Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Shit, shit.”

Minho felt his arms shaking and took a deep breath, determination flattening out the panicked lines in his brow. He pressed the wad of balled-up fabric hard against Newt’s chest, ignoring the fact that it was becoming damp and spongy with blood.

Brenda had already injected the serum in the side of Newt’s neck. The dark veins were retreating but the Flare wasn’t what Minho was worried about. Not anymore; not now that Newt had a gaping hole in his chest.

“We have to get him to the Berg.”

What was it about Brenda that made her sound so calm and put-together, even when the city was burning all around them? Even when their friend was bleeding out onto the ash-covered stones of the darkened plaza?

“What about Thomas?” Minho gritted out the question without taking his eyes off of Newt. The boy’s eyes were closed but his mouth hung open as he pulled in ragged breaths.

Then a hand was on his shoulder, the grip strong. This time it was Gally’s voice that strained to be heard over the echoes of gunshots and grenade launchers in the distance.

“We’ll find him. Brenda’s right. Let’s go.”

Minho clenched his jaw. They would have to move Newt and to do that, he’d have to let up the pressure he was keeping on the wound. And there was already so much blood…

But staying here would kill him just as quickly. After a tense few seconds, Minho finally nodded, head snapping up.

“Frypan! Grab his legs.” And Minho tore himself away from his position over Newt’s chest so he could scoop up his friend, threading his arms beneath the boy’s armpits. Newt was completely limp in his arms, head rolling lifelessly to the side. Minho tried not to think about the heat he could feel radiating off of him even through all the layers of clothes, or the way that his own shirt was immediately stained with blood.

Too much blood. Too much. The thought dogged his every step as they crossed the plaza, running for the Berg. But the panic that had first swelled in his chest when he saw Newt lying there with a knife sticking out of him was gone. It was replaced with a clear determination not to let this stupid shank die.

Newt and Thomas had come back for him. Minho couldn’t let Newt die, he simply wouldn’t allow it. He’d grab hold of the very fabric of the universe itself and twist it in his hands until it submitted to his will. This was something he would not compromise on.

Newt had to make it. And they had to find Thomas.

If it was the last thing he did on this earth Minho would see those two slintheads reunited in all their glorious self-sacrificial stupidity.

As they sprinted up the final flight of stairs Gally suddenly turned and fired off a few shots. Then Brenda did the same, planting her left foot behind her and leveling her handgun in a steady aim as she fired.

“Nice one,” Gally said.

Minho heard the thud of bodies behind him but didn’t turn to look - the Berg was right in front of them, light pouring from the open door like the gates of salvation. His boots thudded on the ramp as he and Frypan carried Newt between them, Brenda ahead of them and Gally bringing up the rear.

The aircraft, made for carrying troops, was now lined with immunes instead. Their frightened, childlike faces barely registered for Minho as he and Frypan laid Newt down on the cold steel floor while the ramp’s hydraulics whined behind them. The door shut and the lighting changed as the Berg lifted off, Jorge at the controls.

Vince was on them in an instant.

“What the hell are you two thinking, bringing him on here?” The man had a hand on the gun at his hip but Minho knew he wouldn’t risk firing off a shot in the confined space of the Berg, with so many children around staring wide-eyed at the scene.

Minho ignored Vince, once again moving to apply pressure to Newt’s wound. His friend’s face was pale, accenting the dark circles under his eyes. His blonde hair was dark with sweat and plastered against his forehead, his breath stuttering in and out.

“He’s fine, Vince,” Brenda snapped.

“He’s not fine,” Minho heard himself mutter. The words sounded distant, like they were spoken by someone else entirely. Thankfully, Brenda and Vince ignored him, too busy squaring off at each other.

“I gave him the serum.” Brenda brushed past Vince to move up behind Jorge, placing a hand on the pilot’s chair and leaning over to talk to him. Probably discussing how in the hell they were supposed to find Thomas now that he was lost in the burning city.

The idiot, Minho couldn’t help but think. Running off like that, back to fucking Teresa of all people, when Newt was still -

But Thomas hadn’t known. Minho had seen it in his friend’s face. The shock, the utter heartbreak. Thomas had thought Newt was dead and he had cocked his handgun before sprinting off towards WCKD. Whatever sort of reunion he was having right now with Teresa, it wasn’t a pleasant one.

Vince was muttering something but his hand had moved from his gun to just rest on his hips in an irritated stance that would have annoyed Minho if he hadn’t been so focused on Newt.

“C’mon, man,” he mumbled, leaning forward to put all the weight he could onto the wound, face hovering about a foot above Newt’s. “C’mon, I just got you back, I can’t lose you again. You’re gonna be alright. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

If he said it enough times, it would be true, right?

Minho hadn’t thought Newt was conscious enough to hear him, but suddenly his lips moved, clumsily forming around a whisper.

“Tommy…”

“He’ll be here soon,” Minho was quick to reassure him. “We’re going to get him right now, so you just gotta hang on, alright?”

You just gotta hang on, alright?

An overwhelming sense of deja vu slammed into him as Minho realized he’d said those exact words to Newt before.

Last time, though, he’d gotten a response. It had been a blunt, sarcastic remark but that was better than nothing.

“Newt?” Minho swallowed, trying to keep his voice steady. If Newt could hear him he didn’t want his friend to hear him panicking. He deserved better than that.

Minho barely registered the feeling of the Berg canting to one side as it came around in an arc, the sound of Brenda and Jorge arguing, or Vince moving among the immune kids giving comforting words.

“He needs stitches,” Frypan said from somewhere nearby. Minho heard his own sense of utter helplessness echoed in the other boy’s strained voice. Minho had no idea what he was doing when it came to that and he knew Frypan and Gally didn’t, either. Clint and Jeff hadn’t been surgeons but they’d at least had some experience stitching up the Slicers and the occasional Runner.

But Clint and Jeff were dead.

