Newt's leg was killing him.
Not literally.
He hoped.
But the dull ache that was usually a mostly ignored backdrop to his days had woken him up only a few hours after he fell asleep by building to a burning flash of fire that traveled from his toes to his hip.
He had dreamed that he was halfway up that wall in the maze again, letting go and tumbling down not to the promised oblivion but the agony of snapped bones and crushed hopes, the agony of failure and staying.
Only this time he had turned his head and seen Ada sprawled beside him on the unforgiving stone floor, those blue eyes wide and unseeing while a pool of blood seeped slowly toward him.
"Greenie! Greenie! Come on! Ada, please! Please don't go!"
The physical pain that had torn him back to reality had been a gift even if it did take him a few seconds of heaving breaths for him to realize he was safe in the Glade.
They both were.
Newt forced his gasping breaths to slow before chancing a glance at the girl who still slept in the hammock, her peaceful and relaxed face indicating that his screams had been only in his head. Newt managed to lie still for another few seconds, staring in her direction to fully convince himself she was fine before he gritted his teeth and hauled himself to his feet. It took everything in him not to cry out in pain as he forced the minimum amount of weight onto his bad leg and hobbled towards the door leading to the main room of the Homestead. He pushed it open, immediately resting his body against the doorframe as he surveyed the still sleeping gladers in the faint light of the few lanterns that had been left flickering.
Newt pushed off of the doorframe and half walked half hopped towards a hammock a couple of rows down, moving as fast as he could manage without toppling over.
Usually he could venture out slightly further when Ada was asleep without seeming to cause her too much pain but he sure as hell didn't want to push it if he didn't have to.
No point in both of them suffering.
"Clint," He said softly, guilt rising up as he shook the sleeping keeper awake. "Wake up, mate."
"What…what's wrong?" Clint muttered, blinking up at Newt before his eyes seemed to focus with recognition. "Your leg?"
Newt grimaced and nodded, fighting internally against the instinct to downplay his pain out of habit.
In the aftermath of his injury there had been no hiding the constant, unbearable sensations that seemed to radiate out from his leg until they filled up every inch of him, until they were him. Like he had been successful after all and the old Newt had died leaving behind nothing but crushed bones and a tangle of tortured nerves. He had been in and out of consciousness and in no shape to protest when Clint and Jeff plied him with every pain pill at their disposal.
As soon as he regained enough of his wits to refuse though he had done so.
The last thing they needed was a shank like him addicted to something like that, especially when a continuing supply was up to the whims of the Creators.
So he had weaned himself off of them, and the Med-Jacks handiwork setting his leg had held up better than it had any right to, and despite the odds and his own intentions he had survived relatively intact and able to function semi-comfortably.
Except when he couldn't.
The times he couldn't power through were rare but when they came he sought out Clint and tried to ignore the feelings of failure that swirled inside of him alongside the pain.
If he couldn't endure it he had no one to blame.
Well, no one else.
He made a choice and he had to live with the consequences even if they weren't the ones he had intended.
Clint must have seen in his face that Newt didn't exactly have time for him to dawdle.
"It's been awhile since it's been this bad," He observed, swinging his legs out of his hammock and reaching for his shoes. "Maybe you've been pushing it too hard lately."
"I'm fine," Newt said shortly.
He clenched his hand into a fist in an effort to hide the shaking he could feel in his fingers as another wave of pain crested over him.
Clint shot him a skeptical look and Newt forced himself to breathe in through his nose.
"Relatively," Newt allowed through gritted teeth. "Are you going to get me something or not?"
Clint nodded and clapped a hand on Newt's shoulder.
"Hang in there. I'll be quick."
He turned to leave but Newt stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Can you bring something for the greenie's hangover while you're at it?" He asked.
Clint's forehead furrowed in confusion.
"From what I saw the greenie only took one sip of brew last night and he spit most of it out," Clint observed.
Newt tried to focus through the pain enough to complete the conversation.
"Ada," He corrected. "She'll need something."
