spare scrap of fabric and clothing they could find in the church. It probably smelled horrible, but it was a small price to pay to ensure Thomas didn't end up catching a damn cold or something.
Now, Newt was sitting in a chair by Thomas' side, holding one of Thomas' hands tightly between his own, his gaze flickering between Thomas' face and the IV. Gally and Minho were sitting side by side, talking in quiet voices, and Stiles presumed Gally was telling Minho his story of survival. Abruptly, Stiles realised that Minho and Gally must've been friends in the Maze, must've known each other for a long time, judging by the sorrowful look on Minho's face. He wondered what had happened, to make them all think Gally had died. You left me to die, Gally had said before. Stung and half out of his mind, Newt had said. Stiles could piece together some of the story from that, but none of his guesses could explain the way Minho was looking at Gally like he was something out of a dream, or out of a nightmare.
Torture? Stiles' mind supplied his best guess. Right. Minho had been held captive by WCKD for six months, he was an immune. Torture was high up on the list of possibilities.
He looked over at Newt and Thomas again, and his heart ached. He could only see half of Newt's face from where he stood, but the half that he could see was drawn into an expression of such tenderness and sorrow, Stiles felt invasive just looking at him, like he was trespassing on a moment he was never meant to see. He wondered if Thomas knew. Because even a blind man could see that Newt loved Thomas. Some of the ache in his heart soothed, and he couldn't help but smile to himself, knowing that even if something happened to Stiles, or Minho, or Gally, that as long as Thomas had Newt, they'd make it through anything.
A dark thought overtook that one, though, as he wondered what Thomas might have done if the serum hadn't worked, or if they hadn't figured it out in time, or if there hadn't been a doctor at the compound. He shuddered just thinking of it, thinking of Newt with black eyes, black veins, black blood… He forced his mind away from that train of thought, focusing instead on the fact that they'd survived, they were alive, and their mission had been a success.
He looked back at his brother, his brother's friends, and smiled again. They were gonna be okay.
/
Minho was silent as Gally told his story, guilt and shame warring painfully inside his heart. Gally put a hand on his knee, pulling Minho out of his head.
"Hey, I'm good, really," Gally insisted.
"I put a spear through your heart, Gally," Minho said, horrified at himself. "Why would you even help us? Me?"
Gally shrugged, his hand squeezed Minho's knee, and he smiled. "Nobody's perfect," he said, like it had been an accident, and not, you know, attempted murder. Minho snorted in spite of himself, looking up at Gally with hope. If Gally of all people, could forgive him for that… maybe Minho should start believing that other people could forgive him for his other failings, too.
He glanced over at Newt, who was cradling Thomas' hands; at Thomas, who was still asleep; at Stiles, the twin who had left his entire family behind to come and help. He looked back at Gally and smiled, but he couldn't push down the twinge of sadness he felt. The last time he'd seen Gally, those eyes were bloodshot and turning black with infection, and Minho had launched a goddamn spear into his chest. Guilt pulled at him again.
"Minho, seriously, I forgive you," Gally pushed, his voice low and firm. "I would've killed all of you, I was out of my mind. You made the hard call, and you saved everyone else there."
"Except Chuck," Minho said, and instantly wished he hadn't. Gally's eyes flickered, and the pain Minho saw there was real.
"I didn't…" Gally cleared his throat and tried again. "I know I killed him, and I know that's part of why it's so hard for you guys to trust me again. But it's been a long time, and I… I don't want to sound like I'm trying to avoid it, or anything, but I was aiming for Thomas. Chuck saved his life. If I'd known he was gonna do that, I wouldn't… I wouldn't have pulled the trigger."
"I know, I'm sorry," Minho said. He picked Gally's hand up off his knee and clasped it in his own. "It was an accident. If we could go back? There are so many things that I would do differently. It kept me up at night, before WCKD took me. The things I've done, the mistakes I've made. Things I regret. But we can't go back. Real life isn't like the Maze, we can't just start over and follow new paths each time we hit a dead end."
"Who knew the Maze would make such a great metaphor," Gally scoffed lightly. Minho smiled again.
"I mean it," he said. "We can't go back, and dwelling only stops us from wanting to move forward."
"Yeah, you're probably right, shank," Gally said, his lips curling up at the use of the Glade slang. "Is it weird that I miss it?"
Minho didn't need to ask what 'it' was. The Glade. The community, the family they'd made for themselves there. And sure, it might've all been orchestrated by a bunch of shanks in white coats treating them like lab rats, but… the Glade was their home, the only home they'd known for three years. The only home they remembered having. Sure, they were trapped. But they had their little farm, their animals, their friends. Minho smiled, remembering the sun rising over the walls, the bonfire parties, Gally's god-awful moonshine, Fry's stew…
"No, it's not weird at all," Minho told Gally, a fond smile on his face.
/
Thomas woke up slowly, like rising out of deep waters. That itch in his arm was back, but his other hand seemed to be trapped in some kind of warm vice. Blind panic shot through him, the fear kicking his brain into gear. Had WCKD gotten him? Where was he? Did Newt escape? Or were they all captured? The last thing he remembered was running, but now he couldn't move. His mind flashed back images of hard metal slabs, leather straps, the clicking of Ava Paige's heels—
"Woah, hey, Tommy, Tommy! It's okay, shh," someone was saying, and Thomas flinched. It had to be some kind of cruel, twisted joke, using Newt's nickname like that. Thomas was gonna kill every last one of them—
Something sharp stung his cheek and he gasped, forcing his eyes open, half-expecting to see a Griever looming over him, the stinger poised and ready to strike again, and then…
His eyes focused. No Griever. No scientists. No Ava. He blinked hard, looking around, until his gaze finally caught the one thing he wanted to see. Newt.
Newt was there, by his side, watching him with concern in his eyes. Thomas flexed his trapped hand, and relaxed just a fraction when he realised the vice there wasn't a leather strap at all. He looked down, seeing Newt's hand wrapped around his own. The panic in his chest loosened and he could breathe a little easier. As the panic subsided, his mind cleared, and he could start to understand what had happened.
They'd escaped, they'd gotten out. Minho and Newt followed him right off the edge of a twenty-storey drop. Gally. Running. Then nothing.
"What happened?" He croaked. His throat was dry, it itched.
"You fainted," Newt said calmly. "The blood loss from before, you weren't fully recovered. It's a miracle that you even survived."
"Where—" he broke off and coughed drily, his throat itched so much, couldn't someone give him some water? Like he'd read Thomas' mind, Newt turned to someone behind him.
"Get some water," Newt ordered, and Thomas relaxed again once the coughing subsided. A canteen was handed over, and Newt let go of his hand to help Thomas drink. The water soothed his throat, and he sighed once Newt pulled the bottle back. "Good?" Thomas nodded.
"Where are we?" Thomas managed at last.
"The church, same one as before," Newt said, picking up Thomas' hand again. Thomas wondered when holding hands had become normal for them. He found he didn't care.
"We're supposed to be on the berg," Thomas said, frowning.
"We couldn't risk moving you," Newt explained. "We brought the transfusion equipment here. You were… it was really bad. We thought you'd been shot, at first."
"But… the plan?" Thomas said, blinking in confusion. He couldn't understand. Why were they all still here? They'd gotten Minho out, right? Why were they waiting around here? Just because Thomas was injured?
"Tommy, the plan worked," Newt said, squeezing his hand. "Jorge and Brenda got the kids, they're gonna drop them off and come right back for us, okay? We just needed to get you stable first."
"What if WCKD finds us?" Thomas urged. "Newt, it's not safe here, we shouldn't—"
"Lawrence's rebels are taking care of WCKD as we speak," Newt said firmly, cutting off Thomas' words. "Stiles managed to shut down Minho's chip, so whatever is left of WCKD can't track us even if they wanted to. The church is barricaded, the tunnels are sealed off. Trust me, Tommy, it's under control."
"What about Teresa? She could lead them here, she knows about this place," Thomas said instead. His mind was already running through a thousand possibilities, a thousand ways this could all still go wrong. He knew Newt was getting frustrated, but he couldn't stop himself. They were still too close to the city.
"Tommy, stop it," Newt said tiredly.
"You should've left me," Thomas said, his stomach sinking as he said it. His injury, his weakness, might have just signed their death certificates. If WCKD caught them again… "No matter the cost, remember? Save Minho, no matter the cost."
Newt sighed, took Thomas' hand in both of his, and raised them to his mouth, his lips brushing against Thomas' knuckles as he spoke.
"Tommy, if the cost was your life? I wasn't gonna pay it."
Something funny flipped in Thomas' stomach at that, at hearing Newt repeat his own words back to him. When had this become normal for them? Any of it? This insane, reckless need to protect each other, to run headlong into the fire just to stop the other from getting burned? It would get them both killed, Thomas just knew it.
Just then, a radio crackled to life somewhere off to the side, and Thomas heard footsteps around him. Whatever was being said on the radio, Thomas couldn't hear it through the static. Then Gally's voice rang out.
"They're coming," Gally said. Thomas' stomach sank. "WCKD. They found us."
Thomas very pointedly met Newt's eyes. I told you so, he wanted to say. His friends were up and moving, checking ammo, peeking through barricaded windows to try and scope out the threat.
"Guys," Stiles said from one end of the church. "It's her."
Teresa. She'd betrayed them again. The knowledge was sour in Thomas' throat. Once again, he wished his friends had just left him behind, where at least his capture would've given them time to escape. He looked up at the IV bag, and anger at his own uselessness raged through him again. They'd just gotten Minho out, Thomas couldn't watch his friend be taken again. But right now, he was useless, he couldn't move, couldn't fight, couldn't even run. Some Runner he turned out to be. The one time they needed him to run, and he couldn't even manage that.
There was a loud bang at the door, a solid, heavy sound that reverberated through the church. WCKD was going to break down that door.
"You need to go," Thomas said, feeling sick with himself. "All of you, just go."
"We're not leaving you behind, Greenie," Gally said dismissively, loading his gun as he spoke.
"They'll kill you if you stay," Thomas urged, desperate for them to listen to him, listen to reason for once. "It's my fault they even caught us, so just go!"
"Not gonna happen," Gally said. He wasn't even looking at Thomas, like he wasn't even worth listening to. Thomas found he had to agree there.
"Newt, please," Thomas tried again, looking to the side where Newt was checking the magazine of his handgun, counting bullets.
"How many?" Newt asked, clearly not speaking to Thomas. Stiles answered from the window.
"Ten, maybe fifteen, it's hard to tell," Stiles called back. He jogged back over to them when the doors shook under another heavy blow. "They brought some kind of machine to bust the door down. We're fucked."
"Then leave!" Thomas yelled, hating how useless he felt. He couldn't even sit up, and now he was gonna watch his friends, his brother, die in this abandoned church, all because he was too stupid to tell when he was being played.
"Nah," Stiles said with a shrug.
"Don't give 'em time to talk," Gally advised, setting his rifle against his shoulder and aiming at the doors. The others followed suit, in a line between the door and Thomas' table. Even Minho stood with them. "Headshot or nothing, can't afford to waste ammo," Gally continued.