“I hurt him…”

It was a strained, broken whisper and for a second Minho wasn’t sure he’d really heard it. Newt still hadn’t opened his eyes.

“No,” he said firmly, with a terse shake of his head even though Newt couldn’t see it. “He’s fine. I promise. You didn’t hurt him.”

“I hurt him.” Newt’s breath hitched and his eyes flew open. “Minho…” His voice was stripped raw but there was a fevered strength to it that, along with the panic in his eyes, sent a cold wash of fear through Minho.

“Kill me.”

“Shut up!” Minho snapped. He hadn’t meant to be so harsh but he was nearing the end of his rope, here. His hands were shaking again where they were pressed against Newt’s chest, doing everything he could to keep his friend alive. Just like he’d always done. Just like he knew Newt would do for him.

And after everything they’d been through, this shank had the audacity to beg for death?

Uh-uh. No way, buddy, Minho was not going to stand for that.

“Just shut up,” he said, more gently this time. “You’re okay, Brenda gave you the serum, you’re not going to hurt anyone. Unless you die, because if you die that’ll hurt me pretty fucking bad, alright? Not to mention Thomas, he’s out there counting on you to live and you’re not gonna disappoint him, are you?”

So what if it was a blatant lie? It was what Minho thought Newt needed to hear right now.

Minho felt a fumbling grip on his wrist and looked down to see that Newt had somehow managed to lift a shaking hand enough to grab onto him. His fingers curled weakly around Minho’s wrist and Minho again had to swallow around a sudden lump in his throat.

“It was worth it,” Newt whispered. Minho scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion.

“What are you…”

“Finding you. Getting you out. Coming here.” He was panting, only able to get out a few words around each tortured breath. The look in Newt’s eyes was completely different from a moment ago. Not panicked, but calm. Somehow it managed to frighten Minho even more. “Worth it.”

Newt’s eyes slipped close and his hand fell away.

Minho felt his stomach drop straight through the floor of the Berg and splatter on the ground a thousand feet below.

“Newt?”

No response.

“Newt!”

Minho heard himself scream but didn’t care. He felt Frypan and Gally rush to kneel beside him, saw Gally’s hand on Newt’s neck just beneath his jaw, feeling for a pulse. The big man’s shoulders relaxed as he blew out a breath, then clapped a hand on Minho’s shoulder.

“He’s alive.”

“We need to do something,” Minho said, striving to get back that calm facade he’d been able to keep for so long. Whether it was facing down Grievers in the Maze or staring sullenly back at his captors in WCKD, Minho had always felt a thread of calm he was able to pull on to keep himself together. He didn’t want anyone to see him break down completely; that was letting them win, that was letting this stupid world win.

But feeling Newt’s life slipping away under his fingers was somehow, finally, too much.

“Molly and Quentin’ll fix him up,” came Vince’s gravelly voice from somewhere overhead. “If we can get him back to camp in time.” The older man’s voice was a somehow-not-entirely-comforting mixture of annoyance, doubt, and something that was probably meant to be soothing.

* * *

It was strangely quiet in the Berg as they hovered over the roof of the WCKD building.

Minho was about to lose his damn mind.

It was taking too long. It was all taking too fucking long and Newt was shivering under him, his skin clammy and white. Minho stupidly found himself wishing he could still feel the fever under Newt’s skin, could still see blackened veins because at least that had been color and heat and it would mean he was alive. If also terribly sick.

His rational mind knew it wasn’t really any better than this but his senses and his instincts that twisted in his gut were telling him that anything was better than this.

Newt was dying.

Newt was dying while they waited for Thomas, and they weren’t even sure if he was coming.

Thomas could be dead. He could have found some way to the ground floor and was waiting for them there. He could be running through the city looking for them and all the while they’d be up here, useless and waiting and letting Newt bleed out onto the pebbled steel floor.

At some point they’d found a couple of blankets and had worked one of them under Newt, trying to give him a more comfortable place to rest, trying to keep cold from compounding cold. The other blanket was wrapped around Newt as much as it could be to leave room for Minho and Gally who were now switching off keeping pressure on the wound.

It wasn’t enough, of course. Nothing Minho did was ever enough to keep his friends alive.

Alby had slipped out of his grasp.

Jeff had sacrificed himself to the Grievers so Minho could give them all the code to get out of the Maze.

He’d been too late to save Chuck.

He hadn’t been able to do a damn thing for Winston.

Thomas and Newt had come back for him, risked their lives to get him out, and now they were both going to die because of it. He hadn’t been able to stop Thomas from running off and he couldn’t do anything to help Newt and he was fucking sick of it.

At one point Minho had completely lost it and leaned in close to Newt’s face and begged him to stop fucking bleeding everywhere already, please, just please fucking stop.

That was when Gally had taken over, pushing Minho away and telling him he needed a break.

Minho had just sat there, looking down at his hands which were unrecognizable, covered fingertip to wrist in Newt’s blood. It was Frypan who had given him the cloth, even starting to wipe them off for Minho before he’d finally snapped out of it and rushed to do it himself.

Then he’d moved to kneel at Newt’s head, putting a hand on either side of his friend’s face and staring down at him, tight-lipped and shaking and so, so fucking scared.

He was going to lose both of them. He was going to lose both of his best friends and it was his fault they were here in the first place.

How was he supposed to live with that?

“I see him!”

Brenda’s voice sliced through the tension-thick air of the Berg and everyone’s heads whipped around to see her looking out of the small bulletproof-glass window next to the sealed ramp door.

Suddenly everyone was shouting.

Minho could barely make sense of the chaos: Jorge struggling to angle the Berg in close enough, Vince standing at the edge of the ramp as it opened and wind buffetted all of them, the immune kids being rather useless and kind of in the way until Vince snapped at them all to take their seats. Gally and Frypan rushing to help and Minho, desperate to see evidence of what he’d been waiting for for what felt like approximately his entire life, had almost, almost run to the ramp with them.

