The next few weeks passed for Ada in a trudge towards routine that had all the painful hallmarks of what she was pretty sure could be referred to as growing pains.
Everything was new and required adjusting to - the cold, awkward showers, the food that varied wildly from surprisingly delicious to barely qualifying as edible, the rustic accommodations, the hard labor required daily, the glaring differentness that left her sticking out like a sore thumb against her will.
As far as she could tell, given that she had no way of knowing what the previous version of her life had actually been like…all new.
But her first month in the Glade was also a lesson in just how quickly something impossible to accept could nevertheless become something like habit.
It was a bit of a terrifying thought but it was also a relief.
Her days had been spent trailing Newt, usually working with the track-hoes but sometimes visiting different jobs and helping out or sorting out problems as they came up (though they never again visited everyone in one day further solidifying her theory that had been for her benefit).
Well, Newt did the sorting out of problems, discussing options with whatever keeper raised an issue and brainstorming with Alby about which projects in the Glade needed to take priority.
Ada stood by during those moments, mostly silent but occasionally offering an opinion if she thought she had something worth adding and the keeper in question was someone she felt sufficiently comfortable with to risk it. To be fair that number was increasing by the day as more and more Gladers started to accept her presence or at least got better at hiding their distrust.
She made the mistake of speaking up in front of Alby only once though, the day before the box was due to come back up.
They were discussing adding a smokehouse behind the kitchen at Frypan's request to see if they could figure out how to preserve meat that way. This topic apparently qualified as low stakes enough that Alby would allow it to be discussed in front of Ada but not so inconsequential that he was actually open to her thoughts on the matter.
"Think about it," Alby told Newt while Ada lingered a few steps away. "We wouldn't have to slaughter an animal on the same day we ate it. Being able to have a store of meat would make everything easier if we can make it work."
Newt seemed skeptical.
"Yeah, if we can make it work," He pointed out, hand on his hip, leaning just slightly to keep a bit of weight off of his bad leg. "Do any of us even understand what we need to do? Because if we screw up we'll have wasted perfectly good livestock and maybe killed a shank or two from food poisoning."
"Salt," Ada spoke up, earning her a look of interest from Newt and a blank one from Alby.
"What's that, Greenie?" Newt asked and Ada took a step closer before responding.
"You need a lot of salt to preserve the meat safely," She offered, no idea where the knowledge came from but feeling confident in it nonetheless. "You keep a low heat fire burning in there too which gives you smoke to add some flavor and probably has some preservative qualities but I wouldn't risk it without a um…klunk ton of salt."
Newt smirked, apparently finding her rare use of Glader slang amusing.
"How do you know this exactly?" Alby broke in, his demeanor not outright hostile but cold enough to leave Ada feeling a little on edge.
It was their typical dynamic ever since the backpack incident.
"I'm not sure," She shrugged, figuring she really had no option but honesty even if the odds of him believing her were low. "I just remember it somehow."
"Nobody else remembers anything," Alby said.
"Well, we all remember how to tie our shoes," Ada pointed out, earning her a burst of laughter from Newt that seemed to take him by surprise as much as anyone. "Maybe it's like that."
"She's got you there, mate," Newt chuckled, patting Alby on the shoulder.
Alby spared a short smile for his friend before his expression dropped back to a slight frown.
"Fine," Alby said. "Request a lot more salt next time the box goes down."
He walked off without waiting for a response but Ada had barely been able to focus on his continued lack of trust when his words themselves were shifting her entire understanding of how the Glade worked.
"Wait…" She turned to Newt with wide eyes. "You can make requests?"
Newt nodded as though he somehow expected that to be explanation enough for her. When he saw from her expression that it clearly was not he sighed before continuing.
"If we send a note down with what we need they'll send it up with the supplies the next month in the box with the new greenie," He explained. "Well, usually."
"Why only usually?" Ada asked with a frown.
"I don't know, probably they didn't think some of our more outlandish requests were critical to our mission," Newt answered, sarcasm dripping from his tone. "Whatever the hell that is."
Ada didn't respond immediately, her frown firmly in place as she contemplated this new piece of information.
"What?" Newt broke into her thoughts curiously. "You surprised they didn't want to send up fizzy water or pizza?"
Ada shook her head.
"I'm surprised they sent up anything you asked for to be honest," Ada admitted. "It's not like they seem to care about our welfare all that much."
She paused for a moment allowing the final layer of this revelation to sink in.
"Wait…why didn't you tell me? I need some things!"
Newt shifted his weight and sent her an exasperated look.
"Like what exactly?"
Ada reached up to point at the hair that was even then falling over her face.
"A hair tie to deal with this for starters. Oh, and some shampoo that doesn't smell like boy!"
Newt rolled his eyes.
He may have had the patience of a saint but that probably didn't stop him from finding her a bit exhausting.
Well, it wasn't like that wasn't mutual from time to time.
"Any non-hair related requests?" He asked.
"I'll think about it," Ada said, her tone rising slightly as if she was daring him to complain about the list she was already composing in her head.
To his credit Newt elected not to mock either her indignation or her requests, just gave one more long suffering sigh and jerked his head in the direction of the garden.
"Come on, Greenie," He said. "Let's go see if Zart needs help with the tomatoes."
