She doesn't wake with anything in particular— the room is full of soft snores, but that's it. There's no thunder, no banging at the door, no yelling of WCKD soldiers, no Cranks shrieking, nothing. Just snoring.

And likewise, there's no sunlight peeking out from the curtains, either. It's still dark out— or maybe it's dark out again. It's hard to tell.

Ash carefully sits up, her whole body aching from her time upside-down, and she rolls her head around to try and work out the stiffness.

She sneaks out of the room in order to find a toilet and a first aid kit. She doesn't do a count of how many sleeping boys she steps over— it's too dark to see which ones it is, anyway. They're all just blanket lumps on the floor.

With a sigh, Ash manages to find a bathroom. She goes in, closing the door behind her, and does her business. The relief is sweet, and she quickly finishes, not wanting to linger. She'd already seen one spider dart across the floor, and she doesn't want to stick around to see if he has friends.

Twisting the doorknob, she barely manages to hold back a shriek when she immediately collides with someone on the other side. Warm hands grasp her shoulders, and a familiar voice whispers that it's just him.

Gally.

Relieved, she groans. "You can't scare me like that," she whispers. "Nearly gave me a damn heart attack... thought WCKD found us."

"Sorry," he chuckles, scratching the back of his neck. "I didn't know you were in there, or I would've knocked or something. Is that a bathroom?"

Ash nods, and steps out and to the side so that he can go in. He closes the door behind him. Hesitant, she isn't sure if she should wait for him or just go back to bed. Would it be weird to wait for him? She decides to at least take a couple steps back, so that they don't have a repeat of before when he comes out.

Fidgeting with her hands, she picks at her cuticles as she turns away from the bathroom, taking a good look around.

Her stomach churns uncomfortably as something seems... familiar about the place.

Maybe it's just a common floorplan, she tells herself. I've probably been in a dozen houses laid out just like this one.

There's a picture frame hanging on the wall now in front of her, across from the bathroom door. The glass is cracked and covered in dust, but Ash uses the sleeve of her jacket to wipe most of it off. The photo beneath depicts a man— not quite young, but certainly younger than she'd ever remembered him looking— and the woman from her dream the night before.

They're posing in front of a Christmas tree with two little girls, dressed very similarly but not identically. Both girls have very dark hair, one with brown eyes and one with blue.

Ash blinks back tears and presses the heel of her good hand into each eye, then looks at the photo again. The subjects are unchanged. It's her family, the one from the memories WCKD gave her.

With shaky hands, she tears the frame from the wall and removes the backing, carefully slipping the photo out from between the cracked glass and the dusty back panel. She folds the photo, not as carefully as she would've liked, and puts it in her jacket pocket for safe keeping.

The bathroom door opens behind her, and she jumps, dropping the frame. She doesn't bother picking it up, and Gally doesn't comment on it.

"You okay?" Gally asks quietly, and she turns toward him. Her face feels warm, like she might start crying, but she nods anyway.

"Yeah, you?"

Gally nods, and seems to hesitate about something. "We should... we should probably talk," he mumbles, and Ash quietly agrees, echoing the 'probably' in a whisper.

"Uh... should we do this here, or... we could probably use one of the rooms upstairs," he says, then seems to realize how that had sounded. "Or we could go outside," he adds quickly.

"Upstairs is fine," she says, trying not to laugh at the flustered look on his face. It's just so unlike him to get like that.

Ash rather enjoys it, honestly.

He leads the way toward the staircase, and then into one of the several bedrooms at the top. He holds the door open for her, too. The room is rather dusty, and Ash doesn't think she wants to know how many bed bugs might be hiding in the mattress, so she sits in the desk chair instead.

The room is clearly decorated for a teenager; faded posters are peeling away from brightly colored walls— movies, bands, musicals. There's a couple of fake succulents on the dresser, gathering dust. A few trophies on a shelf, medals hanging from hooks below it. There's a worn-out, torn-up pride flag hanging from the ceiling. Bisexual.

"About yesterday..." Gally starts, and Ash's heart leaps into her throat. She braces herself, assuming the worst. That he's going to be angry with her for technically lying to him.

"First, I— I want to say I'm sorry," he says. Ash blinks, confusion washing over her. What does Gally have to be sorry about?

"Gally, what—?"

"The way I reacted to what you were telling us," he clarifies. "I was... angry. If it's true, then you've technically been lying to us for the entire time we've known you."

Ash nods, blinking back tears. "I'm so sorry—"

"You don't need to be," Gally sighs. "I get it. I... last night, I had a dream that you tried to tell everyone right away. You got laughed at, called crazy, and thrown into the Maze." He grimaces.

"It is pretty crazy," she admits. "I mean like... I'm living proof of the multiverse theory, but no one would probably ever believe me."

"I believe you," he says quietly. Ash smiles softly, rather surprised. A moment passes, where they simply look at each other, before he speaks again.

"I think we should also talk about... what happened at Jorge's place, before that," he says, looking away.

"Yeah," she breathes, blushing as the memory washes over her. She can practically still feel the heat his body had been radiating, pressed so tightly against hers. His fingers, entwined with hers. His breath, gently blowing on the back of her neck as he slept peacefully.

Her tongue darts out to wet her lip, as she keeps her gaze anywhere but him. She tries to figure out what to say. Gally doesn't seem to know where to start, either.