How could he have, even for a second, forgotten Newt?

Cursing himself, Minho kept up pressure on the wound, even though it felt useless now. Newt hadn’t been conscious for what felt like ages. He was dying, it was too late for him, and Minho nearly broke down as he realized that Thomas would get there in time to see his best friend die. All when he’d already run off thinking Newt was dead.

He’d have to watch him die, twice.

Minho knew something was wrong when he heard shouts of encouragement from his friends, when he realized that it was taking too long and Thomas should have already been on the Berg with them. But he and Newt were too far inside for him to see what was going on.

The next thing Minho knew, Thomas was stumbling into the Berg, leaning heavily on Frypan and Gally. Minho’s back was turned to him but he craned his head around to see that Thomas’s shirt was soaked in blood, his face pale.

“Fuck.” It came out shaky, almost a whine as Minho’s face fell.

“What do you mean, you have him?” Thomas was ranting at Gally, incomprehension clouding his face as he was half-dragged back towards Minho and Newt. “He’s dead, I saw him - ”

Thomas stopped short when his eyes landed on Newt. On Minho crouched over him, pressing down on the wound.

“Newt?” Thomas’s voice cracked and Minho felt his own throat clench up. It was one of the saddest sounds he’d ever heard. “Newt - FUCK!” Thomas’s hoarse shout rang throughout the Berg, even managing to cut through the whine of hydraulics as the ramp closed and the Berg suddenly jolted forward.

Jorge must be putting everything into the engines as they sped away from the collapsing skyscrapers, rising above the thick plumes of smoke that marked the fall of the Last City.

Thomas had broken free of Frypan and Gally’s hold, falling to his knees next to Newt and grabbing at Minho. He tore one of Minho’s hands away from Newt’s chest, pressing something into it - a cold, smooth cylinder - and then he was on all fours, holding himself up as he looked down at his friend with an expression that Minho had to look away from.

“I left him,” Thomas said hollowly. “He - I thought - I left him…”

Minho didn’t know what to say.

He wanted to say that it was going to be alright. That Newt was going to be fine, that everything was okay.

But it wasn’t. Newt wasn’t fine, none of this was fine. Thomas wasn’t fine. Minho may have been focused on Newt but he didn’t miss the way his other friend was swaying even with his hands planted on the floor to try to steady himself.

Thomas was bleeding, too. Fuck, Minho thought deliriously, he only had so many hands.

Suddenly there was another person beside them. A waterfall of brown hair, piercing blue eyes, pouting lips -

Teresa.

Minho held back a snarl. She was too close. Too close to him and too close to his friends. He had approximately zero seconds to think about what he was going to do about it before suddenly a black boot thrust itself into his line of sight, planted itself on Teresa’s chest and sent her flying back across the Berg.

Mouth open, Minho looked up to see Brenda stomping her foot back down, her face a mask of cold rage except for one eyebrow lifted ever so slightly in what could only be a trace of self-satisfaction.

“This girl’s my fucking hero,” he heard Gally mutter next to him.

“I’d think twice before getting that close to him again,” Brenda said coolly.

“Who him?” Teresa snapped. “If you hadn’t noticed, I just helped drag Thomas out of a burning building, so I’m hardly a threat to him. And as for Newt, I brought the cure - ”

“I meant,” Brenda cut in, “Minho. You get that close to him again without his permission and I’ll end you, bitch.” Suddenly her gun was in her hands, pointed directly at Teresa.

“Guys,” Minho finally spoke up, “We got bigger problems, here.” He couldn’t believe he had to remind them. Because while he appreciated what Brenda was trying to do, he was focused on pressing down on Newt’s chest like he could hold his soul inside of him that way.

And meanwhile he was pretty sure that Thomas had gone ahead and lost his mind.

He didn’t seem to be registering anything that was happening around him. His eyes were transfixed on Newt’s pale face, and he’d gone down on one elbow, basically laying out beside Newt’s lanky, still form. He’d brought one hand up to cup Newt’s jaw and was muttering something that Minho couldn’t hear.

Or maybe he just chose to ignore it, because it sounded…personal.

“I can help,” Teresa spoke up again.

“I’ve seen how you ‘help’ people,” Gally growled. “I think we’ll pass.”

“I mean I know how to do emergency stitches.” Teresa’s voice sounded somehow patient and calm and Minho hated that it made him admire her the tiniest bit. “There should be a medical kit with everything we need, all of the Bergs have them.” And suddenly she was striding past Minho and opening up a panel on the wall, pulling out a bright red box.

She took a step back towards them, then seemed to remember Brenda’s threat. She looked at the other girl, lifting a dark eyebrow at her. Brenda looked at Minho.

“Yes, fucking yes, get the fuck over here! Jesus!”

Brenda gave a nod, lowering her gun, and Teresa darted forward, stepping around Thomas to kneel at Newt’s other side. She put down the box and quickly began gathering her hair into a bun while issuing commands, again in that calm voice that Minho envied.

“Move the blanket. Open his jacket. Minho, get out of the way, there’s nothing more you can do for him, except hand me supplies when I ask for them.”

“Okay,” Minho said shakily, reluctantly lifting his hands away and wiping them on his pants before quickly flinging the blanket aside and following the rest of Teresa’s instructions. He ended up using scissors from the med kit to cut open Newt’s shirt, grimacing at the vicious knife wound as it was displayed in all its gruesome detail under the flourescent lights of the Berg.

Meanwhile, Teresa was prepping the needle and thread.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” she commented.

“No shit!” Minho practically shouted. Thomas made a pained sound at Newt’s side and suddenly Minho’s heart leapt in his throat.

“Thomas, what about - is he - ”

“He was shot,” Teresa supplied the answer. “He’ll need surgery to remove the bullet. You should check to see if the cloth I tied around the wound is still tight, it should be enough pressure for now.” Teresa was working quickly to splash antiseptic on Newt’s injury and Minho scrambled to do as she said, lifting up Thomas’s shirt.