"Would you just listen to me?!" Thomas tried again. "You're not gonna survive this, they'll kill you."
"Then we die, and WCKD gets nothing," Gally said. He rolled his head, loosening up his shoulders. Battle-ready.
"If you're not gonna leave, then just kill me, alright?" Thomas begged then. That got Newt's attention.
"Thomas," Newt said, and the use of his full name stung. "We started this together. Might as well end it that way."
Newt turned back to the doors just as WCKD broke the barricade. A swarm of uniformed soldiers burst through, fanning out to the sides, weapons raised and ready to fire. They stopped in position, silent, waiting. Gally, Newt, Minho, and Stiles held still. The tension was unbearable. Thomas could see the doorway through the gap between Newt and Gally. So he saw her when she entered.
Teresa stepped into the church, her heels clicking against the stone floor. Her hair was tied up neatly away from her face, and she had a new white coat on over her clothes. She looked so much like Ava, Thomas wanted to throw up.
Speak of the damn Devil.
Ava walked in behind Teresa, standing beside her. They could've been related, they looked so similar. Thomas' head reeled at the sight. Teresa definitely wasn't the same girl who had helped them escape the Maze, and he wondered how he'd never noticed it before. How he'd missed the signs back there, after the Facility. Then shame hit him, because he hadn't missed it, he'd just ignored it. He'd wanted so badly for her to be on their side, on his side, that he'd insisted on saving her, time and time again. Even right now, part of him wanted to tell his friends not to kill her. Even after everything she'd done.
Unbidden, his brother's words floated through his mind: They were together. Tom and Tess. He felt sick. How could he have loved her? Looking at her now, it was impossible to imagine, and yet, it had to be true, because even knowing everything she'd done, knowing how she'd betrayed them, how she'd been directly responsible for Minho's capture and torture for the last six months… he still couldn't bear to watch her die. And he hated himself for that.
Janson stepped into the room next, and finally, Thomas had a useful target for his hatred. He channelled it, aiming every ounce of self-loathing, guilt, shame, and rage at the despicable man. He wished Janson could feel it, wished he could buckle under the weight of Thomas' fury. But Janson stood tall, smirking like he'd just won. Thomas supposed he had; they were trapped, no way out, nowhere to run, and not enough weapons to fight off the sheer number of soldiers surrounding them. Even if they managed to take out Ava, Janson, and Teresa, there was no way they were all going to make it out alive.
The silence in the church was deafening. And then Teresa spoke, and suddenly Thomas wished for the silence again.
"Thomas' blood is the cure. Let him come with us, and nobody needs to get hurt," Teresa said.
"No," Newt said, taking the lead by unspoken agreement. Thomas saw Teresa's shoulders tense up. This wasn't going the way she'd planned, apparently.
"Newt. I made a bargain, none of you will be hurt if you just give Thomas to us," Teresa insisted. Newt scoffed.
"Hey Minho?" Newt asked.
"Yeah?"
"Tell me, how did Teresa's last bargain work out for you?"
"Oh, you know, six months of psychological torture, medical experiments, blood loss…" Minho listed coldly. Thomas flinched at the very real reminder how just how badly he'd failed. "I think her bargaining skills need a bit of work."
"Hmm," Newt hummed. Thomas kept his eyes on Teresa, waiting for some flicker of shame, or regret, or something human to cross those icy features, but nothing happened. "Yeah, so uh, thanks for the offer, but I think we'll pass."
"You'd rather die here, let the rest of the world suffer?" Teresa asked, sounding appalled. And how dare she? She had no right to sound like that, like they were the bad guys. "He's the cure, Newt!"
"He's a person, Teresa, not an experiment, not a resource. He was your friend. We all were," Newt said, anger colouring his tone. "We saved your life, Thomas saved your life. Does that mean nothing to you?"
"Don't you get it, Newt? He's the only one who can end all of this! He can save everyone. Do you know what that means? No more Maze trials, no more harvesting—"
"Except from him, you mean?" Newt cut her off. Thomas couldn't see Newt's face, but he could see the tension in Newt's back and neck. The last time Newt had been that tense, it was back in the compound, right before he'd told Thomas he was infected. Worry shot through him; was the serum wearing off? Had the infection returned? Was Newt okay?
"Boys," Ava spoke, and Thomas clenched his teeth, once again wishing he could at least stand and face her alongside his friends. "You're making this into a much bigger problem than it needs to be. Thomas is the cure. You have my personal assurance that we will let the rest of you leave in peace, if you just stand aside, and give Thomas to us."
"No," Newt said again, standing firm. Thomas' heart ached, and he figured it out at last. He loved Newt, differently to how he loved Minho, Fry, Brenda, even Gally. He loved the Gladers like they were his own brothers, but Newt had always been different, right from that very first day. From the minute they met in the Glade, Thomas was done for; whoever he was before that, whoever he loved before, none of that mattered. Newt was the sole occupant of Thomas' heart in this life. So, for Newt, for the man he loved, he willed himself to move.
/
Newt felt Thomas move, felt Tommy's hand brush the back of his leg as he gripped the edge of the table. Risking it, he glanced back long enough to see Tommy force himself up to a sitting position, pulling out the IV needle as he went. Their eyes met, and Newt shifted to the side, giving Thomas room to stand on shaky legs. He switched his gun to his right hand, so he could help steady Tommy with his left if needed. But Thomas stood, a determined fire raging in his eyes. Newt realised too late; Tommy had swiped Gally's spare handgun.
He watched as Tommy raised the gun to his head, as if in slow motion. Thomas wasn't looking at him, at any of them. He was staring directly at Ava.
"Let them go, now, or I pull this trigger and blow your precious cure to hell," Thomas growled at the scientist.
"You pull that trigger, we'll kill your friends," Janson scoffed. Newt scowled. They'd done this before, at the Right Arm. Janson must've forgotten. Newt took his gun and aimed it at his own head, mirroring Tommy. Minho did the same, then Stiles, then Gally, who tucked his rifle under his chin. All five stood with their fingers just inches from the triggers, waiting WCKD out. The smug look on Janson's face faded as he realised his threat wasn't going to work, or maybe he was finally remembering the night the Gladers had stood around Thomas, ready to blow themselves up to get away from WCKD.
Ava and Janson said nothing, and Newt heard Thomas take a sharp breath in, no doubt preparing to pull his trigger.
"NO!" Teresa shouted, stepping forward with her hands raised. Newt looked at her, feeling just the tiniest bit smug to see her perfect Ava-clone façade chip away. "We'll let them go, Thomas, please just put the gun down."
"I don't trust you," Thomas said. "I want to hear it from her." Six sets of eyes turned to Ava, waiting.
"Clear a path, let them go," Ava ordered. The soldiers around the room pulled back from the doorway.
"Swear to me, you won't go after them. If I go with you, you leave everyone else alone," Thomas urged. He sounded strong. He sounded like Alby. Newt hated it. He loved Thomas, and he hated him right now for doing this, for offering himself on a platter. More than that, he hated himself for not telling Tommy every single day how much Newt loved him.
"I swear, no one—"
BANG!
/
Five guns snapped away from five heads instantly, and five boys swivelled wildly to see who they'd lost, who's trigger finger got tired, but… no, it wasn't them… it wasn't… it was…
"Ava," Thomas whispered in shock. The scientist was slumped over on the floor like a puppet with cut strings. A pool of red stained her crisp white coat, oozing across the cold stone floor. Thomas looked up, saw the gun in Janson's hand, and suddenly nothing mattered to Thomas more than getting to that smug bastard and putting a bullet through his head.
Before he could even take a step, the soldiers swarmed in, and though they tried to fight, the Gladers were quickly overpowered. Soldiers wrestled the Gladers' guns away, wielding their tasers like clubs, and within minutes, every one of them had two soldiers pinning their arms back, even Thomas. Teresa looked away.
"There, much better," Janson said, smug as ever. He strolled – yeah, strolled – over to stand in front of Thomas, glancing from him, to the IV bag, and back again. "Well. That's unfortunate," he said. "A transfusion? Really? Trying to dilute the cure, are you? Bold move, but afraid it won't work. Unless it's the blood from someone who isn't immune, all you've is increased the enzymes in your blood." Thomas frowned, and Janson smirked. "Oh, yes, see. When I said unfortunate, I meant for you."
He glanced at the soldiers holding Thomas back, and then there was a sharp prick in his neck. He heard someone yelling, but everything turned fuzzy too quickly to figure out who it was, and then there was nothing but darkness.
/
Stiles yanked his arms forward, the cold metal handcuffs digging into his wrists again. The skin there was raw and tender, but he didn't stop, didn't care. WCKD had sedated them all and brought them back into the city. And then, Stiles, Newt, Minho and Gally had been chained up against a wall, their arms pulled above their heads, secured to a bar along the top of the wall. The long chains between the cuffs were looped over the bar. But WCKD had made one mistake there; they'd secured them all to the same bar.
So now, here they were. Cutting their wrists against their cuffs as they pulled in unison. Either the chains would break, or the bar would give way, but either way, they'd get free soon enough. Stiles had to believe that, because if he let himself doubt it for even a second, he'd lose focus, and he'd let everyone down.
"One, two, three, pull!" Gally counted them in, and the chains clanked loudly against the bar, followed by pained hisses and groans from the Gladers. Stiles wasn't sure when he'd started mentally lumping himself in with them, but it really wasn't the point. He heard a grating noise above, and looked up to see that the bar had started to give way.
"Keep going!" Stiles urged.
"One, two, three, PULL!"
One tremendous heave later, and the bar ripped free from the concrete wall. The boys staggered to catch it between them. The guards might not think anything of a few chains clanking, but the sound of a huge metal bar crashing to the floor would definitely get their attention. They levered the bar carefully, and one by one, they freed themselves. They were still cuffed, but the chains were long enough to grant them mobility, and – in the worst case scenario – a way to incapacitate their enemies. Stiles spared a moment to grin at the others, who shared the same look of relief.
Janson had stationed two guards outside the room they were being held in, and Stiles wanted to laugh at the arrogance of it all, until he realised that the guards' typical tasers and electro-guns had been replaced with heavy-duty automatic rifles. Probably live ammo, his brain offered unhelpfully.
"Two guards, heavy firepower," Stiles reported to the others, and the relieved looks faded to something dark. The three friends looked to each other, their faces grim, and Stiles watched as they nodded to each other, an unspoken understanding between them that if one were to fall, the others could not stop. No matter the cost, Thomas had said in the church. Stiles clenched his jaw. Suddenly he wished he'd brought someone from his Maze, too, if only to have someone with him who knew him, the way the Gladers knew each other. Stiles' heart ached as he remembered their faces, and the way Scott had pleaded with him back at the docks, begging him not to go with Thomas. He almost wished he'd listened, or at least offered to bring someone with him. He wondered for a moment who he would've brought. Maybe Jackson? Or Derek? Hell, maybe even Allison or Malia.
But looking at the Gladers, at that deep understanding and trust between them, the silent agreement to leave each other behind if they had to, Stiles knew he made the right choice in coming alone. He would've never been able to focus if any of them had come with him. And maybe it was selfish, maybe it was cruel or petty, but he was uncomfortably glad that he'd come here alone, because it meant he wouldn't lose any of them.
