In which there is an experiment and chaos

AN: Here we go; sorry its a bit behind! Guest replies are at the end again. Enjoy the chapter!

-Notes and teaser at the end-

I sit alone by the cold fire pit the following morning, as we all eat breakfast out in the sun. Doug's leg is fine – he was already back to jogging on it by supper time – and his arm is bandaged up, so Clint cleared him to get back to work.

I'm all too happy to let them do it. My last trip into the Maze isn't my favourite memory and I don't want a repeat of it just as much as I don't want to dwell on it.

So I sit and watch Alby with Chuck as I finish up my breakfast.

The leader and the youngest.

I know Chuck looks up to Alby, but I also know that Alby has too much to oversee to really be a constant presence for him.

Alby is showing him how to whittle.

The tiny lump of wood in his hands slowly takes the shape of a very simple duck as he talks to him about how to tilt the small knife.

I'm reminded of my own whittling attempt and the silver birch bow. I've tried using it just a few times more, mostly in the early morning. I can barely hear it creaking any more, now the noise is so normal and it slowly feels more and more natural to hold. The arrows fly straighter – or maybe I'm just learning how to compensate for the bow's inaccuracy.

Chuck looks up from his lesson and catches my eye, drawing me from my thoughts. He smiles brightly at me and I can't help returning it.

He's been here for three weeks and a couple of days. He's far from the terrified boy he arrived as.

The next Box Day is on the horizon.

Frypan drops down next to me.

"You look a little lost in thought there," he says. "Want to share?"

I look over at him and shrug, "Nothing fascinating."

He continues to look at me so I nod towards Chuck and Alby. "He isn't the same kid," I say.

Frypan shakes his head. "None of us are," he says. "But you're right about him. I don't know how I'd have handled coming here any younger."

"Two years, two months ago, right?" I ask.

He nods. "I was fifteen, I think. None of us really know, do we?"

I feel compelled to reach out and pat his shoulder. He gives me a sympathetic smile in return.

"Say, you think you could drop off the eggs and milk a little early today?" he asks, changing the subject.

I let it slide without comment.

"Sure. Want me to get them this morning?"

"If Clint and Jeff don't mind," Fry says. "I'm experimenting with something."

"Sounds…interesting," I say optimistically.

I just hope it doesn't go anything like the time he and Stan decided to try making mince pies.

Frypan laughs. "Have faith, Evie."

And I have to admit, though some experiments haven't worked out exactly to plan, Fry has never turned out something we can't eat.

"I'll get on it," I tell him. "Thanks for breakfast."

…

So it's thanks to Frypan that I'm even in the Kitchen two hours later when things go wrong.

Clint and Jeff said all the jars were stocked, so they were just going to do a supply check before heading for the Deadheads for some ingredients. So I was told I could spend the day with the Slicers, or in the Kitchen, if I was found a job that wouldn't blow the place up.

The irony.

I finish with the goats, letting Pepper out of the little set of milking stocks into her pen and I collect the jugs of milk, as well as the basket of eggs from the chicken run, and head for Homestead.

When I duck into the Kitchen, it's a little bit chaotic.

Stan is helping a boy called Alex to lift a massive round pan from the main table. Frypan is mixing something in a bowl the size of a dustbin with an enormous wooden spoon. One of the younger boys, Scott, works with Newt – who I figure has been roped in to help – to tip up a barrel of Gally's Brew into a line of jars that are warming around the hearth.

There are a handful of other boys at the smaller workbenches dicing up the usual vegetables and seasoning cuts of geese.

I raise an eyebrow at the commotion. Usually, despite the amount of food needed to feed everyone, the Kitchen isn't quite so…all over the place.

I figure this is to do with Fry's experiment.

I set down the milk and eggs on the end of the main table and move around it to Frypan.

"As requested," I tell him, pointing to the supplies.

He beams at me. There's a smear of flour on his cheek.

"Thanks. Right on time. Could you crack a couple of the eggs in here?"

I look into the massive bowl. It's a creamy mix that's quite lumpy and dry looking.

And then I register what he said.

"I'm sorry, you want me to what?"