There was indeed a cloth wrapped tight around his middle, the knot directly over the bullet wound. It was an expert job and although Thomas was pale and weak and the cloth was stained red, it wasn’t soaked all the way through. It seemed that for the moment he wasn’t bleeding at the alarming rate that Newt had been and Minho finally allowed himself to feel the slightest bit of hope that at least one of his best friends would live through this awful fucking day.

Even when Minho was bending over him and messing with his shirt, Thomas didn’t seem to notice. He was still holding the side of Newt’s face, angling his head towards him and whispering something, their foreheads almost close enough to touch.

Chapter Text

”I’m sorry Newt, I’m so sorry.”

Thomas’s breath stuttered as he cupped Newt’s jaw and felt how cold his skin was. More than anything else in the world at that moment, he just wanted Newt to open his eyes. He wanted to see the brown irises, free of that awful inky black, just one more time.

Somewhere, deep in the back of Thomas’s mind, he was aware that he wouldn’t be doing this if it were Frypan or Gally or even Minho who was dying next to him.

He would still be devastated. But he wouldn’t be lying next to them, he wouldn’t be cradling their face. He wouldn’t feel like his stupid shuck heart was shattering into a million pieces.

Because Newt was different. Newt had always been different. Thomas just hadn’t had the chance to realize it until it was too late.

Something had broken inside of Thomas when he had stepped back to see that knife planted hilt-deep in his friend’s chest. When Newt started to fall, Thomas’s whole world had crumbled with him.

He’d darted forward to catch Newt just before he hit the pavement but he’d known, he’d known that it was already too late.

His hands shook as he clutched at the fabric of Newt’s red jacket, watching as those big eyes - once brown, now steeped in black, like ink billowing up from the infection deep inside of him - fixated on the sky and went still.

And that had been it. Tears streaming down his face, lips quivering and parted in a final whispered no - he’d turned to see Brenda stopped short a dozen feet away from him, the serum in her hand, and something within him had snapped.

She’d been so close. They’d all been so close and it was all for nothing. They’d saved one friend only to lose another and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right. Nothing would ever be right again. Teresa’s plea was ringing in his ears and Thomas realized that somewhere nearby, all of the people responsible for this whole fucking mess were waiting on him.

They didn’t know it, yet, but they were waiting on him. Waiting to die at his hand.

Revenge. It was the only thing left to him, now.

His friends wouldn’t want that for him. They would try to drag him onto the Berg, try to save him but he wasn’t worth saving. He’d failed Newt and Thomas wasn’t sure he wanted to live with that knowledge. Wasn't sure that he wanted to live...without Newt.

So Thomas had staggered to his feet. He’d picked up the gun that he’d smacked out of Newt’s hand just a moment ago. Mechanically, he’d checked to see that it was loaded, and then he’d shoved it in the back of his waistband and stalked away.

Back to WCKD, one last time.

To say that things hadn’t gone exactly as planned would have been a lie, because there was never a plan to begin with.

In the end Janson had been the one to kill Ava Paige - not something that Thomas had ever seen coming, and the shock of it was enough to keep him from reacting in time when Janson darted forward and jabbed a sedative into his neck.

Waking up to see Teresa hovering over him had been, somehow, less of a surprise. Thomas wasn’t convinced that his blood was somehow the key to everything but Teresa sure thought so.

Thomas wasn’t sure he cared, anymore.

He knew he should care. There were people out there suffering, like Teresa and all of the WCKD scientists had always said. They had never been wrong about that, after all. Thomas had just disagreed with their methods. Enough to make it his mission to get his friends and everyone he loved as far away from WCKD as possible.

But now, with Newt gone…Thomas couldn’t find it in himself to care. About anything.

Except he still wanted to fucking kill Janson.

Other than that, what did it matter? The world could just go to hell because it had taken everything away from him. He couldn’t care less what happened to Teresa, whether she got her cure or not. He didn’t actively want her to die but he was still so fucking pissed at her that he couldn’t even look her in the eye.

Although, he had to be honest…knocking Janson over the head and breaking him out of the straps holding him to that chair definitely added a few points in her favor.

And he supposed he had to be grateful for her help after Janson shot him, even though hell, he wasn’t sure he wanted it. He got his final wish as he saw Janson being torn apart by cranks, the man’s screams following him and Teresa as they staggered out of the room. But then more than anything he’d just wanted to collapse in the hallway and scream at Teresa to fucking leave him there.

There was no point in going on. He didn’t care, he just didn’t care, and he was afraid to think about why.

He’d lost friends before. Losing Chuck, especially, had broken him too but this felt different. Thomas hadn’t realized that up until this moment, no matter what awful shit he went through there had always been a light at the end of the tunnel.

Newt’s quiet determination. His comforting presence. His words of encouragement. The way he always seemed to believe in Thomas. No matter how often shit went sideways there was an unshakeable faith in him that Thomas now knew he’d never deserved.

But Newt had given it to him anyway. Newt had given him everything.

And Newt was gone.

* * *

If anything could have hurt more than seeing Newt die, it was stepping onto that Berg and realizing that he wasn’t dead at all and that Thomas had abandoned him when his friend needed him most. He should have been happy that Newt was still alive but all he could think was that he’d left him. His friend had been hurt, bleeding, needing help and Thomas had left him behind.

He’d given up on Newt, when Newt had never, ever given up on him. Thomas had never been so sure that he didn’t deserve the friendship of such fundamentally good person.

And because he didn’t deserve it, as he fell to his knees beside Newt, saw the condition he was in, Thomas couldn’t bring himself to believe that Newt would survive.

The universe had brought them back together for nothing more than a final, lingering, one-sided goodbye.

Thomas would take it. He would take every last second he had with Newt, even if all it meant was stroking the side of his face as he finally slipped away.

His poor friend. Newt had been in so much pain these last few days as the virus consumed him. He deserved to rest. He deserved to never feel pain again.