All of these thoughts went through his head in a matter of seconds, and by the time he looked up, Gally and Newt had settled the unasked question of leadership, easily falling into point and flank positions, like it was natural for them. Stiles had always assumed – or rather, he'd never bothered to ask to confirm – that Thomas had been their leader the entire time, but watching the Gladers now, he realised he'd been dead wrong. Hell, he hadn't even asked how long Thomas had been in the Maze, come to think of it.
Minho took Gally's left flank, which left the hind position for Stiles, who fell in quickly, rounding out their formation.
"Plan?" Newt whispered the question, and there was a beat of silence before Gally answered.
"Running won't work," Gally said, thoughtfully, no doubt going through every possible scenario in his head. "If there was just one, maybe, but two? No, too risky."
"Okay, so what, then?" Minho asked. Gally sighed and turned to face them.
"Bait 'em, trap 'em in here, take the guns, and then run like hell," Gally said, shrugging.
"HEY! How'd you get free?!" A guard yelled. The second guard came into view, and then they shoved the door open, blocking the exit. Gally sighed and shrugged again, rolling his shoulders loose.
"New plan," he said, a smirk crossing his face. He waited until one of the guards stepped inside, demanding that they all back up, and just as the barrel of the gun brushed Gally's back, he spun in one smooth motion, knocking the guard off balance and stealing his gun. He shot the second guard before he could even react, and then shot the first one in the knee, stopping his attempt to fight back. Gally crouched next to him and grinned. "Where's our friend?"
/
When Thomas woke again, it was instant, no slow rise like before. And this time when he found his hands in vices, there was no comforting warmth of Newt's hands to soothe away his panic. No, this time it was the hard leather straps he'd imagined before, and he was lying on the hard metal surgical table he'd feared. WCKD had him, for real, and he knew that there was no hope for escape this time. He could only hope that Janson had at least left his friends alive.
He looked around wildly, feeling rage bubble up again when he spotted Teresa, her back to him as she bent her head over a microscope on the table. The rage boiled when he saw Janson just a few feet from him, watching him with that smug gaze.
"Good, you're alive," Janson said, which was pretty damn rude in Thomas' opinion. He was barely alive, thanks, and the dizziness of blood loss was already starting to kick in again. They must've taken more blood while he was unconscious.
"Screw you," Thomas spat. Janson tutted and walked over to Teresa, who handed him a blue vial. The serum, made from his blood. The cure. Janson walked around to Thomas' side, talking about grand plans, eugenics, 'rebuilding the world in their image', blah, blah, blah. Thomas didn't hear a word of it. Then Janson slid his sleeve up his arm, revealing a patch of spidery black veins, and for a moment, all Thomas could see was Newt's face when he'd confessed the truth of his infection to Thomas. The bitterness in his voice when he'd said they had to save Minho, no matter the cost.
Thomas' blood had cured Newt, but that was before the transfusions… what if it didn't work now? Or worse, what if it did? Janson would be healthy again, and Thomas knew that now Janson had him, and he wasn't planning on holding onto Teresa or Ava's promised kindness. Thomas' heart sank and he realised this was it. He'd die here, he realised.
Then the sound of shattering glass reached his ears, and Janson dropped like a stone, revealing Teresa standing behind him, her face shocked, like she hadn't expected it to work. She leaned over and unbuckled the restraints on Thomas' wrists quickly, darting down to release his legs.
"Come on, we have to go," she urged, glancing down at where Janson was beginning to stir. "Come on, Thomas!"
Thomas put all of his questions, his theories, and his emotions on back burner; Teresa was right, they couldn't stay here. He staggered to the doorway, but Teresa darted back to the table one last time to grab the handful of syringes she'd filled with Thomas' serum. She made it back to his side by the door before Janson got to his feet, and then they were off. Thomas urged himself to move faster, but he'd already survived a significant amount of blood loss in the last twenty four hours, and it was weighing him down. They'd barely rounded the corner when the first gunshot rang out. Thomas ducked, even though the bullet didn't come anywhere near him. Then they were running again. Well, sort of.
Teresa slung his arm over her shoulders, supporting him as they stumbled through the hallways. Just as they turned the next corner, a group of people barged around, and instantly, Thomas panicked. If those were guard, he was done for. But then warm, familiar hands were grabbing him, pulling him forward, wrapping him in a hug, and Thomas could breathe again. Newt.
"Janson's behind us, we have to go, now!" Teresa interrupted the moment. Thomas felt Newt stiffen.
"Yeah, we do," Gally said coldly, the implication clear in his voice: you're not coming with us, traitor.
"Run first, argue later, alright?" Newt snapped. He pulled Thomas' arm over his shoulders, wrapped one long arm around Thomas' waist, and started moving.
"You said Janson was behind you, where is he now?" Minho asked, sounding confused.
"He's infected," Teresa explained, and Thomas was just a little bit grateful, since he didn't really have the breath right now to run and talk. "He probably went back to the lab to see if I left any of the serum behind."
"You took more blood from him?!" Newt asked, outraged. Thomas' stomach did that weird flippy thing again.
"Janson had me at gun point!" Teresa argued. "For the record, I wanted to wait a couple days."
"Oh yes, you're right, that fixes everything, Tess," Stiles snarked somewhere behind them. Teresa stumbled a little at the nickname, clearly remembering it. "Let him rest a few days before you drain the life out of him for your experiments, that's very considerate of you."
"Screw you, at least I tried to stall," Teresa snapped. "You idiots just let yourselves get captured."
"Because you betrayed us, again," Minho said angrily.
They shoved their way through the building, Gally running point with a heavy gun in his arms. They'd just made it to the stairwell door when the heat registered.
"No, Gally, stop!" Thomas yelled, right as Gally reached for the door. Gally froze, and Thomas pointed down, to the smoke starting to curl under the door.
"Shit," Gally said, spinning away from the door, his eyes searching frantically for another exit. A secondary stairwell door caught Thomas' eyes and he turned to Teresa.
"Where does that one lead?" He asked urgently, pointing.
"The roof," Teresa answered. The Gladers shared a look. Jorge should be on his way back, it wasn't too far to the docks by berg.
"Do we have any of our radios left?" Newt asked Gally, who nodded and pulled one from his pocket, fiddling with it as the group moved to the other stairwell.
"Jorge!" Gally yelled into the radio. A few seconds of static answered him, and then Jorge's voice came through, and Thomas could've wept in relief if he wasn't so damn tired.
"Ay, hermano," Jorge answered.
"Not the church, the city, WCKD tower," Gally instructed. He pushed the stairwell door open and ushered everyone inside. Minho came up on Thomas' free side to help Newt pull him up the stairs. Gally took the lead with Teresa, not trusting her enough to lose sight of her. Stiles brought up the back of their group, carrying a gun identical to the one Gally held. "Huge building, pointed roof, middle of the city, you can't miss it," Gally added into the radio. They reached the top and Gally held the door open again, watching them all file past.
The air was thick and hot up there, and looking around, Thomas could see why: the city was burning. Flames roared up the sides of buildings, glass shattered in the heat. Thomas couldn't hear any fighting from below, no gunfire or Crank screams, and he wondered if it was just the height or if the fighting had just stopped. Either way, he was grateful. If he never had to hear another Crank again, he'd be all too happy.
The roar of berg engines reached him then, and he looked up. The huge aircraft was pulling closer, and then it stopped, almost a full five feet from the edge of the roof.
"I can't get closer!" Jorge's voice crackled through the radio in Gally's hands.
"Good that, just stay there!" Gally ordered. He looked to the others. "Gonna have to jump it."
"Good that," Thomas grunted. The others nodded too. Newt smiled at his use of the Glader phrase.
"Let's get going, Greenie," Gally agreed. Thomas watched as Gally turned and sprinted towards the ledge, pushing off with strong legs to leap the gap to the berg's lowered door. He landed heavily, and spun around to wave them forward. Thomas pushed Minho forward next, nodding when the Runner hesitated.
"Go," Thomas urged. Minho nodded, let Stiles take his place beside Thomas, and followed Gally's lead. Thomas nudged his brother next.
"No, you're gonna need help getting up there," Stiles argued.
"I've got him," Newt said. "Just go. Can't waste time."
Stiles grimaced, but relented. He cleared the jump too.
"Right, someone's gotta throw you," Newt said to Thomas.
"I might have something that could help," Teresa said meekly, stepping forward and reaching into the pocket of her coat. She pulled out a syringe, but it wasn't blue like the serum. This one was clear. "Adrenaline," she explained. "It'll keep you going for now, but you'll crash hard once it wears off."
"Do it," Thomas grunted at her. He could feel his legs starting to shake from the effort of staying upright. If one little jab could get him and Newt off this roof, he'd take it. Teresa nodded, uncapped the needle, and plunged it into his arm. The effects were instant. Thomas gasped, lurching as the rush of adrenaline kicked through him. He panted, looking up. The jump to the berg looked easy now, like he could just step off the roof and land in the berg.
"Newt, go first, you'll need to catch him," Teresa said, pocketing the empty syringe. Then she reached into her other pocket and pulled out the vials of serum she'd snatched in the lab. "Take these, too. And… this is the formula for the cure." She handed over a slip of folded paper along with the vials. Newt gave her a wary look. "I know what I've done. I'm hoping these will make up for some of it. Go, we're running out of time."
Thomas met Newt's eyes, nodding. Then hesitated. If something happened, if something went wrong, if Janson found them between right now and Thomas getting in that berg… the adrenaline fuelled him and he grabbed Newt by the front of his shirt, pulling him in and kissing him with everything he had left, every ounce of trust, pain, fear, and love. It left him dizzy. He released Newt, who looked just as surprised as Thomas felt, and gave him a shove towards the berg.
"Go, I'll follow you," anywhere, everywhere, forever.
Newt ran, leaped, landed. Then it was just Thomas and Teresa left.
Thomas met her gaze, and looked away immediately at the sadness he saw there. They were together, Tom and Tess, Stiles' voice echoed in his mind again and he pushed it away. Whatever they'd been before, before the Maze, and the Scorch, and this city? That was a different life, a different time. He met her eyes again, and saw the same realisation in her gaze. She nodded, a slight smile on her face, tinged with sadness, but still, a smile all the same.
"Together," Thomas said, glancing at the berg. He held out his hand. Teresa nodded again and took his hand.
They turned. They ran. They—
A screech, loud and inhuman, ripped into Thomas' ears and his step faltered. He looked back.
Janson had found them.
Janson had turned.
/
Teresa knew what Thomas was thinking. She always did, before. And even though so much had changed, she still knew him well enough to know what he was planning. They'd stopped running, both of them staring down the Crank in the doorway. Janson was standing eerily still, his head lolled to the side like he couldn't hold it upright. He was watching them, like a predator stalking its prey, in the moment of silence before it attacked. The berg hovered behind them, Thomas' friends frozen in silent fear; none of them wanted to be the sound that triggered Janson's animalistic instinct. Teresa waited, waited until she could feel the breeze of the berg's rotors on her neck.
"I'm sorry," she whispered to Thomas. Beside them, another tower exploded, distracting Janson for a second. Teresa took her chance.