Newt snorts behind us, and I throw him a brief look that I hope says 'shush, you' before turning back to Frypan.

He hesitates, expression twisting and I'd say he's feeling sorry for his mix.

"You're right. Hold this." He pushes the spoon into my hand and moves around me to pick up the basket.

With a skill that I kind of envy, he cracks two eggs neatly open – the show off does two at once – and lets the contents drop into the bowl.

"Mix!" He orders, turning for the milk.

"You've got to be kidding," I mutter. I start to mix anyway.

I was not made for kitchen work.

In fact, as we established in my first week, I'm fairly hopeless.

The mix is too heavy for me to work effectively, but I'm doing a sort of mash up job of it when Fry returns.

He gives me a dubious look.

"Hey, you left me with it," I tell him.

Laughing, he takes back the spoon and hands me a copper pitcher. It looks like it's been thrown around a few times, judging by the dents in it, but it holds the goat's milk just fine.

"Pour slowly," he instructs.

I do as he says, and under Fry's attention, the mix in the bowl softens up and smoothes out.

"This isn't bread, is it?" I ask.

Bread wouldn't be this gloopy, surely?

Frypan shakes his head. "No. It's going to be a cake."

Cake?

In as long as I've been here, I've never had a cake.

"Then what's this for?" Newt asks.

When I look around, he's set down the barrel of Brew and is nodding to the line of glass jars in front of the fire. He looks sceptical.

"It's going to be a special cake," Frypan amends.

I bite my lip as a smile fights its way onto my face.

Oh no.

"You can stop with that look, Eva," Frypan says, without even looking at me. "It's going to be fine."

And it might well have been.

…

"Alex!"

The shout rings through the hut.

We all spin around.

Alex has lost his footing, and he topples sideways into the workbench. The huge pan he and Stan were balancing tilts and smashes into the floor. Steaming hot broth – today's lunch – spreads out across the ground, sizzling when it drops into the fire.

Stan catches himself, grasping his hand, which I guess has been burnt.

The pan spins on its side right into the line of jars.

They all topple into the fire.

There's an awful cracking sound, like twigs being stepped on in the woods, or fire eating away at kindling, and the fireplace blows out across the room.

Shards of glass spray through the hut.

I throw myself down, landing behind the toppled workbench that caught Alex.

The blast of heat coats the atmosphere inside the hut and there's the strong smell of burning everywhere. I feel uncomfortably warm and frazzled. The air seems thick and muggy.

My hand hurts.

A moment passes.

Smoke clouds the room.

I sit up.

My ears are ringing, but that will pass. So will the slight dizziness. My side aches where I threw myself on the ground but I'm more concerned about the nasty slice across the palm of my left hand.

I adjust myself gingerly and pick out the shard of glass in my skin, trying not to think about the bright blood on it.

I toss it aside.

"Everyone okay?" Frypan asks.

I turn to where his voice came from.

I can vaguely hear yelling outside – it sounds like the others are coming.

Someone groans nearby, and then I see the shadow move. Stan. He slowly gets up.

"Shuck," I hear Alex say. "Newt's bleeding."

No.

The sharp pain in my hand going very suddenly to nothing but a passing ache despite the thick blood running down to my wrist, I stand up and turn for where the voice came from.

The smoke still coats everything; unable to escape thanks to the well thatched roof. I spot Alex crouched by Newt's unmoving body through the grey cloud.

I'm next to them in the next breath.

"Can you walk?" I ask Alex urgently, even as I turn Newt's head.

Newt groans faintly, and I feel my pulse thump in relief, so hard that for a second I feel light-headed. If he's conscious, he isn't dead.

"Yes. I'm okay, I think," Alex says. "A little dizzy. Feel kind of…sick."

"Possibly a concussion," I say. "You need to get out now, and get Clint and Jeff. If you see anyone on the way, tell them there's a lot of smoke and some people might be unconscious."

Alex is nodding, a little frantically, looking paler by the second.

"Understand?" I press.

"Yes. Yes. I'm gone." And he gets up, picking his way a little unsteadily through the broken tables.

I feel a prickle of guilt for being so brief with him, but I can't focus on it right now. And Alex is a good kid; he'll understand.

