Teresa's the first to speak. "What are you talking about?" she asks sharply.
"Yeah, what memories?"
"We need to keep moving, kids," Jorge calls out. "Or else WCKD will catch up to us."
"I remembered having a normal childhood, and going to a normal high school, all the way up to the night before waking up in the medjack hut." Ash helps him shepherd her friends deeper into the building, the still-present sounds of helicopters and Janson's voice spurring them on.
"That's not possible," Teresa says, and there's an edge to her voice.
"I know," Ash says darkly. "Believe me, no one is more confused or in more disbelief about this than I am. I was an avid bookworm before, and my favorite series was a sci-fi one called The Maze Runner... I'm sure at least some of you can guess what it was about."
"So you're saying you read a book, and then the next day you woke up in it?" Chuck asks.
"Three books," Ash says, an emotional fatigue already setting in, "and I'd read them several times over the course of... three months or so? Not sure exactly, it was so long ago now... I guess it doesn't matter that much, though. This is most definitely the movie version of events... which, for once, I actually enjoyed more than the books. Weird."
"That's why you were so sure about Thomas when he came up," Newt says quietly. Ash mumbles out an affirmative response, avoiding eye contact.
"Suppose that's all true, and you're not just... losing your mind to the virus or something," Minho says. "How the hell did you get here, then?"
"No clue, dude," Ash groans. "I've been trying to figure that out for the last— god, what has it been, two years?"
"One year and nine months," Newt says quietly.
Jorge interrupts the conversation to guide the teens into an underground tunnel. "WCKD won't be able to find us down here," he explains, his voice sounding clipped.
He's worried about Brenda, Ash thinks with a sigh. Aloud, she once again reassures him of the girl's safety.
"How about this," she suggests when he and her friends continue to argue the impossibility of her situation, "I tell you what they'll be going through, and then they can confirm when we catch back up to them. If I'm right, you guys have to believe me. Deal?"
"I'm not taking another bet with you," Newt says immediately.
"Because I won the last one?" she asks.
"You got lucky," he says, waving his hand dismissively.
"No," she says, then steps closer to him and drops her voice so that only he can hear her. "I knew exactly what I was doing. In the books, you tell Thomas what really happened that day, and you tell him it happened, quote unquote, about a year before you arrived."
Swallowing, he glances over her shoulder to see if anyone else managed to overhear. The only two who might be close enough to are Minho and Gally, though they seem to be caught in their own little hushed conversation.
"You promised me a story," Newt reminds her, finally drawing his gaze back.
Ash can only give him a small, sad smile. "Soon," she says. "But it… it might sound familiar, in some ways."
"During, or before the Glade?" he asks.
"Before… right before," she admits. Her voice is barely more than a whisper. She can feel the heat of shame creeping into her cheeks, and turns away. Blinking back a few tears threatening to spill over, she tries not to let the memories get to her.
Her head is still swimming, trying to process the aftermath of what WCKD had done to her just before they'd escaped the facility. The second life, the one she'd apparently lived before the Maze. She forges onward, ignoring her friends' concerned looks as they follow Jorge.
It's not long before the building gives way to the open air, revealing yet another broken city. The only adult among the group points to a building not too far ahead, what looks to be a row of townhouses, and they all pile through the door of one. Inside is a surprisingly spacious living room, a kitchen along the far back wall, and a narrow staircase leading to a darkened upstairs.
"You said you were gonna prove it," Minho says once the door's been closed. "Tell us what Thomas is supposedly going through right now."
Ash half-collapses into an armchair and sighs. "By this point, they're probably already being chased by a couple of Cranks," she says. "They'll escape and find their way to Marcus, he's gonna drug them—"
"What?" Jorge interrupts sharply, but Ash waves him off with her good hand.
"Trust me, that's the least of our worries. It'll wear off by the time we catch up," she says. "Anyway, he's gonna drug them, they'll wander around the party he's throwing, and eventually pass out. We catch up, Jorge beats the shit of Marcus, then we steal his car and head into the mountains where we find some of Aris's friends with the Right Arm."
"Who?" Aris asks, his eyes lighting up.
"Harriet and Sonya," she replies, giving him a gentle smile. He seems to relax for the first time since they've met, even letting out a small laugh of relief.
"I thought they were— I mean, we found Rachel, and all those other kids…"
"If I remember correctly, they were being transported to a different facility when the Right Arm intervened," she says slowly. "Now they work with them."
The discussion dies down as the group settles into the living space, taking some time to breathe. Chuck looks almost dead on his feet, and practically passes out the moment he sits down.
After a few moments with her eyes closed, Ash realizes that her wrist is throbbing. Damn it, she thinks. She gets back to her feet and shuffles into the kitchen to look for a first aid kit, not wanting to waste the meager supplies Jeff had found (and somehow managed to hold onto) on a simple sprain.