Clint's eyebrows shot up at that, probably due to some combination of Newt's referring to Ada by what was now an outdated nickname and the fact that he was worried about her hangover at all when his leg clearly felt like it was on fire.
Newt wasn't exactly in the mood to explain himself though and luckily Clint just nodded and moved quickly in the direction of the Glade.
His mission complete, Newt dragged himself back toward the room he shared with Ada, doing his best to make as little noise as possible.
The last thing he wanted was to wake up anyone else and deal with the sympathy and the questions. There weren't many people in the Glade who knew what really happened with his leg. Most knew the lie if they knew anything at all.
Didn't stop the shame from flooding him when some well meaning shank asked him if he was ok when they caught him limping just a little too hard some days.
By the time Newt had made it back into his room and dragged the stool out from the corner for him to collapse on, Clint was already weaving his way back through the Homestead balancing a canteen, a couple of rolls, and two glass bottles with a few pills rattling around in each. He must have run the whole way and Newt was grateful.
"Good that," Newt managed softly as he let Clint dump his haul into his hands. "Thanks."
"I can stay with you," Clint offered. "We've still got a few hours before breakfast and if it gets worse…"
"Shh," Newt hushed the other boy, glancing over at the hammock where Ada was turning restlessly before returning his attention to the Med-Jack. "You should get some more shut eye. Nothing else you can do for me anyway."
Clint looked primed to protest but Newt cut him off with a firm shake of his head.
"I've got this, seriously."
Clint sighed then leaned into whisper forcefully.
"You take two of those blue ones, no more unless you want to get so jacked you fancy taking a walk with the grievers. And eat the rolls, alright? You know what happens if you take those on an empty stomach."
Newt cringed.
He did.
Unfortunately.
He made a mental note not to let Ada hear about that incident.
She had already heard one too many stories that involved him puking his guts out all over the bloody Glade.
"Give her two of the white ones and make her drink some water. She'll probably feel like klunk but she'll survive."
Then Clint was reluctantly leaving and pulling the door shut behind him leaving Newt to dump his bounty into his lap before snatching the lid off of one of the bottles and tossing two of the pills into his mouth. He chased them with a gulp of water and a bite of one of the rolls before letting his head fall back against the wall as he waited for the promised relief.
It must have come, at least in some small measure, because the next thing he knew he was being shaken awake.
"Newt."
He blinked his eyes open and took stock of his current state.
He was still sitting on the stool though everything he had been holding was scattered around him on the floor. His leg still ached but it was nothing like the pain of the night before.
And it was definitely morning if the light pouring in through the gaps in the walls was any indication.
Well, that and the fact that the greenie was up.
Loved to sleep that one.
"What time is it?" He asked groggily.
Ada bit her lip in thought.
"Um, late enough everyone left the Homestead but early enough that I don't hear anyone working yet?"
Newt managed a small smile at that.
She was telling time like a real glader now even if she still hadn't quite adjusted to early mornings.
"Are you alright?" She asked, concern obvious in her tone. "What is all this?"
She gestured at the canteen and bottles that littered the ground around him.
Newt sat up cautiously and moved his leg a little in an experimental motion, hissing slightly when he tried to bend his stiff knee.
"Was a bit sore last night, that's all," He explained through gritted teeth. "Clint brought me some meds."
Ada frowned and sank down to kneel in front of him on the dirt floor.
"Let me see," She said softly, reaching for his leg and massaging gently at the muscles just above his knee. "Quadriceps might be tensing up trying to protect you from the injury and making it worse. Rectus femoris…vastus intermedius…"
She went on like that for a minute or two, her hands kneading soft circles into his skin while she muttered words that made shuck all sense to him.
Maybe she really did have a medical degree she had forgotten to tell him about like he had joked about back on her first day out of the box.
Newt had to stop himself from melting completely into her touch.
It hurt a little the way those surprisingly strong thumbs of hers were digging into the gnarled mess he knew must be beneath his skin.
It also felt like absolute heaven, something tight and broken inside of him relaxing under her touch like it was instinct.