"Newt?" I ask, turning to him.

"Eva?"

His voice is confused more than anything. He blinks his eyes open, and they're clouded with pain and puzzlement.

"What the bloody hell happened?" he asks with a thready voice.

"Gally's Brew is flammable," I say.

That seems like the simplest explanation right now.

"Really should ask what he puts in it," Newt mutters.

In other circumstances, I'd find it funny.

"Stay still," I tell him.

There are pieces of glass still stuck in the skin high on the side of his head. I don't think it's a serious wound, but the amount of blood is scaring me a bit. I reach across to gently pull out the shards – they're not buried right in, so there's no risk of him bleeding out more with them gone.

I feel the gash in my hand tug, blood dripping, and bite back the pain of it.

Should have used the other hand. Oh well.

With the glass removed, I pull off my sweater, turning it inside out and wad it up to press to the side of Newt's head. He looks at me but doesn't speak.

Frypan crouches next to me.

"Scott caught his leg under a table," he tells me. "Stan's got a mild burn. The rest of us are okay; just shaken, I think. How is he?"

"He'll be okay," I say, and it helps me believe it. "He was standing in front of the fire; he copped it when the jars shattered." I glance behind us. "You need me to check on Scott?"

I don't want to leave, but if Scott is stuck…

Frypan rests his hand on my shoulder. "Stay," he says. "Clint's just got here."

Grateful, I nod as he walks away to check on the rest of his team.

When I turn back to Newt, he's trying to sit up.

"I said stay still."

His hand comes up and his fingers curve around mine, where I'm still pressing the grey sweater to his head. Its half soaked through, and it takes me a second to realise that it's not just his blood – my hand's continuing to bleed a fair bit; the blood mixing in a way that makes me feel a little ill.

"You're bleeding," He says to me, pulling my hand down and opening the fingers gently. His voice sounds clear for a moment.

I flinch as it tugs at the torn skin and for a second, concern washes over the pain in his eyes.

I pull my hand back, pick up the sweater again and turn it to a fresh piece of the cloth. "Here," I say. "Hold it on. And don't move."

Newt gives me a look that says quite plainly that he's humouring me, but he holds the cloth against the wound on his head.

I stand up.

By this time, Jeff and Clint are both on the scene. The smoke above us is clearing out and the sunlight is filtering back through the walls.

The kitchen looks like a mess, but not exactly the bomb zone it felt like just a few minutes before.

Only one of the tables toppled completely. One of them has a broken leg, which sent it off-kilter but the rest are fine barring a few scorch marks and blackened edges. Shattered glass is all over the floor and there's still some of the amber Brew glinting on the ground in front of what's left of the fire.

Alby strides into the hut.

"What happened?"

"It was an accident," Stan says. It looks like his arms are scratched up from the jars and the side of his hand looks blistered, but he seems okay otherwise. "Just getting something started for supper and Alex tripped. Knocked some jars into the fire. We didn't know the stuff was flammable."

"Everyone's okay?" Alby checks.

Imposing as Alby can often be, he doesn't really get angry with anyone. Fear is no way to lead, and he knows that, but he's also just not an angry person.

"I think so," Fry says. "Scott's got a bruised leg and Stan burned his hand but they'll both be fine. Clint's taking them to the Infirmary. Newt got hit in the head; Eva's with him."

"She's bleeding, too," Newt calls from behind me.

Before I can express my annoyance that he's brought it up, Alby fixes his eyes on me.

"Minor," I say, even as I feel the blood starting to congeal around my hand. Some of that blood is Newt's. I know it.

"Both of you need to go to the Infirmary, too," Alby says. I see him turn his eyes to Newt – his oldest friend – and he tries to mask his worry. "Gally's outside trying to see if there's any structural damage. The rest of you, get outside, take showers and then come back. Zart and Winston have brought their teams down to help clear up."

Frypan nods and begins to rally the Cooks.

Newt stands up, my sweater held loosely in his hand.

There's no way all that blood is coming out.

He seems a little disoriented, so I give Alby a nod and then go to help support him as we pick our way out of the Kitchen.

