Bouncing on her heels, Tasha followed behind Minho and Newt, beside Thomas, their eyes all trained on the girl curled up before them. They stopped abruptly in the middle of the Med-Jack hut, watching and waiting to see if she changed as she slept soundly on the bed that Clint and Jeff had set out for her. Alby's pain breaths were the only other thing to breach the silence that enveloped them.
"Jeff, what's going on?" Newt asked. "What's the matter with her, why won't she wake up?" He the worry and concern in his voice was almost tangible as he fired off the questions to the Med-Jack. Jeff huffed out a sigh, laced with an exhaustion that reverberated in his bones.
"Hey man, I got my job the same way you did." He muttered, looking from Newt to the girl on the bed. She was sleeping peacefully, head pillowed on her arms, chest rising and falling with each breath. Newt looked from Thomas to the new girl, eyes narrowed analytically.
"Do you recognise her?" He asked, trying his hardest to make sense of the situation he was presented with. It had to be difficult for him, with Alby's incapacitation and the other Gladers losing help.
"No." Thomas mumbled. The Greenie had triggered something within the Glade, Tasha had known it ever since Ben's banishment. Thomas was curious in an almost reckless manner, and he cared about there people so much that it made Tasha's head hurt. It wasn't that Tasha didn't care about people, it's just that her loyalty was selective and intense. If Thomas was caring to the point of recklessness for just about every Glader, Tasha was caring to the point of self destruction for the people she considered friends. And that now included Thomas.
"Really, because she seemed to recognise you." There was anger in Newt's voice that hadn't been there before and Tasha blinked back into reality from where she had been hovering in her own little world. She knew all too well the anger that came from fear and the pressure of the people in the Glade.
"What about the note?" Thomas asked, his attention turning back to the girl. Tasha's mind flashed briefly to the sight of the note crumpled in Newt's hand, and it's dire implications. She's the last one EVER. Something was happening. Things were changing.
"We'll worry about the note later." Newt mused, considering the unconscious figure with concern. Tasha frowned, her eyebrows knitting together as she cast Newt a worried look. Maybe it was getting to him, everything that had happened in the past few days, because a long term plan is what they needed now, even if long term just meant a few months, they could ration the food.
"Well I think you should worry about it now." The intensity in Thomas's voice grew, with Tasha's silent support. Newt's attention turned back to him.
"We've got enough to deal with at the moment." He snapped, angrily, and Tasha swallowed thickly. There's no way out, she told the voice in her head to shut up, but it melted from her own to Newt's, and she thought she might be going crazy as reality seemed to be going blurry at the edges.
"He's right, Newt." Jeff mumbled, not entirely breaking Tasha from her stupor, but allowing her to barely latch onto the strands of conversation. "The box isn't coming back up, how long do you think we can last?"
Cannibalism. No-one says it, but they're all thinking it. Would they really be able to -
"No-one said that." Newt huffed, arms crossed over his chest, banishing the thought from his mind with a quick shake. "Let's not jump to any conclusions, just…" He turned back to the girl on the bed, his expression worn and tired, "We'll just wait until she wakes up and see what she knows." He paused, "Somebody's got to have some answers around here."
"OK." Thomas mumbled from beside Tasha, before turning on his heel and leaving the scene before them abruptly. Tasha jumped with a start and Newt reflexively put his hand on her shoulder. Tasha took a deep breath, focusing on the scene in front of her, trying to place all the pieces together.
"Where are you going?" Newt asked as Tasha sunk further into his grip, eyes flitting open as she watched the Greenie leave.
"Back into the maze." Thomas called over his shoulder, voice more neutral than Tasha could have expected from the situation. She went to follow him, Newt's grip relaxing, but it was who Minho grabbed her sleeve and shook his head.
"I'll call you if I need you." He told her. She swallowed hard, but nodded once in understanding, watching as the Keeper ran after him. Newt's hand slid down her arm until they stood, hand-in-hand. Jeff looked from Newt to Tasha, eyebrows raised, but he simply shrugged and joined Clint in tending to Alby.
"You want to go back, after everything that's happened?" Newt asked her, almost as if he felt betrayed. Tasha's mind took a moment to consider her words, before she began, slowly.
"There's no way out, but maybe this kid is the key." She paused, as if trying to think of something to add, but nothing came out and they stood in silence. Newt dropped her hand, frown on his face.
"And what about the bloody girl?" He asked, voice harsh. Tasha flinched. "She's got something to do with this, something to do with him, you think we should just leave her?" Tasha froze up, her voice dying in her throat as she turned to look at the Greenie.
"She's beautiful." Tasha mumbled, suddenly at a loss for words. The girl was stunning, dark hair against white skin and perfectly full figure, making Tasha's heart ache with a sort of yearning. Newt's face softened and he sighed, rubbing his forehead.
