Thomas and Teresa present those in the medjack hut with a syringe, claiming it's for Alby. Newt tries to argue against it, even as Ash is ready to try it— but then the boy in question wakes and tries to grab at Thomas. He's not quite as rabid and violent as Ben had been, as the other sting victims had been, but the boys hurriedly go to bolster the restraints with their own body weights, while Ash jams the tip of the syringe into Alby's chest and presses the plunger down.
Alby goes still after a few moments, his breathing shallow.
"From now on, somebody watches him around the clock," Newt commands, heaving from the surprise exertion. Someone from the doorway clears their throat— it's Gally, here to escort Thomas to the Pit. The others wander off, leaving Ash and Teresa alone with the once-more unconscious Alby.
"What do we do now?" Teresa asks quietly.
"Now, I get to stay here to take the first shift as Alby's babysitter," Ash sighs. "You can use my hammock if you wanna go get some sleep. It's in a private room just off the Homestead. One of the boys can show you."
"Actually, would it be okay if I stayed here, with you?" the new girl asks, glancing at the door.
"If you want to," Ash says, shrugging. "It'll probably be boring... but you can take a nap on the second cot there whenever you want."
"I'm not tired," Teresa says. The Medjack just shrugs again, and goes to take inventory of her supplies. "Can I ask some questions?"
"Sure. I may not have all the answers, but I can certainly try," Ash replies.
"What's the Pit, and why is Thomas in it for the night?"
"Uh, long story short? The Pit is like jail, and Thomas is being punished for breaking a very important rule," she says, emptying the first drawer and sorting it, marking numbers down on a sheet of paper. "Don't worry about him, though. It's a very light punishment, and it's basically just to appease Gally and a couple of the other boys before tomorrow..."
"What's tomorrow?"
"Thomas is getting promoted to the one job that makes him an exception to the rule he broke yesterday," Ash says, grinning, then it fades as she glances to Alby.
"He would've given you a tour and explained those rules," she says quietly, nodding toward her sleeping friend, and Teresa frowns.
"I'll do my best for now," Ash continues, flipping her paper over and drawing a large square. She turns it into a rough map of the Glade, with labels and everything. She doodles little trees for the deadheads, and simple boxes for all the buildings, and lines for the gardens. When she's done, she hands it to the new girl.
"Don't you need what's on the other side?" she asks, but Ash shakes her head.
"I was just trying to keep myself busy," she admits. "We did inventory this morning after fixing up Alby's sting wound."
"What does that mean, sting? Thomas mentioned it earlier, about someone named Ben..." Teresa trails off.
"It's—" Ash bites her lip. "I'll get to that in a minute, okay? Let me give you the rules around here, and the third one will help give context." Teresa nods slowly, so Ash continues.
"First, never harm another Glader. Second, do your part— no slacking. Third is to not leave the Glade, don't go outside those walls," Ash explains. "The exceptions to rule three are the Runners, because it's their job to explore and map what's out there. It's this massive Maze, and we're all trapped in the center of it. Ben is— Ben was a Runner..."
She goes on to explain the events of the last few days, how Ben got stung and attacked Thomas; how Alby had gone out with another Runner to investigate, only to get stung himself; how Thomas had run out just as the Doors were closing to try to help.
"As you saw earlier, people who have been stung tend to get violent," Ash says. "I've seen it four times, before Alby. Until you came along, getting stung was a death sentence."
"And banishing is the punishment?" Teresa asks, her voice barely even a whisper.
Ash nods, chewing her lip. "Unfortunately... the first one, we had no idea what was wrong. We kept him in the Pit for almost a week, hoping the next Box would have some answers- or better yet, a cure. But when it didn't, Alby decided we had to do something. But, um… the boy died, before we could. I guess his body just gave out. The next two were toward the evening, and got stung on their way back here. We had to lock 'em up until the next sundown so we could— to keep the rest of us safe. But then just two days ago, Ben was stung practically first thing in the morning, and came all the way back just to attack Thomas."
"Why?" Teresa asks.
"We don't know," Ash says. "Not for sure, anyway... he kept saying this was all Thomas's fault, that Thomas shouldn't be here."
"Just like Alby," Teresa says, and Ash nods slowly, her face grim.
"Yeah, just like Alby..."
The girls sit in silence for a little while, listening to the sounds of the Maze changing outside. Through the window, Ash can see a flicker of light. Someone's carrying a lantern toward the Pit, and she grins softly.
"Good ol' Chuck," she murmurs, so soft that not even Teresa hears her.
Nearly an hour more passes, and Ash finds herself starting to fall asleep. Teresa interrupts her, though, as she asks another question.
"So, what exactly is that guy— the mean-looking one— what's his deal, anyway?" she asks, and Ash tries not to smirk as she says the first thing that comes to mind.
"The guy with the eyebrows?"
Teresa nods, snorting a little at the descriptor, and Ash continues with a small sigh.
"His name is Gally, and he's... he's really not that bad," she says. "He's just scared of change, that's all. He's doing his best to hold on to what he knows, what feels safe to him, after having everything else stripped away when he got here."
"You sound fond," Teresa says, and Ash blushes, looking away.
"He's one of my best friends," she says evasively, but there's something about the way Teresa is looking at her that makes her give in. There's an unexplainable ease between them, like Ash has known this girl all her life, as opposed to less than a few hours.
"We've kissed," she finally admits. "And then I told him I didn't want to start anything like that in the Glade. One, because this place is dangerous. And two, I was still the only girl at the time, and I was worried that..."
"That he only likes you because you're his only option?" Teresa finishes, when Ash doesn't. "So how are things between you, now? Is it awkward, or are you guys pretending nothing happened between you?"