…

It takes fifteen minutes for Jeff to finish cleaning my cut and wrap a bandage around my hand after checking over Newt.

"It's not deep," he says. "It'll heal up. Just try not to move it too much for a bit."

Newt sits on one of the pallets in the same sectioned off room. His eyes are no longer clouded with pain, but he looks like he can't focus too hard for too long.

"Mild concussion," Jeff says.

He's talking to me.

Newt's bleeding has stopped, and once he was cleaned up, it was easy to see that the entire wound was three jagged cuts near his temple.

Head wounds bleed a lot, even with a mild injury.

I know that, but I'm still relieved.

"Just patch him up as much as he'll let you," Jeff says. "He may be a little disoriented, could be some memory loss – just temporary. And he may need to be woken up every few hours tonight."

I nod.

I know this, but it's reassuring to have Jeff state it.

"I'm heading back to help clear up," he says. Then, out of nowhere, he smiles.

"We told you to find a job that wouldn't blow up the Kitchen."

Startled, I can't help laughing.

The smile on Jeff's face breaks, and then he's laughing, too.

Still chuckling, he pats my shoulder and ducks out of the room.

The amusement bubbling inside me fizzles out into something more relaxed as he leaves and I turn to Newt.

"I'm not going to get a bandage wrapped all the way around your head, am I?" I ask Newt.

He looks up a little wearily.

"No," he says. "It's fine. It's not bleeding anymore."

He leans forward, bracing himself on the side of the pallet to stand and I place my hand on his chest, my fingers resting on his collarbone.

He sinks back down and I don't even have to use any pressure.

"Stitch strips, then," I say.

He doesn't look wildly impressed, but he stays still as I put tiny white tabs from the medical kit across the cuts, holding the skin together.

"Keep it clean," I tell him when I finish.

He nods. He looks slightly out of it again, but at least he's not swaying or looking confused about his surroundings. He'll be fine.

And I think I know how it was for him, the day I took the beam or after the Maze that last time; to feel relief like a tide, low in your stomach, too strong to put to words.

I can't really stop myself. I lean forward and gently kiss his forehead, just under the mussed fall of his hair. I hear his breath rush out softly.

"Take it easy," I say quietly. "I'm going to go and help."

I turn away.

Fingers close on my wrist, and I'm tugged gently back.

I'm about to ask what's wrong, when I see the look on his face, and the question dries up in my mouth.

Newt's eyes are sharp, something very strange resting in them as they move from where his thumb brushes the bandage on my hand, up to my face.

My heart twists again; that yearning, contented feeling I'm trying to adjust to.

He stands up. He's not unsteady at all.

He lets go of my wrist and his hand slides underneath my hair, around to the back of my neck and he tugs me gently forwards.

We're already standing so close that I barely move before I collide with him and his mouth seals over mine.

He's impossibly gentle, kissing me like I'll shatter in his grasp.

I'm suddenly not so sure I won't.

My breath catches on a sigh and I kiss him back.

He surprised me – I never really knew he wanted this, that he'd thought about it, too, even if I'd wondered or hoped – but I only register that dimly. I'm too focused on the white heat that races through my bloodstream and floods into the pit of my stomach.

I feel his other hand slide into my hair, tilting my head back until my lips part under his and he presses closer; deeper. My arms slide around him, fingers grasping the hood of his shirt, gripping tightly, keeping me grounded.

My pulse races; I feel it like a separate entity. The bandaged palm of my hand throbs. There's something slightly yearning in the way his mouth moves over mine that I return with ease. He tastes like honey and wood smoke.

A knot forms in my chest with how much I want this.

I pull back, a little startled with the intensity of my own emotion. My eyes fly open, and I can't remember closing them.

Its one thing to hypothetically think you might be into your best friend; but admitting it to yourself when its actually happening is a little different.

And I have no memories of kissing anyone before, but from the way I can easily react to Newt I wonder, with something like panic, if I did before my past was taken.

There's so much to panic about, but the main one is that when I back up, Newt slowly sinks back to the pallet. He's wincing, looking a touch off balance as his fingers press gently to the side of his head.