Like it was a habit as little sense as that made.
Newt forced himself to reach down and place his hand on top of hers stopping the motion of her fingers.
He was meant to be getting things back to normal today.
He had to be Newt, second in command, part time Track-Hoe, friend to everyone including the greenie.
Not whoever he had been the night before.
He didn't know that Newt.
He was scared of that version of himself and the inevitable disaster he had almost walked headlong into without a second thought.
"I'm fine," He said, brushing her hand away as gently as he could manage before reaching for one of the bottles on the floor. "Here. Can't imagine you're feeling too shucking great at the moment either, Greenie."
Ada looked confused for a moment at his effective dismissal of her attempts to care for him but eventually she just sighed before reaching up to rub at her forehead.
"You're not wrong."
Newt got a couple of the white pills and most of the canteen of water into her before they left for breakfast, the lingering soreness in his leg slowing them down just enough that it was impossible Ada didn't notice.
She looked like she wanted to ask him if he was ok again but thought better of it when he avoided eye contact, her shoulders sagging slightly before she silently matched her pace to his.
And Newt knew that was what he had wanted, to draw a line between them.
Not a wall.
Not a big stone trapping anyone.
Just a line.
Just a reminder that their lives in the Glade balanced on a tightrope and they didn't need to be risking doing cartwheels across it.
And the way he had felt the night before when her head found a home on his shoulder and his lips found a home on her hair?
Bugging cartwheels.
Newt knew that line was what he had wanted.
He was pretty sure it was.
So why was he so bloody miserable about it?
Ada remembered exactly what happened the night the greenie had come up (turned out his name was Scott though she hadn't known that at the time).
She was just pretending not to since that seemed like what Newt wanted.
If it helped preserve a little bit of dignity for her all the better.
It wasn't like she was embarrassed of her behavior exactly.
Lowered inhibitions after alcohol consumption were a common enough symptom and she had witnessed other gladers acting somewhat out of character after indulging in Gally's brew. True, Newt had been forced to help her back to the Homestead (again) but she didn't see how that was anything all that exceptional. And maybe she had leaned on him a couple of times and poked fun at his signature frown and told about her plans to try to build up a resistance to the pain that kept them stuck together.
He hadn't liked that, had argued against it for sure, but surely even that didn't explain why the next day and every day since he had been acting weird when it came to her.
Friendly enough but not…like they were friends.
Not the way she had gotten used to them being.
They didn't spend their evenings asking each other questions.
Newt pretended to sleep.
They didn't joke around during meal times.
Newt made conversation with everyone but her, responding to her questions and offering her shallow smiles but nothing more.
They didn't touch each other and Ada missed that most of all.
The easy way Newt had so often reached for her to check she was ok, or guide her somewhere or…just because.
She caught him reaching for her a few times, when she stumbled over a root on the way to the klunker or reached up to rub at her head when the buzzing was too much. He never touched her though, his hand pausing in mid air and redirecting to the back of his neck or clenching into an uneasy fist.
It was all very sudden and very confusing how Newt could go from "being stuck with you is the best thing I can remember happening to me" to barely wanting to look at her in the course of one night.
So after considering all of the possibilities she could only come to one conclusion.
She had told Newt she liked him and even though she hadn't necessarily meant it in a…romantic…way (although it's possible she had, it's not like she had anything to compare it to) it had made him uncomfortable.
Because he didn't feel the same.
Because she must have imagined it when she felt him press a kiss to her head and her hand.
Because somehow he had woken up and realized that his attempts to comfort her over the previous month had been misinterpreted or because he had changed his mind or because boys were just incredibly hard to understand no matter how much she tried to apply the scientific method to the problem.
Luckily he had been good to his word and had still carved out time for them to work on building her tolerance to separating from him. They stationed themselves in the corner of the glade near the wall and faced each other, Ada taking careful steps backwards while Newt remained still and tense. She had started out not stopping her steps until the pain was unbearable but Newt's worried protests had brought them to a compromise where she simply stepped back until the pain made itself known then forced herself to remain there.