She turned, grabbed Thomas by his jacket, and pushed as hard as she could, watching him reach out to catch himself on the ledge of the berg's ramp. Immediately, the Gladers reached down and yanked him up to safety. Just in time.
Janson roared behind her, and she spared one last glance for the boy she'd once loved, the man she'd twice betrayed, and then she turned away. She couldn't save Thomas before, but she could do this. She could sacrifice herself, if it meant Thomas could be safe. She could—
The gunshot echoed in the air, and Janson dropped, the fresh wound in his head oozing black blood. Teresa whipped around to see Newt lowering his gun. He met her eyes and gave her one solemn nod. The relief soared through her, strong and profound. She knew she had a lot to atone for, but apparently, being willing to fight off a Crank on her own just to save Thomas was a step in the right direction.
"Come on, the building's coming down!" Gally shouted, pointing off to the side. Sure enough, the tower beside them was starting to tip. Teresa took a few steps back, just enough to give herself a running start.
She ran, leaped, landed.
Hands reached for her, steading her landing. Then everyone was in motion, moving deeper into the aircraft.
"Jorge! Let's get the hell outta here!" Gally yelled, slamming the button that would seal the back door. "Hang on to something," he added, and everyone dashed to do as he said, a split second before the berg accelerated, throwing them all off balance.
Teresa met Thomas' eyes and nodded to him again. He nodded back, leaning against Newt. She leaned back against the warm metal of the berg hull and closed her eyes. She knew there'd probably be an argument later, when they were safe, about what to do with her. She'd betrayed them all, more than once, and she knew some of the people on the plane probably wanted to kick her right back off it. She didn't even know how long this unspoken truce would last once they landed. But for now, she took a few deep breaths and appreciated the fact that she was alive to do so. The one thing she knew, beyond everything else, was that she would never betray them again.
/
Gally called a meeting when they landed at the docks. The Gladers – plus Brenda, Jorge, Stiles, and the crooked-jawed boy from his Maze whose name Gally didn't know – crowded into the planning room. It felt so familiar, the nostalgia almost got to him, but he pushed it away. Sentiment could come later. They had a decision to make.
Gally pulled a chair to one side of the room and pushed Teresa into it with a hand on her shoulder. This wasn't the Glade, but she'd still broken their rules. She was officially on trial.
"We have to decide, here and now, what we do next," Gally started, and his mind flashed back to the trial he'd put Thomas through in the Glade. "Greenie Two, here," he pointed to Teresa, "broke our most important rule. She betrayed our trust, she lied to us. She hurt another Glader." He looked around, gauging the reactions. Each of the Gladers had the same stony look on their faces, but Newt sported just the tiniest smirk. He remembered. "So now, we have to decide what to do. These actions cannot go unpunished."
"A day in the slammer," Fry whispered teasingly, nudging Newt, who rolled his eyes.
"Gally's right," Thomas spoke, unexpectedly. Gally raised his eyebrows at that. Greenie never admitted that Gally was right. "She's done a lot of horrible things. WCKD, the Right Arm, the City. She's lied and betrayed us repeatedly." Teresa seemed to shrink under the weight of Thomas' words, but she didn't argue them. "But she's also the one who figured out the cure, who knocked Janson out in the lab to free me, and who tried to face down a Crank alone to give us time to escape. She's not perfect, maybe not even good, but if she's willing to change, she deserves the chance."
Silence followed Thomas' verdict, and Gally looked around.
"So, what do we do with her?" Gally asked the room at large.
"We're leaving for the Haven in the morning," Newt said. "We take her with us, put her to work like everyone else."
"And her punishment?" Gally pushed, and jeez, it really was just like Thomas' trial, where Newt had shut down his insistence for a punishment and instead given Thomas one night in the slammer and a promotion in the same breath. Although, having seen that kiss on the rooftop, Gally could guess why Newt had gone easy on the Greenie. That shit had made Gally dizzy, and he wasn't even involved.
"Probation," Newt said with a shrug. "She doesn't eat, sleep, or take a clunk without one of us knowing about it."
"Sounds more like a punishment for us," Frypan complained behind Newt.
"We can't trust her, and she knows it," Newt said, his eyes never leaving Teresa as he spoke. "So either she proves that she's capable of change, or we banish her from the Haven."
Banishment… the word would mean something different in the Haven. In the Glade, that word invoked images of spears and poles, infected cries and the grinding noise of the walls closing off the Maze. Gally wondered what banishment would look like at the Haven. Apparently it was some kind of an island, so… a raft? He didn't know. They could figure it out later, he supposed.
"Are we agreed?" Gally asked the room, when no one else spoke up. "Probation, on pain of banishment?"
"Good that," Newt said.
"Good that," Thomas agreed.
"Good that," said Fry.
"Good that," Minho added.
"Good that," said Brenda. Jorge nodded beside her, apparently not willing to use the Gladers slang.
"Aye," said Stiles.
"Aye," said Stiles' friend.
"Then it's agreed," Gally announced. He turned to face Teresa. "Do you understand?" She nodded silently. Gally nodded back. He looked back to the others. "Any other business?"
"Not business, but um, I have a question?" Stiles' friend raised his hand tentatively. Gally crossed his arms and nodded at the guy to speak. "Sorry, just. Who are you?"
Gally sighed, rolled his eyes, dropped his arms and walked out. "One of you shanks explain, I'm going to bed," he called back as he left.
He heard laughter behind him as he walked away, and despite himself, he smiled.
Chapter 4: PART 4
Notes:
The final chapter! This fic just would not let me end it, so this is a bit of a long one. If you've read this far, thank you! I'm still pretty new to the TMR fandom, this is only my 2nd fic, and so naturally I had to write the most predictable crossover.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Newt always woke up first. Even back in the Glade, he'd be up before the Runners even got their shoes on. Back then, of course, he'd had a reason to wake up that early. He liked to sit at the edge of the woods and watch the sky change colours with the dawn. Then, when he could see the sun peek through the doors of the Maze, he'd get up, and wander through the farms, checking their crops. It had been peaceful, then.
It was peaceful now, too, he supposed, standing on the shore with his hands in his pockets, watching the sun light up the ocean, washing golden light over Haven. The soft sound of the water was soothing, and the little waves ebbed against his bare feet in the sand, tickling his toes. He glanced over his shoulder, seeing the door of the hut he shared with Tommy still closed, and he sighed. He should be happy here. WCKD was gone, Minho was safe, Gally was alive, they'd rescued hundreds of immunes, and opened their doors to regular people who'd heard about the infection-free safe haven. And he had Tommy.
So why wasn't he happy?
Best he could figure, he'd been running on survival mode for so long, his brain was still waiting for the next threat, the next fight. He still flinched at every sudden noise, his muscles bunched and ready to run, before his rational brain caught up with him. Once, Thomas had dropped a bowl and the clang of metal sounded so much like a Griever, he'd spun and thrown the nearest solid object in Tommy's direction before realising what had happened. Teresa threw around terms like PTSD, anxiety, therapy… Newt ignored her, though. He'd already spent three years as a lab rat, he didn't need a psychoanalysis on top of it. Sometimes he wondered how the others could relax here.
Most of the Gladers had fallen right back into the roles they'd had in the Glade: Frypan immediately took over control of the kitchens; Gally built a small troop of what he called 'Enforcers', and worked to keep the peace; Minho picked out a few of the other Haven kids and created a new band of Runners, but here they ran only for sport or supplies; Thomas was named the unofficial leader, and with Vince's advice and guidance, he had Haven running smoothly within a few days.
So really, it was just Newt who felt adrift, incomplete, unfinished. Unhappy. Even after several weeks here in Haven, he still felt like he didn't really belong.
He sighed again, looking down at the water lapping over his toes, and he jumped when he noticed a second set of bare feet beside him. Tommy chuckled softly.
"Wondered how long it was gonna take," Thomas said, his voice quiet and light. He had a smile on his face, one that Newt mirrored instinctively. "You alright?"
"Yeah," Newt lied, shrugging. "Just wanted to watch the sunrise."
"Newt, you've been standing here for like, an hour," Thomas said, his smile fading a bit. "What's going on?"
"Ever feel like we're just… waiting for the next fight?" Newt asked, looking away from Thomas. He frowned down at his feet again. "Like this is all just a pit-stop, and eventually, the good bit will be over, and we'll have to go back out there?"
"Sometimes, yeah," Tommy said, in a thoughtful tone.
"How do you move past it?" Newt asked on a sigh. He felt totally useless here, completely out of place, like he didn't belong. But how was he supposed to explain that to Tommy?
"I don't know," Thomas said. "Mostly, I just try and focus on the present. On the good things I've got right now. Minho, Gally, my brother, this place… you."
"Me?"
"Yeah, you," Thomas repeated, and Newt glanced over to see him smiling tenderly. "You've always been by my side, ever since the Maze. I don't know how I could've gotten through half of this insanity without you."
"I'm always gonna be on your side, Tommy," Newt promised. Thomas nodded, and then hesitated, before speaking up again.
"And I know we haven't really, you know, progressed, or whatever, since… the rooftop…" he trailed off awkwardly, scratching his chin. Newt smiled at that. "I mean… I kinda just… well. You remember. And then we got here, and yeah we share a hut and all, and I mean, I'm pretty sure at least half of Haven thinks we're boning, but—"
"Tommy, breathe," Newt said, laughing. He took Thomas' hands in his, turning their bodies to face each other. "Look. We don't need some huge discussion, alright? The way I see it, it's pretty simple: I love you. And you love me, right?" Thomas nodded mutely. "Okay, so what is there to worry about?"
"I don't know, it's just… well, I talked to Gally—"
"That never ends well," Newt groaned.
"And he said that in the Glade, before I showed up, you were more… physical, I guess? And… never mind, it's stupid anyway," Thomas said, blushing furiously, taking one hand back from Newt's grip to run his fingers through his hair in embarrassment. Newt smirked, catching on.
"Tommy, are you trying to ask why we haven't had sex yet?" Newt asked coyly. Tommy blushed harder, if that was even possible.
"Told you it's stupid," he grumbled, looking at the ground.
"I think it's sweet," Newt said, stepping forward, sliding his hand up Thomas' arm as he moved in. "Do you want to?" He asked, and Thomas looked up, his eyes widening in surprise.
"I, um…" he stammered, and Newt smiled at him. He leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Tommy's cheek.
"That's why," Newt said, pulling back to meet Thomas' eyes again. "Tommy, I'm not going to lay a single finger on you until you're ready. And I will never push you to do more than you're comfortable with. So I don't care if everyone around here thinks that we're fucking, alright? Let them make their assumptions. But I need you to know, I'm following your lead on this."
Tommy's breathing had hitched over the word fucking, and Newt filed that away for another time. For now, though, he pulled Thomas close, winding his arms loosely around Thomas' waist.
"Is there anything else, love?" Newt asked as they stood there. Thomas shook his head, his eyes flicking down to Newt's lips. Newt smirked. "Can I kiss you properly, now?"