Bad idea.

He's concussed.

He may not have known what he was doing – despite how much it sure looked like it – and even if he did it on purpose, in the hour after getting the head injury, the chances of him remembering it are fifty-fifty.

And he means too much to me for me to let something he did while possibly delirious ruin our friendship.

"Hey," I say, quietly, leaning down to him.

He looks at me, and there's a touch of something unfamiliar in his brown eyes; blown wide and rimmed with honey-gold.

The look alone is distracting and it takes me a second to remember what I was saying.

"Rest, okay? You're no help to anyone if you can't stay upright."

"Sure," he says. His voice is very soft, and I don't know if it's the concussion or the kiss. The sound leaves a pleasant hum under my skin. "Thanks, Eva."

I press my fingers off of his arm as I stand and leave.

This time he doesn't stop me.

INFO

1. hehehehe - the bit most of you seem to have been waiting for...not that everything will be plain sailing from here on...

2. Bascially this entire chapter is relevant later. Literally things you may not even think of. So I'm not going to explain too much here, because the explanations will come when the story comes back around to them :) Feel free to speculate, though - I'd love to know your thoughts!

3. Alex and Scott are two more Cooks. They've always been around, but I've only introduced them by name here. There's enough of a cast of characters in this already, so I didn't want to overload you all too soon. Alex and Scott weren't really necessary before, so that's why you got a delayed introduction. In the same way there's obviously more Builders, Track-Hoes and Slicers than I've put names to. I'm not going to flood you with names and characters that aren't really relevant.

4. Head wounds do bleed a lot, even if they're very mild, so that's not an exaggeration. Similarly, Eva's wound isn't really deep but being in the crease of her hand, it does bleed a fair bit and will be a pain even if it's not serious. While I've taken some creative liberties, I haven't done that with the injuries. As much as possible, all those are as true to life as they can be.

5. What I did use creative licence on was how the liquid ignited. It could be possible, but I don't know for sure (attempts to research it were driving me batty). So maybe something safe to drink wouldn't quite cause a blast like that, and if it doesn't...hopefully you can suspend your disbelief for a bit.

Regarding a sequel/AUs

A sequel will likely go ahead. I'd love to write one, and I have ideas for it up the wazoo, but I think I'm going to hold out until the movie arrives to try to keep it somewhat in line with the canon. So it just depends if I still have the inspiration for it in September. Fingers crossed I do.

AUs are definitely something I want to explore. I'm working on an outline for a Roadtrip one, but I'm happy to take on suggestions for settings for others. No promises on when they'll be ready.

The companion series of other perspectives on this story is in the works. Hang in there for that!

GUEST REPLIES

Nutmeg: Thanks for the input on those two things! That's really not a bad idea as far as spacing out the different storylines goes (I did want to stick with the movie timeline, so I'm leaning towards waiting, I just don't want to lose the motivation I have for it). I've already written this full story, though obviously I have a ways to go in terms of sharing it, so I definitely like the idea of filling in the time with some fun Aus.

As for this chapter (the last one, technically)…I'm glad you enjoyed it! The odd thing is, you won't read this until you've seen the next chapter (18), but haha, I do think there's a bit more plot in it – explosions and kisses and all. As for Newt and how much he knows about the Maze, we do come back to that later on and you get the full answer then (I would expand a bit, but as this isn't a pm, I don't want to accidentally spoil anyone).

And finally, thank you for that! Yes, the dentist isn't great, but I'm actually okay with all that; the only thing that freaks me out is the needle they use to sedate me! Other than a blank space and a fuzzy few moments from that afternoon, I'm fine :)

Sydvan23: Thanks for the input on that!

Emm: Thanks! Glad you enjoyed them (two at once; not bad :)) And hopefully a few days to the weekend wasn't an awful wait.

SjFanoftheGirl: Thanks for reviewing. I'm guessing from the way you quoted bits that you're liking it! Sadly Fry's spoon just has the occasional cameo appearance, though.

Chapter 19 - Teaser

Frypan bangs it down at the end of our table and plucks a wide knife from his apron. "Come and get your cake!"

-To be posted next week-