I wake up to the sound of someone snoring quietly below me. When I look down I see Minho sitting at the base of the tree asleep. I have to clamp my hand over my mouth to keep myself from giggling and waking him up. As silently as I can, I climb down out of the tree. He doesn't wake up until I plop myself down next to him and rest my head on his shoulder. He starts shifting around and for a moment I think that he is moving away from me, but then he drapes his arm around my shoulders. I think about him snoring and start giggling.
"What is it?" He asks
"You snore. Did you know that?" I tell him, still laughing.
He rolls his eyes. "Is that how you knew I was here?"
"Yeah. Why are you sleeping out here anyway?"
"Why are you?"
"I figured that since I come out here all the time anyway, why not try to sleep out here? Now why are you sleeping under my tree?"
"Your tree?"
"Yes. It's my tree. Why are you sleeping under it?"
"When you sleep with the rest of us I can hear you get up when you have a dream and then I can follow you. If you're already out here I wouldn't have a way of knowing if you had another dream."
"It's not like you've been showing up lately anyway." He doesn't respond and I look up at him. "You promised me. You told me that anytime I want or need you, you will be there. Well I have needed you, Minho. I've wanted you around to talk to so bad, and you haven't been there. Why haven't you been there?"
"World In Catastrophe. Killzone Experiment Department." He says quietly.
"What?"
"That's what WICKED stands for. A couple weeks ago you were sitting in this tree, trying to figure out what it stands for."
"How do you know that?"
"How do I know what WICKED stands for or how do I know that you were trying to figure it out?"
"Both."
"There are signs up everywhere in the maze that say that. I never really understood them until I heard you talking about WICKED standing for something. When I thought about it I realized that it spells out WICKED, so I just sorta assumed. And I have been here. Every time you come here, I come here. I just haven't been showing myself or talking lately."
"Why? Why show up just to listen?"
"I still wanted to be there for you, but I thought you might still be mad at me and not want me around."
"Mad? Minho, I was never mad at you. I was frustrated and confused and I needed you and you weren't there."
"Look. I know I can be a little..." He trails off, looking for the right word.
"Hotheaded?"
He chuckles. "Yeah. Hotheaded. And I am sorry about that. I shouldn't have gotten mad at you for just speaking your mind."
"It's okay." I pause and snuggle closer to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. "I'm just glad you're here now."
He strokes my arm, comfortingly. "Do you want to talk about your dreams now?" He asks. "I heard you talk about one of them. Something about being immune, having a brother, and WICKED."
"Yeah." I say and then proceed to tell him everything in that dream and the one after it. When I am done he doesn't say anything and I start laughing again.
"What's so funny?" He asks.
"They tried to name me Mary!" I say and he chuckles a little bit too.
"Yeah. Mary is definitely not the name for you."
"I don't mind the name Ester though. I wonder why I refused it."
"I don't know, but I like the name Echo. It suits you."
I look up at him and smile. He smiles back at me and my heart flutters a little. "I've missed you." I say, my voice barely a whisper.
"I've missed you too." He says.
"You know, the dream that I had about them naming me? It didn't confuse me or frustrate me or scare me like the others did. There was no reason for me to come out here."
"Then why did you?"
"Because I wanted to talk to you."
"About what?"
"Anything. I didn't really care what we talked about, I just like to hear your voice."
"I like to hear yours too. Speaking of which, that was a cool song you sang last night."
"Yeah. I was just trying to show the Greenie that the Glade isn't too bad a place.
"Speaking of the Greenie... You two seem close."
"He just got here."
"And? I saw you watching him dance. And you nearly beat up Gally for him."
"First of all, I was looking for you when I saw him dancing. It's not my fault that he's the only Glader who can actually dance so I wanted to watch him. Plus he did do something stupid. He pissed off Gally. Me almost beating the klunk out of Gally had nothing to with the fact that it was the Greenie he was mad at. I would have done that for anyone too, because I hate Gally. He's a murder."
"A murder? What are you talking about?"
Klunk... I shouldn't have said that... "Nothing. It's not important right now."
"No really. What are you talking about? Gally may be mean but he would never kill anyone. None of us would."
"Are you sure about that?" I ask him. He doesn't respond. "Anyway. You were talking about the song I sang." I say, changing the subject. Lucky for me he goes along with it and doesn't dig any deeper into what I had said.
"Yeah. It was a good song. All the songs you sing are good. I like that game that we played, where you had to sing songs."
I laugh. "Oh god. That was so long ago."
"That was right before we stopped talking."
I sigh and look down. "Yeah. Right before you left me all alone."
"You haven't been alone. You've been with Newt." He says with the slightest hint of anger in his voice.
"Being with him isn't the same as being with you. Not even close. With him I feel happy and thankful to have someone, but I don't feel nearly as comfortable as I do with you. With you I feel free to be myself. I feel comfortable and happy and safe and I never want you to leave."
He puts his hand on my chin and lifts my head up to look at him. "I'm not going anywhere." He says and leans in. Just before our lips can touch I see the sun coming up out of the corner of my eye and pause.
"Minho. The sun's coming up." I say. "Doesn't that mean that you should be about ready to go into the Maze?"
"I have some time." He says.
"Unfortunately, you don't." I stand up and hold my hand out to help him up. Once he is standing I push him in the direction of the Homestead. "Go on." I say. "I'm gonna hang out here for a little while longer."
He nods and says, "See you tonight." Before running off. I sink down to the ground and sit there leaned up against the tree waiting for Newt to come and get me.