But as words started tumbling from Thomas’s lips, almost without his consent, he realized that he couldn’t help but beg for one more chance to get it right.

“Please, Newt,” he murmured, as everything around him - Minho, Teresa, the Berg - faded, his entire perception zeroing in on his friend’s face. “Please come back to me. Please.” Thomas felt a tear sliding down his own cheek, did nothing to stop it. “I can’t do this without you. I’m so sorry, please, I’ll do anything.”

His hand moved further back along Newt’s jaw until he was cupping the back of Newt’s neck. His hand was heavy there and Thomas rested his head against the cold floor of the Berg, tired, so fucking tired but unable to tear his eyes from Newt’s face.

Newt looked like he could be sleeping. His eyes were closed, his expression blank - but his face was too pale. He’d had those dark circles under his eyes for the past few days as the virus progressed, his fever spiking. Thomas knew he hadn’t been sleeping, could barely stomach food.

But this was worse, because now his skin was cold, his breaths shallow and slow. So slow that more than once Thomas’s heart leapt into his throat as he waited an eternity for the next one, not sure there would be a next one.

“Newt.” His voice was a dry croak, barely audible even to his own ears, and Thomas had to swallow and work some saliva into his mouth before he was able to continue. “Newt, I know I don’t deserve this, but I’m asking for it anyway. Please come back to me. Please. I need to hear your voice, I need…you, Newt, I just need you, okay? So I’m asking even though I have no right to, I’m asking you to stay with us. Please.”

He knew Newt couldn’t hear him. He didn’t know why he kept talking. And if he wasn’t so dizzy with exhaustion and bloodloss he would be confused at the things he was saying. At the way he couldn’t stop his thumb from tracing the skin just below Newt’s ear and onto his sunken cheek.

He had never touched Newt like this before, but it felt right, it felt real, and he didn’t once consider pulling his hand away.

That is, until a firm hand on his shoulder was tilting him away from Newt against his will.

The haze of concentration broke and Thomas’s attention was finally dragged away from Newt’s face. He whined. He couldn’t help it.

“What are you doing,” he mumbled, suddenly looking at the ceiling of the Berg instead of Newt. Then he quickly shut his eyes because everything was suddenly spinning around him.

“I’m sorry, man, but you’re bleeding!”

“Minho?”

“Yeah, it’s me. Why don’t you keep your eyes open ya shuck-face? Then you wouldn’t have to ask.” Thomas thought he almost sounded scared, but that couldn’t be right. Minho didn’t get scared.

“Dizzy.”

This conversation was stupid, Thomas thought, because it wasn’t about Newt. What else mattered right now?

He had long ago forgotten about the pain in his side. He was pretty sure he couldn’t feel anything anymore.

“Could you please just open your goddamn eyes?”

Thomas thought about it for a moment.

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” he mumbled, and forced his eyes open, blinking blearily under the bright overhead lights. He saw Minho crouching over him, and the dark-haired boy let out a sigh, dropping his head.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, man.” Thomas felt delirious. He half-wondered if he’d already died. He was caught between a morbid hysteria - might as well joke around a bit, Newt was dead after all, and that was so fucking incomprehensible that literally nothing mattered anymore - and a feeling of obligation towards Minho. His friend had been tortured by WCKD for so long, had just gotten his freedom back. The least he could do was talk to him, do what he asked. After all, he’d lost Newt, too.

Newt was dead…wait, was he dead? Thomas couldn’t remember anymore. He was afraid to ask. Afraid to hope. But of course, he couldn’t go on not knowing.

“Is he dead?”

“No.” Minho sounded so certain. “Teresa stitched him up. He’s lost a lot of blood but he’s still here and I’m gonna make damn sure it stays that way.”

“He’s so cold.” Thomas’s voice sounded small, even to him. But the last time he’d touched Newt had been when he was carrying his friend through the city, and he could have sworn the fever heat coming off of him had been steaming in the night air.

“I know,” Minho said soothingly, “But he’s gonna be alright, he’s…Thomas?”

Thomas had closed his eyes.

“Thomas!”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, not even sure what he was apologizing for. There were so many options. For getting all of his friends killed. For letting Minho get taken away. For letting Newt get sick, for not being able to stop him from trying to kill himself, for leaving him behind, for not being able to open his eyes like he knew Minho wanted. For the way everything - the sound of Minho’s voice, the hum of the Berg’s engines, the feeling of his friend’s hand gripping his shoulder - was slipping away.

Thomas was falling down a tunnel, pulling away from the world, and his last conscious thought was that he was sorry that he had failed them all but that they were in good hands with Minho now.

Chapter Text

Thomas woke to strange sounds, strange sensations, and even stranger memories.

He laid there for a long moment without opening his eyes, cataloguing each sensation.

He was in a bed. The mattress was hard but it was a proper bed - not a blanket on the ground and not a hammock, either, although he realized next that he was swaying. It was very slight, easily missed, but it was there. His fingers moved beneath the blanket that was covering him and he felt rough linen bandages around his stomach.

He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Pants, then? His fingers moved down - yep, pants. He felt a bit of relief at that. There was a faint sound of water lapping against a solid surface and the distant churning of engines. The air smelled odd - hints of diesel fumes and even something…metallic?

Thomas opened his eyes.

He felt a brief flash of disorientation, and panic. The room reminded him of Janson’s facility, all bare steel walls and metal bunks - but when he looked closer he saw hints of rust, wear that Janson never would have allowed in his pristine prison. So that explained the oddly metallic scent. There was a low level of light suffusing the room and Thomas craned his head around to trace the source to a window behind his bunk.

He appeared to be alone in the room.

Thomas thought he knew where he was. He was just afraid to think too hard about how he had gotten there.

He sat up. One hand came up automatically to cover the bullet wound as he sucked in a breath at the deep, dull ache that sitting up had caused. Gritting his teeth, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, grabbing onto a metal bar on the top bunk to steady himself.