Newt wasn't sure when exactly it had become an almost nightly routine for he and Ada to spend their nights asking each other questions, the world within the four walls of their room feeling like just enough separation from the reality of their existence to allow them something so pointless.
Well, Ada wouldn't say it was pointless despite the way they carefully avoided any questions that might cause either of them any discomfort.
Ada would say it was all to help them both form stronger bonds or community something or other.
Anthropologically speaking.
She really was something.
Not that he minded most of the time.
And he couldn't say he minded their question sessions becoming a regular thing either, gentle inquiries bouncing back and forth between them until one or the other started to drift off. Usually Ada. He didn't sleep well most nights to begin with. Too much pain in his leg if he spent the day pushing it or too many nightmares if he didn't push it hard enough to quiet his memories with exhaustion.
So generally Ada was the one who drifted off first and he had taken to insisting that they ask their questions from their respective sleeping places so he didn't have to keep waking her up to nudge her towards her hammock.
And if it had the added side effect of not allowing him to be distracted by her sitting pressed up next to him like that first night?
Well, that was for the best.
All in all it had been a pleasant enough way to end his days for the last few weeks but he should have known it was only a matter of time before Ada forgot the rules.
The questions weren't supposed to matter.
"How long have you been here?"
Her question hit Newt like a slap to the face or more accurately a stomp to the chest, his entire body tensing up as it washed over him. His leg throbbed all the way from his toes to hip.
Shucking inconvenient how Alby seemed to be right about his emotions bringing out his flares of pain.
It wasn't like how long he had been in the Glade was a secret. God knows it was usually one of the first things greenies asked after they got out of the bugging box.
But Ada hadn't.
And completely irrationally some part of him felt betrayed that she was bringing it up now.
He didn't want to be the one to break any illusion she might have still had that ending up there was anything but a life sentence.
Still.
His voice was steady when he answered.
"Three years," He told her. "Give or take."
If he had expected a big reaction to that information he didn't get it.
Leave it to the greenie to surprise him yet again.
"What about Alby?" She asked instead, her tone still curious but not cautious, like she didn't know what she was asking.
She didn't know what she was asking.
Newt swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat, his frown deepening as he stared up at the ceiling trying to maintain control.
She wasn't following the rules.
They were supposed to alternate questions.
The questions weren't supposed to matter.
The questions weren't supposed to matter.
"A little longer," He answered, his tone perfectly casual even as his body practically sang with dread at the direction of the conversation.
"How long is a little longer?" Ada pressed, the ropes holding her hammock groaning slightly indicating she had rolled over. "Because I'm wondering if that's why he's so uptight."
Newt squeezed his eyes shut.
He felt a headache coming on.
"He's really not uptight," Newt said firmly.
"I know he's your friend," She continued. "And he was nice enough to me in the beginning. But you have to admit he has been basically giving me the silent treatment for three weeks. Surely that entitles me to be a little annoyed and…"
"Three weeks," Newt interrupted, the tension in him snapping in a way he already regretted but felt helpless to reel back in. "That's just it. You've been here a month, Ada. A month. And I'm not saying I agree with the way he's been acting but he's our leader, he's responsible for every single shank here and he knows what happens when you let your guard down more than any of us."
The words escaped him a rush and the silence that followed thumped in his ears louder than it had any right to.
"What does that mean?" Ada asked, her voice small and cautious and instantly flooding him with a fresh rush of guilt.
Newt reached up to run a tired hand over his face before letting it fall back to his side.
Might as well say it all at this point.
"Well, it's like you've heard, yeah? Every month, the Box sends up a new arrival. But someone had to be first, right? Someone had to have spent a whole month in the Glade, alone. Can you imagine that? Nobody to answer your questions or feed you a meal or…convince you that you weren't dead or trapped in a bad dream? That was Alby. I mean, it can't have been easy. But...when those other boys started coming up, one after the other, he saw the truth, and he learned that the most important thing is that we all have each other. Because we're all in this together. And now there's 50 of us…"
"63," Ada interrupted, her voice still soft but with less of an undercurrent of hurt than he had perceived before.
Newt shook his head even though she couldn't possibly have seen him do it.
"I don't even want to know why you know that off the top of your head."
"So Alby's been here more than 5 years," She said, and of course he should have known she could calculate that in her head.
"Yeah," Newt confirmed, too drained to muster up anything beyond that.
Or at least he thought he was until she said his name.
"Newt?"
"Yeah?"
"I want you to know that I do understand what Alby means to you and what everybody here means to each other. You…you all mean a lot to me too."
Newt swallowed hard but waited for her to continue.
"I haven't been here long but I've seen it, the way you're there for each other and that's…I can't explain it but something tells me I didn't always have that. I just…I just want to be part of it."
Newt couldn't explain why he did it but his hand shot out through the darkness searching for hers, curling around it when he found it hanging over the edge of her hammock.
"You are, Greenie, you are. I promise."
Her hand squeezed his gently and he ran his thumb in an absentminded circle over her skin.
Suddenly he was embarrassingly close to sleep, his eyes drifting shut against his will.
"Hmm," His last conscious thought drifted through his mind too quickly to further evaluate. "Maybe girls really are inherently softer feeling after all."
Then he was tumbling into one of the deepest sleeps he'd managed in the Glade, the greenie's hand still in his.