"Tasha-" He sighed, and Tasha huffed, her wistful demeanour dropping was something making it's way to the forefront of her mind, a memory that she tried in the same instance to push down and pull to the surface.
"No." Tasha bit out, half of her thoughts occupied by the girl, half by her new internal struggle. "She's so beautiful, and so clearly a girl." There. She had put her finger on what had been bothering her about this Greenie, about herself.
"What do you mean?" Newt asked, looking from Tasha to the girl, confusion clearly painted on his features, his earlier anger having diffused at the distraction.
Tasha groaned, "Newt, that's what a girl's meant to look like, beautiful." Newt looked as if there was an angry retort on his tongue, about how Tasha was gorgeous anyway, but Tasha shook her head, "I mean…" She struggled to articulate her thoughts, before she sighed and raised her hands to her own flat chest, "Boobs, Newt. I think girls are meant to have boobs." With a gasp, there was a flash of light behind her eyes and a memory clouded her vision, having lost the battle of her subconscious brain.
"I'm sorry, Nico." A boy's voice spoke to her, his voice sad and apologetic. He seemed distorted by a pane of glass in front of her. Maybe he was wearing white, she wasn't quite sure. Water was slowly rising from the ground and Tasha sucked in a breath of air, looking down as it pooled around her feet.
"My name's not Nico." She spat at the boy, flinching at every use of the name. The boy seemed familiar, like she knew him… Like he knew her. Water sloshed about her hips as she tried to move about the space, to see him. There was no way out of the tube and it became harder to think with the water rising and the air cooling rapidly.
"Oh, of course." He caught his mistake quickly, his voice becoming more distant though he hadn't moved an inch. "Tasha, my mistake." He amended softly, water now splashing her elbows. He was her friend, or an acquaintance of some sort, they weren't particularly close… He was somehow bad, or he did something bad… Everything was going hazy, some sort of pain in her head was making her memories fade. It was now or never.
"Tasha!" She screamed as the water reached her neck. "Tasha, Thomas you make sure I remember my name! My name is Tasha!" Water began to pour into her mouth and her screams became unintelligible. But she knew. Her name was Tasha.
"Tash, you're a girl, no matter what." Newt's voice cut through her memory like a knife and he was holding her close. She was trembling like a leaf, when did that happen?
"Well what if I wasn't always?" She hissed, confusion in her words. She had always known she was a girl, always felt confident in that knowledge, but seeing the Greenie in front of her, so pale and beautiful and clearly feminine; the pains in Tasha's chest were not a coincidence..
"Are you ok?" Newt asked, rocking them back and forth. His voice sounded strained and Tasha suddenly felt stupid at her breakdown with the weight of the Glade resting on Newt's shoulders.
"Thomas." She sighed finally, "He knows something. He… something bad happened." She admitted, the words falling from her lips with no thought to consequences. Newt pulled back, expression harsh.
"What, now? In the maze?" He asked. Tasha's eyes went wide and she scrambled to explain herself.
"No, Newt… I remembered something." She managed, trying to grip at the slippery edges of her memory. It didn't leave her head, but the details were rather fuzzy.
"What?" He asked, and Tasha closed her eyes, trying to pull at anything useful from the memory.
"He was on the other side. He knows something." She huffed, finally bringing the only useful bit of information to light. Newt's expression hardened and Tasha sighed deeply, replaying the memory over in her head. Nico. So she is Nico- was Nico. She shuddered at the name, it felt sharp running through her mind, causing her pain simply from the name itself.
"Are you OK?" Newt asked, and Tasha's face melted into a brief smile, she nodded.
"It was just a memory, I'm fine." She told him, the name Nico running through her head and making her feel as though she was about to throw up. Nik was the wrong name. She was Tasha and Tasha was who she always wanted to be.
"Ok, good." He sighed, believing her. He pulled her back in for another hug, pressing a kiss into her hair.
"Tasha." Minho's head poked into the hut and the Gladers looked towards him. His gaze flicked from Tasha to Newt, but he simply directed his focus to Tasha. "Follow me. We're going back in." He told her. She nodded as Minho disappeared once more, presumably to wait outside.
"Newt, until the girl wakes up, focus on keeping people calm." Tasha told him quietly. Newt sighed wearily, nodding. "We don't want a panic if the note's a false alarm." Newt huffed out a bitter laugh, before looking down at Tasha, his expression softening.
"Take care, OK love?" Newt asked, small, half-smile on his lips. Tasha nodded and he pecked her on the lips, a quick, chaste kiss that left Tasha smiling, her heart beating faster than it was just a few moments ago. "Stay safe." He told her.
"You too." She managed.