Holding her injured hand to her chest, she opens every cabinet she can find, but there's no sign of what she's looking for. Just as she goes to check the small bathroom to the left of the fridge, she sees a small tub sitting atop the appliance. The tell-tale red plus sign is visible through the clear plastic. Unfortunately, even with her good hand reaching as high as it can, and her balancing on her tip-toes, she still can't quite reach it.
She gives up, and relaxes her stance as she turns to get one of her taller friends to help, but there's someone already there to beat her to the punch.
Gally.
Without even asking him to, he grabs the little tub and sets it on the counter before crossing his arms with an unreadable look on his face. Ash thanks him quietly, though he doesn't respond, so she opens up the kit and starts rooting around with one hand. There's not much inside, but thankfully she finds the one thing she's looking for— a compression bandage, still in the original packaging, complete with the little hooks to keep it in place.
She tears through the thin cardboard with her teeth, trying to ignore the fact that she can feel Gally's eyes on her. Trying to ignore the way her heart is racing because of it. Normally, Ash prides herself on being able to read body language and facial expressions; right now, however, she's at a complete loss.
The roll of bandage falls from the package and onto the floor, and a huff escapes from her lips as she crouches down to pick it up. Her nose scrunches when she sees the newly acquired dirt stain— no one bothers with sweeping during the apocalypse— but she just brushes it off on her pants.
The real struggle comes when she tries to actually use it. Wrapping herself up with only one hand turns out to be a lot harder than wrapping someone else up with both. She bites her lip as she tries to power through it, knowing that Jeff wouldn't be able to do much better with his own arm still broken and healing.
A quiet scoff comes from beside her, and the bandage is taken from her. Gally's movements are gentle, his calloused hands warm against hers as he wraps her wrist. She doesn't dare look up at his face, keeping her eyes trained on her wrist as he finishes the job with a surprising amount of skill. When he's done, she lightly wiggles her fingers to make sure the wrapping isn't too tight.
It's perfect.
"Thanks," she mumbles, her face burning. He still doesn't respond, so she turns back to the tub of supplies and picks over what's left. Some bandaids, a tube of anti-itch cream, and a few alcohol wipes. She stuffs it all into her jacket pocket for now.
Finally, Gally speaks. "What would've happened if I hadn't gone with you guys?"
Ash's eyes snap to him. His brows are furrowed, and there's a frown on his lips. He won't look at her.
"What d'you mean?" Her throat is rather dry. She doesn't need to ask, but a part of her hopes she's wrong.
"The Maze," he says, finally meeting her eyes. "I wanted to stay… I'm not stupid. Something must've happened."
"Are you saying you believe me?" she asks, giving him what she hopes is a teasing smile but she knows is probably too weak to pass as such.
"I'm saying… I believe that you believe it," he allows. "Whether or not it's actually true…"
"I guess that's something," she says with a small shrug.
"You didn't answer my question," he points out after a long, quiet moment. "We both know why I agreed to leave. Take that away, what's left?"
"A lifetime of guilt," she says, glancing back toward the room where their friends still reside. She can hear Chuck's voice above the others, asking about her. Jeff mentions her sprain, and Chuck goes quiet again.
Ash begins to make her way back to the main room, but pauses as Gally speaks up one last time.
"Alby wasn't your fault," he reminds her.
Shaking her head, she says, "I wasn't talking about mine."
Based on her calculations, they still have a few hours before they're due to catch up with Thomas and Brenda, so Ash retakes her seat from before and rests her eyes. It feels like only a few seconds before her dreams take over, though they aren't dreams. They're the memories WCKD tried to give back to her, still distorted and fuzzy.
She sees her dad, laughing and smiling, the same as she'd remembered him from before. The woman he's with— her mother— is different. Slender, dark-haired. A doctor, maybe? Her voice is familiar, comforting. Her hugs warm.
And the sister she'd never had before, whose face still remains just out of reach. Ash had always wanted a sister, growing up, or a brother. Preferably both, but she'd had neither. But here, in this world…
In this world, tragedy after tragedy after tragedy occurs. She watches as her father's laugh turns hysterical, concerningly so. His smile disappears, his hair begins falling out, and his veins turn dark. Her mother sends him away "for treatment", but Ash knows better. Even at seven years old, she's seen enough to know her father isn't going to recover from this sickness.
Soon after, Ash and her sister are told to pack their things, and their mother takes them on a train. There are other people there, both children and adults. Her sister makes friends quickly, though Ash sticks by her mother's side.
In her next "dream", Ash is confronted by her mother in the dead of night.
I love you, she whispers. I love you and your sister so much.
You'll be safe here.
I'll be back for you as soon as I can.
And with a sad smile, her mother is gone.
When she wakes, Ash knows that that's the last time she'd seen her mother. It had been less than a week before arriving in the Glade.
Across the room, Teresa meets her eyes and gives her the same sad smile.