In answer, Thomas leaned in, brushing his lips against Newt's gently. His hands slid up Newt's arms, up to cradle Newt's neck with just the lightest pressure, and Newt smiled into the kiss. He pulled Thomas closer, kissed him more firmly. Tommy sighed into his mouth, and Newt smiled again.
"I don't think I'll ever get tired of that," Thomas admitted when they pulled apart, a sheepish smile on his face. Newt tipped his head up and kissed Thomas' forehead, then pulled Tommy into a hug, just to feel Thomas' heart beat against his own.
"Me neither," Newt agreed. Thomas turned his head on Newt's shoulder and pressed a soft kiss to the side of Newt's neck, and a shiver went down his spine.
They stood together like that for a while longer, until signs of life started wandering around the Haven. Newt pulled away with a smile, taking Tommy's hand instead.
"Let's go see what Fry's making for breakfast," he suggested.
"Hell, yes," Thomas groaned, and Newt's mind filed that sound away for later, too. (Hey, he might be taking the high – and dry – road with Tommy, but he's still human.) Newt chuckled, letting Thomas drag him up the shore to the kitchens. If there was one thing guaranteed to make Thomas move quickly these days, it was Frypan's specialty pancakes. They got side-tracked on the way, though, when a young girl from the WCKD train hesitantly asked if Thomas could help explain something Gally had told her.
Newt stood back, his arms folded over his chest, watching Thomas interact with the young girl. She couldn't have been older than Chuck, by the look of her. Thomas must've thought so, too, because instantly he switched from the fearless leader to the protective big brother, and Newt had to smile at the memories it invoked. Thomas was good with the younger kids, always offering advice, telling terrible jokes to cheer them up, or just letting them vent to him if they needed to. Suddenly, Newt was struck with a mental image of Tommy as an old man, surrounded by a new generation of kids, kids who had never been hunted, who had never felt the pain of infection, or the fear of finding themselves trapped in a box without their memories. Tommy, making up outlandish stories just to make the children laugh.
Newt swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. Thomas would make an incredible father, Newt could just feel it, but he could never give Tommy children. He just didn't have the equipment for that. He wondered if that would disappoint Thomas, down the line. If he'd wish he'd stayed with Teresa, or gotten with Brenda, or any number of the young women in Haven. Newt shook himself, it was far too soon to even consider any of that. He and Thomas had only just gotten together, after all.
Tommy returned to his side, smiling fondly and shaking his head.
"Gally told her we have some kind of initiation ritual to join the Runners, and that it involved standing on one leg while reciting the Maze code backwards," Thomas sighed exasperatedly. "I'm gonna find Minho, see if he can get Gally to knock it off. We both know he won't listen if it comes from me. I'll meet you at the kitchens in a minute, yeah?"
"Good that, I'll have a plate waiting for you," Newt said. Thomas kissed his cheek quickly and darted off, the young girl following behind him. She keeps pace well, Newt thought, assessing. And she seeks advice instead of blindly obeying, he thought, nodding to himself. Minho's gonna love her.
Newt continued up to the kitchens, giving Fry a grin as he stepped inside.
"Where's Thomas?" Frypan asked, flipping a pancake as he spoke. "I've already got his plate fixed."
"He just had to go straighten something out with Minho," Newt said. "Gally's pranking the greenies again."
"Of course he is," Fry chuckled. "What was it this time?"
"Fake Runner initiation," Newt said, grinning as he snagged a strawberry from the dish beside Fry's stove.
"Oi, not for you!" Fry swatted him with his hand-towel, and Newt dodged it easily, laughing as he went. He strode over to the small breakfast table, spotting Thomas' plate ready and waiting. The two old friends settled into an easy silence, and Newt watched as Fry served up another plate, carrying it to Newt with his usual smile. He sat down opposite Newt at the table, fixing him with a look. "How are you doing?" He asked.
"I'm… I'm managing," Newt said, not wanting to lie to Fry. The man had been his friend for almost as long as he could remember; Frypan had come up just a few months after Newt, and after a bit of a rocky start, they'd developed a strong friendship that had lasted three years. "I just… I don't really know where I fit in, you know? In the Glade, it was simpler."
"Yeah, I get that," Frypan agreed, nodding. "Maybe you should join Minho," he suggested.
"No offense to Minho, but I think I've done enough running to last a lifetime," Newt scoffed. "Besides, I was never a very good Runner."
"Fair enough," Frypan said, nodding thoughtfully. "I dunno. What's Stiles' group up to?"
"No idea, actually," Newt said, thinking about it. "I know Allison's started some kind of archery group. I heard her talking to some of the kids about hunting."
"Newt, let me be the voice of reason here," Frypan started, a serious frown on his face. He placed a hand over Newt's on the table. "For the sake of everyone's sanity and safety, don't you dare pick up archery." Newt was almost offended, but then Frypan laughed, tipping his head back as his whole body shook with his laughter. "I'm teasing, shank, you probably wouldn't be half bad at it, honestly."
"Gee, thanks, Fry," Newt said, rolling his eyes. He slid his hand out from under Fry's, turning to his food instead. "You're horrible, and I'm going to tell Thomas that you're bullying people now," Newt threatened without an ounce of heat. Fry laughed again.
"Narc," Fry accused, grinning widely.
"Shank," Newt slung back, smirking. Fry shook his head, still chuckling to himself. The laughter died down naturally, and that was a change Newt welcomed with open arms. Frypan sighed suddenly, and Newt looked up at him. There was a distant look in his eyes.
"He would've loved it here," Fry said softly. He met Newt's eyes and elaborated: "Chuckie." Newt sighed too, looking out the window at the now-bustling community around them.
"Yeah, he would've," Newt agreed. He swallowed hard. "They all would've."
Chuck. Alby. Winston. Ben.
It was kind of heartbreaking, really, to see how few of them had actually made it. Five (six if they counted Teresa, which Newt didn't) out of over thirty boys. Newt sighed. He wondered for a minute, how different would things have been if they'd convinced more of the Gladers to escape with them? If they could've saved the few they lost inside the Maze before they'd escaped. They'd lost so many of their friends, so many people Newt had grown to call his brothers in the Glade.
"Hey, don't go there," Fry said, cutting through Newt's thoughts, reaching over the table to tap Newt's hand again. "I know what you're thinking, Newt, but you can't go there. Gotta live for them, you know? Make them proud of us, wherever they are now."
Newt swallowed again, nodding. Frypan was right.
He polished off his breakfast, not really tasting it. Thomas still hadn't returned, but Newt wasn't too worried; he knew how Tommy got when it came to signing up new Runners. He and Minho were really cut from the same cloth in that aspect. They loved the recruiting process. Mainly because it gave them an excuse to run complex routes around the island under the guise of testing out the greenies.
He washed up his plate (Fry didn't do anybody's dishes. In his kitchen, the rule was if you eat Fry's food, you clean your own plates, no exceptions) and smiled at Fry.
"I think I'll go talk to Allison about the archery thing," he said. "Gotta keep busy, right?"
"You get lazy, you get sad," Fry said by way of agreement, nodding.
Newt clapped Fry on the shoulder and made his exit. Unfortunately, he didn't get to see Allison for another several hours, because nearly as soon as he'd passed the next hut, Teresa grabbed his arm and pulled him aside.
"I need your help," she hissed urgently. She glanced around, a terrified look on her face, before she tugged the collar of her shirt to the side. Black veins stood in stark contrast to her pale skin. Newt balked.
"I thought you were immune," Newt said, half defeated, half suspicious. "How did you even get infected?"
"I don't know," Teresa said, putting her collar back. "I didn't even notice it until my shower last night, but by then, you'd already gone to bed, and I didn't want Thomas to freak out."
"But you don't care about freaking me out," Newt guessed, almost offended until he realised why. "Because I'm not immune either, so I can relate."
"Exactly," Teresa nodded. "And there's something else, too. It's different to your infection. Slower."
"It took three days for my symptoms to grow out of control," Newt said, thinking back. He didn't like thinking about the Flare, or his short time being infected, but if anyone would listen objectively, it would be Teresa. The scientist in her wouldn't allow room for sentiment. "You said you noticed it last night?"
"Yeah, and there was nothing all day before that."
"Nothing? No itching, sensitivity?" Newt questioned. Teresa shook her head. "That's definitely different," he mused. "Do we have any of the cure serum left? The batch you made in the Last City?"
"Maybe one dose? But I don't know what the shelf-life is like for the serum, it could be useless. We're not even sure whether the serum changes over time," Teresa said, wrapping her arms around herself.
"What if the virus changed too?" Newt gave voice to the dark thought in his mind. "Evolved?"
"I mean, that's what viruses do, so… it's possible, I suppose," Teresa agreed.
"You suppose?" Newt asked, picking up on her wording. "You spent how long with WCKD? Studying this exact virus?"
"It only changed once while I was with them, when it became airborne in the City," Teresa defended. "And by that point, we'd run out of time to study it, we just needed a cure."
"Great, that's super helpful," Newt sighed. "Okay, we need to tell Thomas."
"No, he'll lose it," Teresa argued.
"If he was infected, wouldn't you want him to tell you?" Newt asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow at her. She pursed her lips, frowning. "Besides, I wasn't really asking, you know. We're telling him."
"Telling me what?" Thomas' voice reached them before the man himself. Newt turned to see Thomas round the corner, smiling. Newt watched as the smile faded into a frown as Thomas read the situation. "What is it?" He asked firmly. Back in Fearless Leader mode, apparently.
"Go on," Newt said, stepping aside and gesturing for Teresa to speak. "Tell him, or I will."
"Someone just tell me," Thomas snapped.
Teresa sighed and stepped forward, still hidden by the side of the hut, and tugged her shirt aside again. Newt watched Thomas' face, reading his reaction like a book: confusion, worry, fear, and finally, anger.
"What the hell, Teresa?" He snapped, grabbing her arm tightly, shaking her slightly. "How long? Hm? How many people could you have infected before you decided it was time to tell me?"
"It showed up last night, out of nowhere," Teresa said. "I didn't have any symptoms. No rash, no itching, nothing. I only noticed it when I had my shower last night. I didn't even sleep in my hut last night, I'm not stupid enough to risk everyone else."
"Right, we need to backtrack, see if there's any possible way you could've gotten it," Thomas said, already formulating a plan. "What did you do yesterday? Everything, Teresa, we need to keep everyone else safe."
"I was with Gally yesterday, it was his turn to chaperone me," Teresa said, a slight roll of bitterness in her voice at the mention of her probation. "He had me working with the livestock. Nothing unusual there, I was just mucking stalls and refilling the feed troughs for the pigs."
"Could the animals be infected?" Thomas questioned, and Teresa considered it.
"If this is a new strain of the virus, and it's asymptomatic… maybe?" Teresa guessed. "But that still wouldn't explain how it's transmitted. The original virus spread by bites or scratches from an infected person. I wasn't bitten by any of the animals, so I'm guessing it's not that…"
"You said it turned airborne in the Last City," Newt said slowly. His mind was piecing together a theory, and he didn't like it, but it needed to be said. "What if… what if it travelled?"
"How? We're miles away from any infected zone, every new arrival is quarantined," Thomas said.
"The berg? We got picked up right on top of the WCKD labs, they had Cranks in that building," Newt said.