For a moment he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to walk without his legs giving out; but the longer he stood there, taking measured breaths and giving himself time to adjust, the better he felt. He was pretty tired and he chalked that up to blood loss, but other than that he felt okay. Which was good, because if he had to stay in this room alone not knowing what had happened and what was going on around him, he very well might scream.

Thomas made his way out of the room, stepping over the raised metal lip of the rounded square door and out into sunlight.

Despite the urgency of his quest for information, the sight was breathtaking, and it stopped him dead for a moment.

He was on the deck of a ship, on a narrow walkway on the outer edge, and beyond the railing that was just a few feet in front of him there was nothing but blue, and blue, and blue.

Thomas had never seen the ocean - not that he could remember. He could never have imagined it would look like this. So open, so vast, the horizon a fuzzy line barely indicating a boundary between water and sky, the sun shattering into a million bright shards that danced on every wave.

And the air - it was so clean. No dust, no sand, no ash or smoke. Just the bright, tangy taste of salt. A black sea bird wheeled overhead and suddenly dove into the waves, and Thomas rushed to lean up against the railing with his hands gripping the slightly rusted metal as he looked down. The bird came back to the surface empty-handed (empty-beaked?) and bobbed on the waves.

He had to share this with Newt.

Newt should be here. Newt should be seeing this with him. Thomas wanted nothing more than to look to his right and see his friend standing there, blonde hair dancing playfully in the salty breeze as Thomas ranted to him about how fucking beautiful and precious this life was.

Thomas pushed off from the railing, suddenly feeling very lost and alone on this big ship with no idea where his friends were.

He started walking towards what he thought might be the front of the ship - something in him whispered the bow - looking for anyone who could answer his questions.

He spotted a cluster of figures huddled together at the railing a little ways ahead, and rushed forward - though in his present state it was more of a concentrated shuffling while keeping one steadying hand on the rail. As he got closer he realized it was Sonya, Harriet, and Aris, the girls standing to either side of their friend, Sonya running a hand through the boy’s hair while Harriet leaned on her folded arms on the railing.

Their shoulders were touching. It looked like a sweet moment, like the three of them had just been plucked from the Scorch and still couldn’t believe they were back together, had to stay in contact to reassure themselves that no one was going to be taken from them any more. Thomas felt a pang of guilt at interrupting but his anxiety and need for information was reaching critical levels.

“Hey you,” Sonya turned to him with a bright smile when she heard Thomas approaching. “Should you be up?”

“I feel fine.” Thomas conjured up a half-smile. His heart was suddenly hammering in his chest as he realized he was afraid to ask about Newt. Terrified, in fact. What if he had died while Thomas was unconscious? He wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle that, the mere possibility made his stomach churn, and the longer he stalled the longer he could hold on to the hope that he was alive, but he had to know, he had to know.

Sonya must have sensed what was going through his head, because her smile turned gentle, eyebrows knitting together in sympathy. She stepped away from the railing with a final pat on Aris’s shoulder and put a hand on Thomas’s arm, turning him slightly to follow her raised hand as she pointed down a passageway to his right.

“He’s down there,” she said. “A few doors down, on the right. Minho should be with him right now. Hasn’t left his side, really, except to check on you.” There was definitely a crinkle of concern in her expression when she spoke of Minho and Thomas wondered if his friend was taking care of himself, but nonetheless he released a relieved sigh, the rush of air leaving as his chest loosened at the knowledge that Newt was on board.

He was here. He was alive.

“Thank you, Sonya.” Thomas hoped his gratitude was evident in his voice because his feet were already carrying him away from the trio. He heard Sonya start to say something else but his mind was doing that zeroing-in thing, where nothing else existed other than the goal ahead of him. All he could hear were his footsteps echoing off the metal floor as he quickly approached the only open door he saw along the passageway.

Thomas paused with both hands gripping the door frame as he squinted, trying to bring the dark room into focus. When his eyes finally adjusted to the muted light his breath caught in his throat.

Minho was there just as Sonya said, sitting in a chair next to a bunk and leaning back, arms crossed over his chest and legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He appeared to be asleep, eyes closed and chin resting on his chest. All Thomas could see of the figure lying in the bunk was a tuft of blonde hair but that was enough. The sight of his two friends in front of him, alive and breathing and here was overwhelming.

Thomas swallowed past a lump in his throat, surprised to find that his eyes were burning with unshed tears.

It was over. It was all, really over. The fighting, the running, the hiding. The worry and fear. There were so many times when Thomas had despaired, thinking he’d never see this day. That there was nothing to hope for, no happy ending in sight. Days when he thought that the most any of them could ask for would be a quick, painless death alongside their friends. Days when it seemed that even that was too much to ask.

But they’d done it. Against all the odds, despite all of the trauma and heartbreak and lost friends along the way, they’d managed to find a place where they could finally rest.

Thomas took a step into the room.

Minho’s head popped up and suddenly he was out of the chair and crushing Thomas in a fierce hug.

“It is so fucking good to see you up, man. You had me worried.” Minho’s shoulders shook and Thomas realized his friend was laughing quietly. He couldn’t stop a huge smile from spreading across his own face as he returned the hug, wincing slightly but unwilling to let go. He must have taken in a sharp breath, though, because Minho broke away, taking a step back and holding Thomas at arm’s length as he looked him over.

“Shit, sorry man, here. Sit down.” He guided Thomas over to the chair and then turned to grab another for himself. Meanwhile, Thomas finally got a good look at Newt.

He was disappointed to see that his friend was asleep. He really could’ve done with some of that infamous British sarcasm right about then. He leaned over to take Newt’s hand in his, testing out his temperature. He was warm. Thomas bowed his head then, releasing another sigh he hadn’t realized had been building up.

Newt’s color looked a little better than it had on the Berg, but still not great. His friend had always been pale but this was more than that. His skin had a dull, greyish cast, his lips colorless and those dark bags under his eyes only slightly lighter than they had been before. Then Thomas noticed that there was a thin sheen of sweat clinging to his forehead. He frowned, stomach sinking.