"Do you remember what I said, the first time we... talked... about this?" she finally asks him. "The very last thing I said that night?"

Gally nods. "Every word," he says.

No matter what happens, please don't doubt how I feel about you. Don't forget this moment.

The words echo, unsaid, between them.

"There is one thing, I think that I... I need to fix," he says. "About what I said to you that night. Or I guess... something I didn't say." He steps closer to her, and Ash slowly rises to her feet to meet him. Both of them are breathing rather heavily, a level of expectance hanging in the air between them.

"You told me that you really, really liked me," he says. "But I didn't... I didn't tell you exactly how I felt. And maybe that's a good thing, because how I feel now is a little different to how I felt then."

Her heart sinks, and her fear must show on her face, because Gally immediately cups it in both hands, running a thumb along her cheek.

"I thought I just really liked you, Ash," he breathes. "But now... now I know that I'm in love with you. You were worried back then that I'd change my mind if I ever had the chance to meet other girls, but you couldn't have been more wrong. It's always been you, Ash, and it always will be. I love you."

Tears pool in her eyes. "I love you too," she chokes out, reaching up to the back of his head to pull him down to her.

Their lips meet, the first time since that first night, and it's full of all the emotions they'd left unsaid between then and now. Gally's large, warm hands move from her face to her waist, and he only has to bend his knees a little more in order to reach the back of her thighs. Lifting her up, she wraps her legs around his waist as he sets her down on the desk behind her, and one hand goes back to her face as the other presses against the wall, palm flat.

Ash nips at his lower lip, catching it between her own, and he stifles a groan.

"Ash," he murmurs, pulling away so he can trail soft, open mouthed kisses along her jaw. Her head tilts back, and he keeps going down the side of her neck. Her breath hitches as he reaches one particular spot, and she can feel his smirk against her skin.

He latches onto it, right near her collarbone, and licks and suckles it until a gentle bruise starts to form. He savors every breathy gasp, every tiny moan, every single sound that escapes past her lips. She says his name, and he practically worships that one.

Dragging his face back to hers, Gally presses his lips to hers again— and again, and again, and again. Over and over, until she tells him to stop. She's frozen under him, panting for breath and face flushed.

Then Gally hears it, too.

Movement, downstairs. The others are starting to wake up, and both teens upstairs are sure they'll be quickly missed.

"We should go," Ash whispers. "Before they come looking for us..."

Gally nods, trying to catch his breath. Still, he doesn't move, enjoying the way she's still touching him, replaying the way she'd said his name, over and over again in his mind. He doesn't ever want this moment to end.

But of course it has to.

A girl's voice— Teresa— calls out for Ash. A moment later, the pair can hear a muffled boy's voice say something. The only word they catch is Gally's name. Then there's silence, and both 'missing' teens look to each other, knowing they've most likely already been caught, even if they haven't been seen.

Gally presses one more tender kiss to her mouth, which she accepts, before pulling away for real. He looks down, and winces when he notices his own handiwork. The lovebite on her neck is becoming more pronounced, and Gally hurriedly grabs the scarf hanging out of Ash's jacket pocket.

"Sorry," he mumbles. "I think I got a little carried away..."

"I— it's fine," she breathes, and adjusts the way her shirt sits against her collar. The new position nearly covers the bruise, but not all the way. Ash drapes the scarf around her neck, leaving it open in the front, and the fabric covers the rest of it— at least for now.

She hops down off the desk, and grabs Gally's hand and gives it a light squeeze. "I love you," she says softly, and he grins.

"I love you too," he replies, before uproarious laughter echoes up through the floorboards. He groans, rolling his eyes. "C'mon, we should get back down there..."

"Mm, I dunno," she says. "First of all, I like what we were doing... and second, I don't know if I ever want to see the looks on their faces when we go back."

Gally laughs, and gently tugs her along.

The only person missing when they go back down is Jorge, while the rest of the Gladers (plus Aris) are lounging across the couches, relaxed as can be. Frypan and Newt are the first to notice the pair trying to sneak back in, and smirk to each other. Ash quickly notices.

"The first person to say a word," she announces, "will get my foot shoved so far up their ass, you'll be picking my toes out from between your teeth."

"Damn, Ash," Minho says. "Bit of a... touchy topic, there?"

"Minho?" she says sweetly, looking at him directly for a moment before dropping the cheery facade. "You better start running."

He hops up immediately and starts making a few laps around the first floor, even though Ash isn't actually pursuing him. The others laugh, especially harder when Gally trips the Runner on his way back into the living room.

"Jeez, Gally," Minho groans, pulling himself back up.

Jorge comes back in just then, and announces that the coast seems to be fairly clear— at least of WCKD soldiers. That sobers the kids up real quick, and everyone moves to gather what few things they have. Ash grabs her knife off the end table, putting the switchblade back into her pocket.

Newt catches her eye as she stands back up to her full height (though still shorter than almost everyone else present), and smirks again. He subtly taps at a small spot on his neck, just above his collarbone, and Ash understands immediately, her eyes widening. After readjusting her scarf, Newt gives her a brief nod and turns away.

Sighing, Ash follows the rest of the group out the front door, everyone stepping over the broken picture frame on the floor. Teresa seems on edge, looking around as they all file out, and Ash remembers the caption on the back of the photo she'd taken from that frame, and reminds herself to ask Teresa about it some time soon.