"I don't think it could've survived in the berg, not for long, not without a carrier," Teresa said, shaking her head. Then she blinked. "How many of us in that berg were supposedly immune?"
"All of us, except Jorge, but he stayed in the cockpit the entire time and he hasn't shown any symptoms. Newt and Brenda were cured…" Thomas said, thinking hard.
"Thomas, what if… what if our immunity is just slowing the virus? The serums WCKD made from other immunes, they only slowed the disease, but every single test subject relapsed," Teresa said. "Ava tested my blood the minute we got to the City, after the Right Arm. She said I had some of the strongest enzymes of any immune they'd tested. But the serum they made from me only gave the subject a few days of clarity before the virus took over."
"So… the level of immunity correlates to the speed of the infection," Newt said, following Teresa's train of thought.
"But we have hundreds of immunes here, and so far, none of them have…" Thomas trailed off, and Newt sighed.
"They're scared," Newt suggested. "The Flare is the one thing we have left to be afraid of, and the Haven was supposed to be infection-free." He rubbed his face. "We have to call a meeting, the whole community. If we've got a mass outbreak on our hands, they deserve to know that their leaders are going to do something about it."
"You're right," Thomas sighed. "Of course, you're right. But how do we do this without inciting panic?"
"Honestly, I don't think we can avoid a panic," Newt said bluntly. "It's a terrifying reality, and a lot of the people here have already seen the Cranks, or they've lost people to the Flare already. They're not going to like it, but we need to get ahead of the panic."
"Okay," Thomas said. He dragged both hands over his face. "Okay. Newt, can you round up the Keepers? Teresa, come with me."
Newt nodded, meeting Thomas' gaze with a steady look. Watch your back, the look said. Thomas nodded back to him, understanding like always. Then they separated, and Newt hated that his initial instinct had been right. They'd never be done with this fight. Even their small slice of Paradise wasn't safe.
/
Teresa jogged alongside Thomas, following him through the community. Thomas had a false smile on his face, meant to reassure the people they passed. They reached the council hut at last, and Thomas ushered her inside. Teresa went straight to the trial chair and sat down.
"You're not on trial," Thomas said immediately. "That's not why you're here."
"Then why?" Teresa asked, standing up again.
"I need to make sure you're telling me the truth," Thomas said, taking his knife from a pocket. "It's alright, I'm not gonna kill you."
"That'd be more reassuring if you hadn't brought me to an empty hut and pulled a knife on me, Tom," Teresa said, trying for levity, but her voice shook.
"Look, Cranks bleed black, right?" Thomas reasoned. "So if I nick you, and there's black in your blood, I'll know you're telling the truth."
Teresa hesitated, but she knew she was still on very, very thin ice with Tom. So instead of arguing, she tugged her shirt aside again, exposing the ugly black lines. Thomas approached her carefully. But he didn't use the knife straight away. First, he rubbed the tip of his finger over the veins, feeling how they were raised against Teresa's skin. Then he took his thumb and pressed on one, watching it pale under the pressure and return just as dark when he lifted his thumb again. Checking if it's real, Teresa realised. Then Thomas glanced at her, their eyes meeting.
"This is gonna sting, sorry," he warned, and then the cold tip of the knife pressed against her skin. He was right, it did sting as the blade pierced her flesh, but that wasn't the most painful part. No, the pain came after. A hot, stinging, burning pain, shooting through her veins like acid. She snapped her jaw shut to keep herself from screaming. So that's why they scream, Teresa figured. It had always been the one thing she never understood about the Cranks, the screaming. Now she knew. Because the Flare didn't just rot the body from the inside out, it burned.
"Oh, that sucks," she hissed once the pain dulled. Thomas pressed a strip of white fabric to the spot he'd cut, and when he withdrew it, sure enough, Teresa saw black mixed with the red of her blood.
"Okay," Thomas said, steel in his voice. "That settles that, then." He picked up a small wad of scrap fabric that the community had been using as bandages, and handed it to her. Teresa took it and pressed to her chest, blotting away the blood. The door opened a minute later, and Newt strolled in, followed by Minho, Gally, Frypan, Allison, Scott, and Stiles. Because of course, Tom's twin brother would've followed. Vince and Jorge slipped in behind them. Brenda came in last, nearly catching the door with her face in her haste.
"What's going on? Newt wouldn't tell us anything," Gally asked, settling himself on the edge of the table.
"We've got a problem," Thomas said. He glanced at Teresa, and she dropped her hand, showing the black veins spreading over her chest.
"Well, shit."
/
By noon, they had a plan. Kind of. Mostly.
Gally rang the community bell, the one that signalled a mandatory meeting, and he waited alongside the other Keepers as the community gathered around them. Once everyone was present and accounted for, Gally turned the meeting over to Thomas, Newt, and Vince. The three stepped forward, and the Keepers braced themselves for the panic that was undoubtedly about to unfold.
"There's been a development, and you all deserve to know about it," Thomas started. "We aren't as immune as WCKD let us believe." Gasps went around the crowd, and Gally watched, gauging reactions. "We've had an outbreak of the Flare virus. We don't know how it started, not for certain. But we are going to do whatever it takes to figure it out."
Voices started rising all at once, and Gally would've rolled his eyes if it was for a lesser issue, but this was quite literally life or death, so he just set his mouth in a grim line and listened.
"Are we gonna die!?"
"How did this happen?!"
"What kind of leaders are you if you can't figure out who brought a Crank into Haven?!"
"CRANKS?!"
"OH GOD WE'RE DEAD!"
"ENOUGH!" Vince boomed over the rising panic, stepping forward. "Settle down, please!" He waited, and silence returned to the crowd. Gally could spot three potential flight risks on the outer edge of the crowd. With one subtle nod from him, two of his Enforcers shifted their position. They weren't trying to lock anyone in, but if anyone bolted, the Enforcers were meant to follow them and assess their risk level.
"Look, I get you're all scared, I'm scared too," Thomas told them. Good job, Greenie, tell 'em you're scared, that'll comfort them, Gally thought, resisting the urge to roll his eyes again. "But this can be managed, okay? We're telling you now, because we trust that you'll all do your part to help us minimise the risk, alright?"
A hand went up somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and when Thomas gestured for the kid to speak, the question made Gally want to kick himself for not thinking of it sooner.
"If we've got a Flare outbreak in the community, and we don't know how it's spreading, was it really a good idea to put us all together like this?" The kid asked. Concerned mutters rose up after his question, and Gally waited to see how Thomas was gonna handle it.
"Right now, we have one confirmed case, and that person is being quarantined as we speak," Thomas said confidently. "But anybody showing symptoms should come forward, as soon as they manifest, so we can estimate the size of the outbreak."
Six people stood in unison in the crowd, and Gally swore.
"Alright, come stand the side over here, please," Thomas said, pointing to the left of the crowd. Nobody moved.
"Are you gonna banish us?" One kid asked.
"Or kill us?" Another asked.
"No, we're not doing any of that," Thomas said. Gally had to hand it to the Greenie, he was handling this extremely well. Alby would've been proud. "Come over to the side, please. Once we adjourn the meeting, we need to examine you and figure out how far along the infection is, okay? That's all, I promise."
After a moment, the kids began to move, picking their way through the crowd that parted for them. Gally could see a handful of kids covering their faces with their shirts as the infected kids passed them. Finally, they were all out, and the meeting resumed.
"Right," Thomas said, drawing the crowd's attention back to him. "Now, we want to be as careful as possible, okay? From here on out, we're in quarantine conditions. After we're done here, everyone should return to their homes. If you've got scrap fabric, turn it into face coverings."
"Most of us live in groups," a kid called out. "What if we've got one infected person in our house?"
"If that's the case, send them to us," Thomas said. "The thing to watch for is black veins, alright? I don't want to see any of you turning against each other out of suspicion alone, got it?"
"What about our jobs?" A different kid asked.
"Today, those jobs can wait, alright? We'll work out a roster tonight and your Keepers will deliver them when it's done," Thomas said. A murmur of reluctant agreement went up. Thomas nodded. "Alright. I don't want to keep you too long, okay, so that's all for now. As soon as we have more information, we'll update you. For now, go home."
The crowd dispersed, and Gally stepped up to Thomas' side to share his thoughts.
"If we've already got seven cases, we're gonna need another quarantine hut," he murmured, pitching his voice low so it wouldn't carry far. Thomas sighed.
"I know," he said, sounding tired.
"You know what I'm gonna suggest, don't you?" Gally asked pointedly, glancing at Thomas' hut. Thomas sighed again and nodded.
"Yeah, I'm thinking the same thing," Thomas said. "I just hope we didn't do more harm than good by announcing it like that."
"Trust me, they'd be more freaked out if their friends just started vanishing at the first sign of black veins," Gally said. "No, you handled it well. Alby would've been impressed."
"Alby never would've let it get this far," Thomas said, shaking his head. "I messed up, Gally, this is on me."
"Burden of a leader," Gally said with a shrug. "You think Alby didn't beat himself up after Ben? Or after he got stung himself, and got you and Minho trapped overnight in the Maze?"
"Yeah, but that's—"
"No, it's not different," Gally cut him off sternly. "You're a Keeper now, Greenie. You're gonna beat yourself up, just like Alby did. Just like me, and Minho, and Newt. We all screw up eventually. But the way you handle your screw ups is the important part. You sat them down and gave it to 'em straight. That's gonna earn you respect. It showed you trust them, and that they can trust you."
"Are you really giving me a pep talk right now?" Thomas asked, sounding almost shocked. Gally smirked.
"People change," he said. "Right, we've gotta talk to those kids. Too much whispering is gonna make 'em suspicious."
Sure enough, when they reached the infected kids, one of them immediately demanded to know what they'd been talking about.
"Just making quarantine arrangements for you guys," Thomas said, and the half-truth sailed without question. Greenie just had one of those trustworthy faces, Gally supposed. "Now, let's get a look, yeah? Come with me."
Gally followed the group as Thomas and Newt led the infected kids to the med hut. He shared a glance with Minho beside him, and tried not to feel like he was marching those kids to a firing squad.
/
Thomas had all the kids sit in the main room, and took one at a time behind the hanging sheets that served as a privacy curtain. Newt stayed with him, while Gally and Minho stayed with the kids in the waiting area. The first kid they brought in had a patch of black veins on his arm, like Newt had. Thomas inspected it, mapped out the size of the patch on a piece of paper from their last supply run. Newt asked the kid about his symptoms, and they both choked down their anxiety when it was the same story as Teresa's: no symptoms, then a sudden black rash. Seemingly out of nowhere. The immunity theory seemed to be gaining weight.
The second and third kids were the same: supposedly immune, asymptomatic, then a sudden appearance of black veins.
The fourth kid broke the cycle, describing the itching and the tender skin with a sincerity that made Thomas' stomach turn. Newt asked if he was immune, and the boy shook his head. "They said I'm a variable," he said, his voice shaky. "Does that mean I'm gonna die?" Thomas' heart ached; the boy couldn't have been older than thirteen, one of the youngest in Haven.
"No, we're not gonna let that happen, okay?" Thomas said soothingly, giving the kid a gentle smile. "You're gonna be just fine."