“It’s just a light fever,” Minho was quick to reassure him. Thomas glanced over at his friend and gave a humorless chuckle.

“When did you learn to read my mind?” Minho shrugged and smiled, but Thomas sensed a bit of tension in the set of his shoulders. The lightheartedness was forced.

“How is he, really?”

“He’s…okay.” Minho’s eyes slid to Newt and Thomas followed his gaze. Newt’s breathing seemed troubled, harsh and uneven as if even asleep his injury was causing him pain and making it difficult to find an easy rhythm. “The Flare is gone, he just…really did a number on himself.”

Thomas looked at Newt for a long moment, then finally let his head fall into his hands, hunching over.

“It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s not man, really…”

“Yes it is.” Thomas lifted his head only to thread his fingers together and press his chin and lips against his hands. “I should have been able to protect him,” he mumbled. “And then I just…left him like that…”

Thomas’s good feelings of a moment ago were gone. Looking at Newt like this, it suddenly felt like that sense of victory had withered away. Sure, they’d gotten away from WCKD, they were on their way to Vince’s promised paradise…but had they really won if Newt wasn’t back to his old self yet? What if he never got better? What if he never woke up?

That wasn’t winning. Not to Thomas, anyway.

A hand landed on his shoulder. Thomas’s gaze flicked over to Minho.

“Look, man, I get it. I’ve been feeling the same way since we got here. You and Newt have been out for almost two days, you know that right? How do you think I felt when I had you both on that Berg, bleeding all over everything like it was goin’ out of style?”

Thomas grimaced, guilt washing over him.

“Point is, there’s no sense looking back and torturing yourself with ‘what ifs’. We’re here, we’re fine, and Newt’s gonna make it. Alright? I mean you can’t expect him to hop out of bed right away, not with an injury like that, it’s just gonna take some time, yeah?”

Thomas wondered if Minho was trying to convince himself. He nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment. He was replaying everything that had happened up to Newt’s “death” - Thomas still thought of it that way, for some reason, like part of his mind was trying to protect itself from future heartbreak by denying he’d even lived past stabbing himself.

Suddenly Thomas sat upright, a look of panic on his face, and began digging through his pockets.

“What is it?” Minho looked curious as Thomas pulled out the necklace with the small steel cylinder, holding it up for the other to see.

“Newt, he gave this to me before - ” Thomas broke off, unable to finish the sentence. He turned the cylinder over in his fingers, seeing that there was a line marking an enclosure. There was something inside of it, but…

He fingered the capsule for a moment longer, then made a fist, closing it in his palm. He leaned over and gently turned over Newt’s hand, opening his fingers and pressing the necklace into his palm, then forming his friend’s hand into a fist. He left his hand there, covering Newt’s, looking wordlessly at the pale face before he lifted his other hand to brush a strand of blonde hair out of his eyes.

Minho cleared his throat and Thomas suddenly sat back, heat creeping up the back of his neck.

“Thomas, can I ask…Are you and Newt…?”

“What? No. What?” The words tumbled out before Thomas could even register what it was Minho was asking.

“Oh, I just mean, like…” Minho reached up to rub the back of his neck, looking as embarrassed as Thomas felt. “You know, on the Berg, and just now…I mean, maybe I’m just reading into it, so sorry, I just thought I’d ask - ”

Thomas felt like his entire body was about ten degrees too hot. He held both of his hands in his lap, feeling like they’d betrayed him by touching Newt.

“I don’t really remember the Berg too well,” he admitted, looking at the floor instead of Minho.

“I was just gone for so long,” Minho continued as if he hadn’t heard that last bit, “And I figured something might’ve happened between you two, while I was with WCKD…?”

Thomas shook his head.

“No. Nothing. Don’t know what you mean.”

“Right.” Minho coughed. “Sorry, then. Forget I said anything.”

An awkward silence descended over the room.

Thomas coughed.

“So,” he said, desperate to change the subject, “Do you think this place is everything Vince has it cracked up to be?”

Minho shrugged. His arms were crossed again.

“I figure it doesn’t really matter. Anything’s better than where we came from.”

“I guess…”

“And it’ll be far away from WCKD. Or - whatever’s left of them.”

Thomas nodded, though an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach.

“Do you think they’re really gone?”

“I dunno Thomas, you tell me.” Minho grinned. “From what Teresa says happened after you met up with her I’d say you pretty much wiped out their entire leadership.”

“Well, I dunno what she’s told you,” Thomas chuckled, then turned sober. “Janson shot Ava Paige, then he was killed by cranks. But plenty of people managed to evacuate before Lawrence wrecked the building and the city along with it.”

“Scientists,” Minho shrugged again. “Probably more concerned with getting themselves and their families out than anything else.”

“Scientists were what did all of this from the start.” Thomas had learned that just because someone looked like a nerd in a lab coat didn’t mean they were harmless. Hell - he’d been one of those nerds. “And they must have had a backup plan. A meeting point after the evacuation - somewhere they could regroup, rebuild…” His brow furrowed and he frowned.

“You could ask Teresa.”

“Hmm?” Thomas looked up, still lost in thought.

“Teresa. She’s here, you know.”

“She is?”

“Well where else would she be? She fixed you and Newt up on the Berg, so we brought her along. There aren’t a lot of people with us who know even the basics of medicine so she was too valuable to leave behind. Besides, she wanted to come.”

“I…can’t believe that.”

Minho gave him an odd look. Thomas didn’t know what to make of it, so he turned his head to look back at Newt, half expecting those brown eyes to be open and a sarcastic reprimand dancing on the tip of his tongue. But Newt was still asleep.

“I wish he would wake up,” Thomas murmured.

“Me too, buddy. Me too.”