First for one minute.
Then two.
Over the last two weeks they had made it all the way to 15 minutes.
Ada wasn't sure that could be called progress though.
She was pretty sure her improvement was born purely from her increasing determination bordering on desperation, not to any reduction in the pain.
If she was being honest she was pretty sure she had been making more progress on that front before they started all of this, back when she and Newt were just going about their regular routine in the days leading up to the greenie's arrival.
None of it made any sense and trying to think it through while also trying not to think about the way Newt had stopped being Newt had a tendency to give her a headache regardless of whatever was actually wrong with her.
Still.
She pushed forward with her plan, holding onto the routine, orderly process like a lifeline.
She even thought of new ways to test herself.
She should have known that's what would finally get a rise out of Newt.
"I didn't agree to this," Newt said sternly as they entered the Mess Hall during another hectic dinner and grabbed their plates from Frypan.
"All you have to do is sit and eat," Ada said absentmindedly, her gaze scanning the tables full of gladers. "And I'll be right back."
She figured now that she was able to force herself to stand six feet away from Newt for up to fifteen minutes it was time to apply that to a real world situation. Eating dinner with someone other than Newt seemed like an opportunity both to give herself further exposure therapy to the painful sensations she still couldn't escape and to find out some things Newt didn't seem to want to tell her.
Especially now.
Her eyes landed on Minho who was seated at a table alone in the corner. The keeper of the runners usually ate with fellow runner Ben but he was alone that night.
Perfect.
Ada took one step in that direction only for Newt's sudden grip on her arm to stop her in her tracks. Her eyes drifted down to where his hand was flexing anxiously around her wrist then up to his face which finally looked like the boy she'd been missing up close for the past two weeks.
"You don't have to hurt yourself to try to solve this," He insisted just loudly enough to be heard over the din of the Mess Hall, bending his head to talk directly to her. "What we've been doing is bad enough."
Ada ignored the small, illogical part of her that blossomed under his attention.
"I'll be fine," She insisted. "It's just one meal. Fifteen minutes. You'll be right here if I need you."
"You don't even eat if I don't remind you every shucking bite," Newt grumbled, earning him both a smile and an eye roll from Ada.
"You're frowning again," She pointed out before taking a deep breath and steeling herself. "Here goes nothing."
She hesitated just long enough to notice Newt's frown deepening even further before she turned on her heel and headed toward the corner where Minho sat alone. She knew Newt was right behind her but he did respect her wishes, peeling off when they reached the far end of the table before her destination and sinking onto the bench there reluctantly. Ada kept going, the instant buzzing in her head as unpleasant as ever. She forced herself to take a quick, steadying breath before dropping onto the bench across from Minho, the runner's head snapping up at her sudden appearance.
He raised an eyebrow and glanced around, clearly expecting Newt to be half a stop behind her.
"Hi," She offered. "Can I sit here?"
Minho smirked and shook his head.
"Looks like it. Where's your shadow, Newbie?"
Ada turned only to find Newt was already watching her, frowning across at her from his table, seemingly paying no attention to either his forgotten plate of food or Winston who was chattering at him from the side. She forced her attention back to Minho and tried to ignore the continuing buzzing in her head.
"We're eating separately today," She shrugged, taking a bite of the unidentified meat on her plate.
Minho chuckled.
"Yeah, and he looks thrilled about it."
"Where's Ben?" Ada asked mainly as a way to change the subject.
"Sprained his ankle," Minho answered, digging back into his own food. "Nothing serious but the Med-Jacks are wrapping it up."
Ada nodded, doing her best to focus through the building throbbing in her head.
"Must be pretty easy to get hurt out there," She observed, forcing a casualness she didn't feel. "In the maze, I mean."
Minho stiffened slightly.
"You could say that."
"I just mean it's such an important job, and I'm thankful you guys are willing to do it I guess. I don't think I'd be brave enough."
"Trust me, Ada, you're not missing anything," Minho said. "But somebody's got to do it."