He led the kid back out, and gestured for Minho to come to him.
"Give me like, two minutes, alright? I need to sort something out," he said lowly. He glanced at the two kids left to check, and the ache in his heart got worse. God, they were all so young… if any of those kids died or Cranked out, Thomas would never forgive himself.
"Good that," Minho said with a nod. "What should I tell them?"
"Just tell them we need a minute," Thomas said, too tired to come up with an excuse. Minho must've noticed, because he nodded without another word. Thomas ducked back behind the makeshift curtain and walked back to Newt, taking his hand. "I'm sorry," he said sadly.
"For what?" Newt asked quietly.
"For not noticing sooner… not just here, but… before," Thomas said. "When you were infected. I should've paid more attention."
"Hey, that's not on you," Newt said firmly. "Don't put my mistakes on yourself, alright? We don't do that."
"Yeah, I guess…" Thomas sighed. "I'll go see Teresa when we're done here, get her to make another batch of the serum."
"Thomas, you don't have enough blood in your body to cure every single person here," Newt said.
"No, I know, but… I don't know, Newt, I'm grasping at straws here," Thomas said.
"What about Stiles?" Newt suggested. "We can get Teresa to test it, see if it's worth making serums from."
"Yeah, good idea." Thomas sighed and dropped Newt's hand. "Alright, let's wrap this up." He walked back to the curtain and nodded to Minho, who nudged the next kid in line and pointed over to Thomas. It was the demanding kid from before, and internally, Thomas groaned. But he held the curtain aside for the kid to pass by him. Newt got him set on the table.
"Alright, let's see it," Newt said, waiting. But the kid didn't budge. Didn't roll up his sleeves, didn't show off the black veins.
"Oh, I'm not infected, I just wanted to see exactly how out of your depth you are," the kid said arrogantly.
"Kid, this really isn't the time to try and make a power play," Thomas said, glaring down at the kid.
"My name is Brody," the kid spat. "Shouldn't you know that? Since you brought me here?"
"Alright, well if you're not infected, you can go," Thomas said, annoyance growing in his voice.
"No, not until you tell me what's really happening around here," Brody snapped. Thomas had never wanted to hit a kid until now. "Look, if I wanted to get infected and crank out, I'd've stayed in the damn Scorch."
"What do you want, then?" Newt asked, before Thomas could lose his temper.
"Easy, I want you to go back out there and tell everybody that you have no idea what you're doing, and you're going to let us all die, because everyone knows there ain't a damn cure for the Flare," Brody said, crossing his arms and scowling. He looked just like Gally, and it would've been funny if it wasn't so fucking annoying. Thomas didn't answer, and Newt followed his lead. Brody scoffed. "Let me rephrase. You nut up and do it, or I'll go out there and tell them all for you."
"Third option: we lock you in quarantine since you basically announced to the whole community that you're infected, and you can damn well stay there until we've sorted this out," Thomas snapped. "I'm not having you go out there and spread panic. Not now. Right now, we need people to stay calm."
"So it'd be kind of a shitstorm for you if my friends spread the news for me then, huh?" Brody scoffed. "Some safe haven this is. Can't even keep a damn Crank out. Bet you it's one of the variable kids who brought the damn Flare here." The disgust in Brody's voice as he spat the word 'variable' like it was synonymous with 'inhuman' was the last straw for Thomas.
"Yeah, you're done," Thomas said. "Gally!" Gally stepped through the curtain, his face grim and intimidating. "Put this one in solitary. We'll hold a trial in a couple days to figure out if he's still a good fit for Haven." It was a bald-faced lie, he had no intention of actually banishing the kid, but the words alone were enough to shut Brody up. Gally took hold of Brody's upper arm and led him out the back of the hut. Thomas took a second to breathe. "Alright, get the last one in here," he said to Newt, who nodded wordlessly and went to fetch the last kid.
Her story was the same as the first three kids. She said she had no symptoms at all until suddenly the black veins appeared the night before. Something itched at Thomas' brain, but he could quite catch it. Fatigue and stress, he reasoned. It wasn't until the girl had gone home, and Newt was looking over his notes, that Thomas caught onto the thread of an idea.
"Wait, Newt, go back," he said, leaning over Newt's shoulder to read the notes again. There it was. Thomas grinned, finally feeling like he had a credible lead. "Newt, look. All of them, where'd they notice the veins?"
"In… the showers," Newt said, his eyes going wide as he caught onto Thomas' train of thought. "It's the water," Newt said. "Has to be. All the showers are run off a communal rain tank. If something infected got in there—"
"The infection is being spread through the water," Thomas agreed, nodding. "But, wait, what about drinking water?"
"No, that's all filtered by hand, and stored separately. We could afford to go a little lax with the shower water," Newt said, drumming his fingers against the tabletop. "Probably a good thing I skipped my shower last night," he mused.
"We've gotta go check it out, or at least block off the showers," Thomas said.
"Do both, and have Gally put some guys on the shower hut, just in case someone tries to sneak in anyway."
"Have I ever told you how much I love your strategist side?" Thomas said, grinning at Newt, the high of getting a lead so fast making him sentimental.
"You could do with telling me more often," Newt said, grinning right back. Thomas leaned down and gave him a quick kiss.
"Come on, we'd better get started."
/
A damn Crank in the shower tank. Yeah, that was a great thing to find. Newt forced the bile back down, looking away from the gruesome sight. Sure, he and Thomas had figured it out, and they'd been excited to find that the virus hadn't just mutated at random. But theorising something and seeing it were vastly different. Newt looked into the tank again and another realisation occurred to him: how did a Crank get to Haven anyway? And how did it get into the tank?
Newt got down from the ladder again, and looked over, meeting Thomas' eyes, understanding passing between them. They had a traitor in Haven. And Newt had a feeling he knew exactly who it was.
/
While Gally recruited the Enforcers to manage the disgusting and difficult job of hauling a dead Crank out of the shower tank, Thomas and Newt went off to find Teresa. Conveniently, they found Stiles on the way, and pulled him along with them. After Newt helped him shift the heavy metal barricades out of the way, Thomas opened the door to Teresa's hut. She was sitting against the far wall, and Thomas could see the black veins from the doorway. They'd grown, stretching down her arms and up her neck, brushing her jaw. When she looked up, her eyes were bloodshot.
"Teresa?" Thomas called from the doorway. He wasn't sure how much clarity she had, so he lingered by the door until she responded.
"Tom," she answered, her voice scratchy, like she'd been screaming. Thomas' heart sank.
"How're you doing?" Thomas asked.
"I'm good," she said, pushing herself unsteadily to her feet. "For now," she added.
"Okay, I just have a question for you," Thomas said. Teresa hummed. "How much blood would we need to make six doses?"
"Six?" Teresa asked, cocking her head to the side. The movement was eerily reminiscent of Janson back in the Last City. "Um… I think… hang on, the formula is… it's here somewhere, um, maybe the table? It's for one dose, so just, multiply it, I guess?"
"Alright, I'm gonna come inside, yeah? Don't attack me," Thomas said, aiming for a joke. Teresa's lips twitched in what was probably a smile. He glanced at Newt, who already had his knife in hand, just in case. Thomas stepped forward, and Teresa watched him. Her bloodshot eyes were unnerving, but so was the unnatural stillness. Thomas froze too. They still didn't know if his immunity would hold if she bit him, and he had no interest in finding out. Teresa's lips curled back, revealing blackened teeth and gums.
Then she blinked, and staggered a few steps back, til her back hit the wall. Thomas cursed himself for not noticing that she'd moved forward in the first place.
"Take it and go," Teresa said, her voice shaking. She looked past him, at Newt. "When I turn, put me down, don't let me hurt anyone," she begged.
"Good that," Newt said, his voice devoid of all emotion.
Teresa accepted it though, and she nodded shakily as she slid down the wall to curl up on the floor, tucking her legs up to her chest, the wall at her back, and she dropped her head into the cradle of her arms. Thomas surged forward, finding the cure formula on Teresa's makeshift lab bench, the formula scribbled out on a piece of paper that seemed to have been ripped out of a notebook. He stuffed it in his pocket, glancing over at Teresa's curled up form again. She hadn't moved, so Thomas left as quickly as he'd come in, dodging around the clutter of Teresa's hut. He got out, and Newt slammed the door shut. Thomas desperately tried to ignore Teresa's scream from the other side.
Stiles and Thomas dragged the barricades back in front of the door, sealing Teresa inside again.
"Should've moved her to solitary before she got this bad," Newt huffed tiredly.
"Too late now," Thomas said. "We got the formula, that's all we need. Come on, the sooner we do this, the better."
/
It took three days to sort out the Crank issue. They had to empty the entire tank after they'd fished the Crank out, replace the shower hoses, scrub down every inch of the tank with a straight alcohol solution Gally had pulled together, and refill the tank with sea water. People would just have to deal with salty showers for a while.
In those three days, Thomas managed to create six doses of the serum they needed. Thankfully, no one else had been infected, and Thomas thanked every single lucky star in the sky that they'd created a shower roster in the first place. The serum worked for all of the infected kids, and it even brought back a fully cranked-out Teresa, who had to be knocked out in order to inject the cure.
With that all handled, Thomas called another meeting. The community joined him on the beach, most of them wearing face coverings, flinching away from each other. With Newt's help, he explained to them that the cause of the infection hadn't been a mutated strain of the Flare, but a Crank that had been deliberately pushed into the shower tank. The news of a traitor in their midst worried them more than the Crank did, but Thomas kept it under control.
Brody had gleefully confessed to poisoning the water tank, saying that he did it to prove to everyone that Thomas was just a fraud and that they would've been better off in the Scorch. They didn't even need to call a trial to decide what to do with him. Brody was banished the next day; Gally and his Enforcers chained him heavily and loaded him onto the berg, Thomas and Newt – as the leaders of Haven – went with them, and Jorge flew them back across the ocean. They landed in the Scorch, and Brody was unchained and dropped straight into the hot sand. Thomas wordlessly dropped a small pack for him, containing one water bottle (filled with seawater), and a week's worth of dehydrated food rations. The last they saw of him, he was screaming obscenities up at them as they left him behind.
He said he'd be better off in the Scorch. Thomas was just giving him what he wanted.
/
Life in Haven returned to normal fairly quickly. Thomas noticed a slight distrust of the shower hut from some of the Haven inhabitants, but he trusted it would pass in time. He spent more time with his brother, finally able to enjoy the fact that he had a brother, now that they weren't constantly on the run. He learned that Stiles had once beaten an Omega – the creatures from his Maze – with nothing but a baseball bat he'd carved himself, and a complicated pulley system that operated a trap door. Thomas was impressed, it certainly made his story about tricking a Griever into chasing him through a sliding corridor seem much less ingenious.
He also got to know Stiles' friends. Scott made terrible jokes that only he thought were funny. Derek could sing. Lydia was a certifiable genius and could've ended up running WCKD is they hadn't thrown her in the Maze instead. Allison could shoot arrows and throw daggers with pinpoint accuracy. Malia was the 'odd' one, and one of the newest arrivals to their Maze, but she was fiercely loyal and would protect her friends to her last breath, a fact that Thomas could relate to and respect.