"A little bit of both," Ash says, letting out a shaky breath. "Things are mostly normal, but then there'll be a moment where we make eye contact, or he'll brush against me in passing, or something, and we both get scared and avoid each other for a while. It drives me nuts, sometimes. I don't know if I want things to go back to the way they were, or to how they could be if I wasn't such a damn coward."
"You don't sound like a coward to me," Teresa says decisively. "You sound like a smart girl who's stuck in a horrible situation with people she cares about. Do you regret telling him you didn't wanna be with him here?"
Ash buries her face in her hands and tries not to cry. "I don't know anymore," she mumbles. "I feel like I've already lost him, and he doesn't even know it yet. Or maybe he just doesn't care... I can't tell."
"What do you mean?"
"We're all out here trying to find a way out of this place, but he keeps clinging to it," Ash says, a frustrated edge to her voice. "He doesn't want to leave— and he said that it's because he doesn't want to lose me, because he's scared he can't protect me from whatever's outside those damn walls... but we can't stay here, Teresa. I can't keep watching my friends die. And I don't know how to tell him that I just know that if he tries to stay here, something awful will happen to him."
"Would he listen to you, if you told him your fears?" she asks. "To me, they sound pretty similar, but then you guys go off in different directions with it."
"I tried to tell him today," Ash says bitterly. "But all I got was an I'll think about it."
The day after that, Ash wakes up rather late. By the time she drags herself out of her hammock, Thomas and Minho have already left for the day. Teresa is hanging out with Chuck, who has taken it upon himself to give her an actual tour of the place.
Newt is the only one nearby who seems interested in talking to Ash— Frypan is off in the kitchens, and Gally is nowhere to be seen.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she goes and sits on a log they keep near the bonfire pit, staring out at the Doors as her mind wanders. Her talk with Teresa the night before had been nice. Ash hadn't realized how much she missed that kind of Girl Talk until she had it again. She'd always privately lamented the fact she had no one to commiserate over period cramps with, but what she'd had with Teresa the night before was much better.
Now zoned out completely, Ash doesn't really feel the uncharacteristically cool breeze ruffling her hair, sending chills unnoticed down her spine. At least, not until someone sits down next to her on the log, draping a blanket over her shoulders. Startled, she glances over to see Gally sitting there, his eyes forward and hard, unreadable.
"Thomas is out there," he says, in a tone that Ash can't decipher. "Why are you so confident that he can get us out of here?"
She lets out a shaky breath, and tries to figure out how to answer him. "I know you think I have a crush on him," she says instead. "I heard you telling Fry yesterday... but I don't. I think he's smart, and determined, and I don't want to see him get hurt, but I don't— like him, like that. Like..."
She glances away for a moment, then back to him. He still won't look at her.
"I think I trust him for the same reason you don't," she finally says. "Because he's been the catalyst for so much change. It's hard to feel like we'll be here for the rest of our lives when he's over here, rocking the boat, you know?"
"Is the Glade really so bad?" he asks quietly, looking down, and Ash scoots closer and lays her head on his shoulder. He doesn't react.
"It's not the Glade itself," she responds. "And it's definitely not the people in it... it's the fear, and the monsters, and having to watch your friends die, right in front of you. It's the nightmares, and the amnesia, and the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring."
"I know what tomorrow will bring," he says darkly. "Or at least I did, until Thomas came along and started ruining everything."
"He didn't ruin anything," she says. "Sure, things are different today than they were yesterday, and yesterday was different than the day before, and so on since Thomas got here— but... change isn't always a bad thing. I was a pretty big change, wasn't I? A threat to the way of life around here?"
"You didn't go around breaking rules the second you got the chance," Gally snaps.
"Well sometimes rules need to be broken so that life can get better," she snaps right back, pulling away and standing up. She lets the blanket fall away from her shoulders, and steps over the log to storm away.
She goes to the Medjack hut, barking at Clint to get out. Teresa's doing something in the corner, sitting on the floor with the map Ash had made for her in her hands. Ash sits on a stool next to Alby's cot, and sighs.
"I just don't know what to do," she admits. "He's so fucking stubborn! I'm starting to think that all he cares about are the stupid rules, and not the people they're supposed to protect. Sometimes rules need to be broken and changed, in order for things to progress. For life to get better... you have to be able to adapt, or you'll get hurt."
"We'll figure this out," Teresa says softly
She goes to say something else, but is interrupted by Alby sitting up and gasping for breath. Ash quickly moves to pour him a cup of water, which he takes quietly once he seems to be able to breathe again. Teresa goes to get the others, and Ash can hear shouting in the distance. It sounds like Thomas and Gally, going at it once again.
She's so tired of them fighting, she just wants to sleep until it's all over. But her eyes snap wide open when she remembers just what's happening. Teresa leads a group back into the hut— Newt, Minho, Thomas, Chuck, and Gally.
By this point, Alby's sitting sideways on the cot, shoulders hunched over as he stares blankly at the floor. Ash backs up as Thomas takes her place, and he crouches in front of Alby, quietly trying to get his attention.
Alby just looks at him, dark eyes full of tears, and says, "You were always their favorite, Thomas. You and the girls. Why did you come here? After everything... why?"
Ash's heart leaps in her throat when she hears it. You and the girls? She knows that means Teresa, but... does he mean Ash herself, too?
He can't. It's not possible. A lot of things she's experienced in the last couple years aren't possible, and yet here she is.
Boys run by outside, and the group— now including Ash— run outside to find out what's going on. Winston runs by with a torch, barely stopping to tell them that the Maze Doors aren't closing. Shit.
They all run to join the others at the still-open Doors, and Ash's stomach churns in fear. The familiar screeching of concrete-on-concrete pierces the air, but not from the Doors they're used to. On the other three walls, previously unused Doors begin to open, revealing even more paths out of the Glade...
And into it.