"Right," Ada leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table. "But how exactly does it work? Being a runner I mean?"
Minho narrowed his eyes for a moment but ultimately he did answer her.
"We run the maze, map what we find, look for a way out, try not to get skewered by a griever in the process. Newt should have told you all this, Newbie."
Ada nodded, feeling slightly sick from trying to maintain a normal conversation through the ever increasing buzzing in her head. She rushed ahead, words spilling out of her as she ran a race between her curiosity and her pain tolerance.
"I mean he did tell me that much, and I guess he probably doesn't want to talk about his time as a runner for some reason, but I've been doing the math and when did running the maze start? Because if we've been going in for like 1,800 days we must have found something and…"
Minho cut her off, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.
"Newt told you he was a runner?"
Ada reached up to rub at her temple as she tried to focus on what Minho was saying even as that became increasingly impossible.
"Yeah, but I figured since you would have been his boss…I mean keeper…you probably could fill me in more."
Minho shook his head, a humorless laugh escaping before he leaned forward and spoke directly to her.
"I wasn't Newt's boss, Newbie."
Ada swayed slightly as her vision threatened to explode into that white hot array of dots that always just before the buzzing became unbearable.
"He was mine," Minho said.
Ada had about half a second to try to process that information before a hand came down on her shoulder and from the instant relief that flooded her she knew it must have belonged to Newt. She sank back against him gratefully, too weak to mind that her actions were likely to draw the eyes of pretty much every guy in the Mess Hall.
She half expected Newt to withdraw his hand and push her away but he only kneaded gently at her shoulder and leaned forward slightly to give more support to her body which had gone almost entirely limp against him.
"Alright there, Greenie?" He asked, his voice tight with what she wanted to believe was worry.
"Not a greenie anymore," Minho pointed out before frowning as concern leaked into his voice as well. "You are looking a little bit green though, Newbie. Maybe you should go lie down."
"Yeah," Ada managed, rising shakily from the bench and prompting Newt to make a quick grab for her arm to support part of her weight. "I think I'll head back to the Homestead."
She turned her head to address Newt, allowing herself one moment to take in the way his eyes looked more familiar than they had in weeks.
"I mean…if you're ready…"
Newt didn't let her get further than that, already lifting one of her arms and wrapping it delicately around his shoulders.
"Come on."
They made their way out of the Mess Hall and toward the Homestead like that, Ada half draped over Newt who seemed to be convinced she was going to collapse at any moment.
Ok, so that wasn't a completely unreasonable assumption given her history in the Glade over the past month and a half but still.
She wasn't about to pass out.
But some greedy, unspoken part of herself wanted him to think she might.
Wanted him to keep holding onto her like he was all that was standing between her and the hard ground.
Wanted an excuse to believe he still cared.
"Newt?"
"Hmm?" He hummed his response, his focus clearly still on supporting as much of her weight as possible.
"You were right," She said with a sigh.
His steps slowed slightly as he turned his head to frown at her.
That damn frown that she couldn't bring herself to hate.
"I was right about what?"
Ada's lips quirked up slightly into a teasing smile.
"I kind of forgot to eat more than like one bite."
Newt stared back at her for a long moment before a reluctant laugh burst out of him and his face stretched into a smile that made that mysterious fluttering erupt in her chest again.
There he was.
Her Newt.
"What am I going to do with you, Greenie?" Newt shook his head as he started them toward the Homestead again but his smile was still in place. "Come on, I've got some more of those meal bars in our room."
Ada was so glad to finally recognize the boy she was stuck with again that she almost forgot about the night's revelation.
Almost.
Newt hadn't just been a runner.
Newt had been keeper of the runners.
It clearly wasn't something he wanted to talk about and he had already sacrificed so much to their unwilling situation.
It really wasn't fair for her to expect him to give her this too.
But if she was going to figure out what was wrong with her, and who the Creators were and how to get them out of here she needed to know about the maze.
She needed Newt to tell her about the maze.