Newt stayed with him through it all, and Thomas was pretty sure Newt nearly teared up when Stiles had waved him over one day in the dining hall and told everyone to budge up to make room for his 'other brother'. Thomas had laughed and slung an arm around Newt's shoulders, planted a sloppy kiss on Newt's cheek, and said, "Maybe one day."
He paid attention to his own friends, of course. He was the only one who noticed that Minho and Gally had very conspicuously started disappearing at the same time. He noticed how Brenda blushed and giggled – yeah, giggled – whenever Derek put on his Eyebrows of Doom scowl. He noticed how Aris stumbled over his words whenever Lydia flipped her hair. He pointed all of his observations out to Newt, who laughed and said that he'd wondered how long it was gonna take for Thomas to notice what had been happening for weeks.
He very pointedly ignored that jab, thanks.
The point was, life was moving on.
And when Allison stood up in the middle of the dining hall one night to announce that she was pregnant, the cheer that went around the room had been deafening.
/
Thomas had been acting shifty for days after Allison's announcement. At first, Newt just thought it was nerves, wondering how they were going to supply for a newborn baby. But then he noticed Thomas spending more and more time with Minho. A stab of jealousy ripped through him one night when Thomas came to bed in the early hours of the morning, stinking of Minho's preferred shower gel and sporting a stupid grin.
Newt was being petty, he knew it, but God, Tommy could at least try to be subtle about the fact that he was cheating on him.
Nearly a week after Allison's announcement, Thomas pulled Newt away from their monthly bonfire – a tradition carried over from the Glade – with that same stupid smile on his stupid face.
"Walk with me?" Thomas asked him, holding his hand out to Newt. Ignoring the stab of hurt in his heart, he agreed, taking Thomas' hand. They walked silently along the shoreline, coming to a stop outside their shared hut. The one that Newt was trying to figure out how to move out of. Thomas squeezed his hand, and Newt abruptly wondered when he'd gone from thinking of him as Tommy to Thomas. "So, I brought you over here for a reason," Thomas said, smiling shyly.
"I know," Newt said, his heart already breaking. He tried to pull his hand out of Thomas', but he held on tight. "Thomas, don't—"
"Just let me say it, okay?" Thomas urged, gripping Newt's hand tightly. Newt sighed, but nodded reluctantly. He didn't particularly want to hear about how Thomas had fallen in love with Minho, but if Thomas needed to say it, Newt would listen. Like always. "Okay, so. I know I've been acting weird lately, but there is a reason." Newt waited, waited for the awful words he just knew were gonna come next. "Look inside," Thomas said instead, nodding to their hut.
He finally released Newt's hand, and for a second, Newt wanted to just walk away, but Thomas was looking at him with this weird expression, so Newt sighed and went to the door. He didn't know what he was expecting to see. Maybe his belongings in bags, ready to move out? Perhaps Minho was in there? (No, Newt remembered watching him slide drunkenly into Gally's lap at the bonfire, and not even Minho could've gotten here before them while he was that sloshed.) Hesitantly, Newt pushed the door open, and just stared.
The entire hut was alight with candles (where the hell did they get candles?!) and the floor was littered with wildflowers that Newt recognised from the far side of the island. Carefully, he stepped inside, looking around. He turned in a circle in the middle of the room, his eyes finally landing on Thomas again when he heard the door latch closed.
Thomas – Tommy – was looking at him, staring into his soul, with the kind of heat in his eyes that Newt only glimpsed sometimes when they'd fool around. Suddenly, he realised what was going on.
"You said we couldn't have sex until I was completely ready, right?" Tommy said softly. He glanced around the room, and Newt followed his gaze, taking it all in again. "Well. I'm ready. Completely."
"Tommy…" Newt said, trailing off. "God, I'm a total shank," he said, laughing at himself. Tommy frowned self-consciously, and Newt strode over to him, wrapping him in a hug. "I thought you were cheating on me," he confessed into Tommy's shoulder. Tommy chuckled then, getting the joke.
"What the hell made you think that?" Thomas asked, sounding almost offended.
"Well, you spent all the time with Minho, and then you came to bed smelling like him, and I… wow, I'm sorry, I misread everything, didn't I?"
"I was spending time with Minho because he was teaching me some stuff," Tommy explained, rubbing Newt's back as he spoke. "And the shower gel was just because I forgot to take mine to the shower hut, and Minho was already there."
"Oh," Newt said intelligently.
"You really think I'd do that to you?" Thomas asked, pulling back to look Newt in the eyes seriously.
"It sounds really stupid when I say it out loud," Newt admitted. "I'm sorry, Tommy."
"Hey, no, none of that," Thomas scolded lightly. "I didn't even think about how it looked, and that's on me. And we don't take on each other's screw ups, remember?"
"Yeah," Newt said, nodding. He looked around the room again, appreciating the effort Tommy had gone to. And then Newt looked at Tommy. Like, really looked. Noticed the slightly damp curl of his hair, the flushed pink tone of his skin, the lingering heat in his eyes. "When you said ready…?" Newt trailed off, his gaze sliding down Tommy's body.
"Yeah," Tommy whispered. "Completely ready, Newt."
"Shit," Newt groaned, and leaned in to kiss Tommy strongly, his hand sliding into Tommy's damp hair, his other hand pulling their bodies together by the hips. He moaned when he felt a solid shape in Tommy's pants rub against him. "God, Tommy…"
"Newt," Tommy sighed back, wrapping his arms around Newt's body, pulling them impossibly closer together. Then he whined, and started tugging on Newt's shirt. "Too many clothes," Tommy complained. Newt pulled back just enough to strip off his shirt, watching hungrily as Thomas did the same. They crashed back together like the waves on the shore outside.
Newt broke their kiss a few moments later, taking Tommy's hands and leading him to their bed. He laid Tommy down without a word, leaning over him to kiss his throat, his chest, his stomach. He brushed his lips over Tommy's smooth skin as his fingers worked on unfastening his trousers, shoving them roughly down his legs once they were open. He groaned at the sight beneath him. Tommy hadn't even put underwear on after his shower…
"Newt, I love you, but if you don't touch me in the next five seconds, I'm gonna be very annoyed," Thomas teased. Newt just groaned and bent over Tommy's cock, taking it into his mouth without hesitation. Thomas bucked under him, a throaty moan ripping out of him. Absently, Newt wondered if this was his first blowjob. He knew it had to be his first since the Maze, but before that… who knew? Who cared? Newt savoured every minute of it, learning Thomas' body. When Tommy gasped his name and frantically pulled him up, Newt debated staying put, but this was Tommy's first time. So he let himself be pulled up into a dizzying kiss.
"Tell me what you want, Tommy, love," Newt whispered into the kiss. His own cock was aching, but he could make it wait all night if that was what Tommy wanted.
"Fuck me," Tommy answered, unhesitatingly. Newt pulled back a fraction to meet Tommy's eyes. The gaze he received was serious, eager and wanting, and Newt groaned again. He sat up and unbuckled his belt, unfastened his trousers, and slipped backwards off the bed to let them fall to the floor, followed by his underwear. The elastic caught on the tip of his cock, and he saw Tommy's gaze lock on it, so Newt made a show of it, sliding his pants down slowly, until finally, the elastic slipped, and his hard cock bobbed back upright. Newt smirked, and crawled back into their bed, looming over Tommy until they were face to face.
"How do you want it?" Newt asked in a low voice. "On your back, like this? Or do you wanna turn over for me?"
"Like this," Thomas whispered back, reaching up to frame Newt's face in his hands, giving him that sweet smile again. "I wanna see you." Newt smiled and kissed him at that. Then he pulled back a bit.
"Did you prep in the shower?" Newt asked curiously.
"Yeah," Tommy admitted. "I'm impatient."
"Oh, I know," Newt laughed, leaning down to kiss him some more as he moved to settle between Tommy's thighs. One final kiss, and Newt sat up on his knees, looking down at his Tommy. Thomas spread his legs, and Newt's brain shut off for a solid ten seconds. All he could do was stare. He was really about to do this, and the gravity of the moment sank into his soul. Tommy really loved him, really trusted him enough to share this with him. For all either of them knew, this could be Thomas' very first time, with anyone, ever. He looked up, meeting Tommy's eyes again. "I love you so much, Thomas," Newt said, the weight of his emotions making his voice tremble.
"I love you, Newt," Tommy answered, every ounce of his trust and devotion poured into the words.
Newt smiled, lined himself up, and pushed inside so slowly it felt like he was hardly moving at all. Apparently Tommy thought so too, because after about five seconds, he lifted his legs around Newt's waist and pulled him in, making him sink all the way inside in one long stroke. Newt could hardly breathe, it felt so good. Felt like flying, like falling, like running, like coming home. And yeah, maybe that was a bit cliché, but Newt didn't care. It was the truth. He stayed still until Tommy urged him to move, and the first real thrust of his hips sent Tommy's eyes rolling back in his head.
"Hell yes!" Tommy groaned aloud, and Newt had the immense satisfaction of realising that Tommy's sex groan was infinitely better than his food groan. He thrust into him again, setting up a steady rhythm, and watched as Tommy lost himself in the sensations. This was better than any fantasy, any imagined scenario, any dream that Newt could've ever created on his own. And sure, maybe he'd wake up in the morning with sore thighs, scratches all over his back, and a neck covered in bite marks, but it was worth every single second for the moment that Tommy's eyes widened and his back arched, as he screamed, "OH, FUCK, NEWT!"
/
Back at the bonfire, Gally squeezed Minho's waist from behind in a standing embrace, his chin tucked over Minho's shoulder. They gazed out at the water, seeing the sparkle of starlight reflect off the lulling waves.
"So, you think it worked?" Gally asked after a while. Minho grinned.
"Definitely, though I'm pretty sure I owe Newt an apology," he said.
"Well, at least he was surprised, right?" Gally pointed out.
"He'd better be, I put a lot of work into that hut," Minho said. Gally squeezed him again, and pressed a kiss to Minho's jaw.
"Hm, now you're making me feel like a lazy boyfriend," Gally said. "A hut full of flowers and candles sounds a lot more romantic than our first time."
"Hey, the lagoon was plenty romantic, thanks," Minho chided. "Jackson gave me hell the next day for running with a limp, though."
"How'd you think I felt? I could barely carry half my gear with that crick in my back," Gally teased back. Then he smirked and leaned in to whisper directly into Minho's ear, "You know what? I think I wanna go for a swim now. What about you?"
"Yeah I could go for a swim," Minho agreed conspiratorially. They grinned at each other and took off, dodging around the bonfire and the crowds of people hanging around it.
They'd put a lot of effort into getting Greenie laid, they deserved a reward. And afterwards, they lay in the soft grass, surrounded by wildflowers, and Gally had to agree with Minho's earlier statement. The lagoon was romantic.
/
FIN
/
Notes:
And there we go! It's done! What a monster!
Anyway I loved the idea of Gally/Minho and them moving past the spear incident, so I had to include something cute for them, too.
Please let me know what you think! I really enjoyed writing this one, it was like my hands couldn't keep up with my brain. Thanks again for reading!
Series this work belongs to:
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