Minho sounded so tired. Thomas looked up at his other friend and finally noticed the dark circles around his eyes, the way his black hair looked rumpled and a little greasy.

“How long has it been since you slept?”

“Not long. Couple hours.”

“In a bed,” Thomas added, raising an eyebrow. Minho chuckled, shaking his head, knowing he’d been caught.

“I just don’t feel right leaving him alone.”

“I’ll stay with him. You should get some rest.”

“Well I can’t sleep now, shank, it’s the middle of the day.” Minho waved a hand, cutting off Thomas’s protests. “Besides, you need to go get something to eat. Frypan’s all set up in the galley - that’s what you call a kitchen when it’s on a ship, apparently. Go ahead, get something to eat, stretch your legs. When you come back I’ll be ready to sleep. Good that?”

“Good that,” Thomas said after a moment, smiling a quiet smile at the Glader slang. Minho was always good for bringing up pleasant memories of the brief time he’d spent there. Newt would have appreciated it, too.

Thomas rubbed a hand over his eyes. He felt like he was slowly going crazy; why did it seem like every thought led back to Newt? Maybe he needed some air. He definitely needed to meet up with some of the other people from their group, check on everyone, see how they were holding up.

He felt guilty. At some point, he wasn’t sure when, it felt like all of his priorities had shifted. But he couldn’t keep acting like the only thing in the world that mattered was Newt.

Maybe it was because Newt had always been able to take care of himself. Hell, even when his body and mind were being corrupted with the Flare he’d still managed to keep up with Thomas in their desperate bid to free Minho from WCKD. So seeing Newt helpless like this was just a shock to his system that would wear off soon.

That was why Thomas’s thoughts kept returning to his best friend in an almost obsessive manner. That had to be why.

Air. Air would be good.

“I’m gonna go find everyone else, check in with them. Maybe try to figure out this maze of a ship,” Thomas chuckled, as he carefully levered himself up out of the chair.

“And eat!” Minho tossed a reprimanding gaze at him, and Thomas held up a hand in surrender, nodding.

“And eat. Promise.”

Thomas stepped out of the room, pausing to let his eyes adjust again. He went right this time, seeking the outer edge of the ship so he could start mapping it out in his mind. He knew Vince’s plans almost as well as Vince himself and it would take them a few more days at sea before they reached the promising stretch of shoreline where they would try to build their new home. Might as well learn the layout of the ship early on so he didn’t get lost.

He spotted a couple of familiar figures along the railing, but as he got closer he had to resist the urge to stop and rub his eyes. Was he seeing things? Or was that really Brenda and Gally leaning on the railing, close enough that their shoulders almost touched?

“Hey, shank,” came Gally’s rough greeting. Thomas looked down, and saw that Gally was holding his hand low and making a move on, move on gesture down by his thigh. Thomas was too slow on the uptake, though, and Brenda noticed him, breaking away from Gally to sweep him up into a hug.

He returned the gesture, a bit dumbfounded at the open intimacy displayed by the young woman who normally presented such a tough exterior to the world - by necessity, he knew, having grown up in the Scorch.

“This is a once in a lifetime offer, pal, so enjoy it,” she said, as if reading his thoughts, squeezing him in her arms before stepping back to punch him lightly in the arm. Now that was the Brenda he knew. “Glad to see your lazy ass finally up and ready to help out.”

Thomas chuckled.

“You two don’t seem too busy at the moment.”

Brenda gave him a feral grin.

“Actually, we just talked to Vince this morning. Gally and I are heading up security in the new place - gonna call it the Safe Haven, by the way,” and she rolled her eyes as if she didn’t believe Vince’s paradise would live up to its name. “Gally and I were just going over logistics.”

“Right,” Thomas said, teasing, his gaze flicking up to Gally. “Logistics. Of course.”

Gally rolled his eyes.

“Check on your boyfriend, yet?”

Thomas’s throat closed up. His mouth fell open, emitting nothing but a strangled sound. What?

“Hey, ease up on the guy.” Brenda jumped to his rescue, now turning to punch Gally in the arm, with a bit more force this time. Thomas was still incapable of speech so Brenda decided to fill the silence. “I saw Newt earlier today, he’s looking good.” What she didn’t say was for getting stabbed in the chest and for almost being a total crank, though Thomas heard it in her tone.

“Yeah,” he croaked out, finally regaining the faculty of speech. “He’s…he’s alright. Hasn’t woken up yet. Hoping he will soon.” And that was about all he wanted to say about Newt, for now. After all, he’d come out here to clear his mind of all the confusing things he felt when he thought about his best friend.

“He will,” Brenda said confidently. Thomas noticed that Gally didn’t have much to say on the subject. Thomas still wondered about the man sometimes. He was sure Newt would have some insight into how Gally’s mind worked; after all, he’d known Gally for a long time before Thomas showed up in the Glade.

But to Thomas, the guy was sort of mysterious, and still kind of a prick.

“Well,” Thomas said, after an awkward pause, “I’ll leave you two to talk about your…logistics. Thought I’d see the ship, check up on everyone else.”

Brenda laughed softly at that.

“Everyone is fine, Thomas,” she said, a fond note in her voice, though Thomas thought it was also slightly chiding. “You don’t need to ‘check up’ on anyone. But,” she continued, cutting Thomas off before he could interrupt her, “If you want to see Frypan he’s in the galley, up that way,” she jerked a thumb towards the bow of the ship. “Vince is on the bridge, a level up. And Jorge is back there,” she gestured toward the stern, “Working on Bertha.”

“We’ve got Bertha?” Thomas asked, incredulous.

“You didn’t think Jorge would leave her behind?” Brenda snorted. “Sure, we got Bertha. And a couple of Jeeps we managed to liberate from the Scorch. Gonna need some vehicles, wherever we’re goin’.”

Thomas nodded, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

“And…Teresa?”

Brenda’s amused smirk vanished into a cold, impassive mask.

“Up ahead.” She nodded off towards the bow. “Hardly talks to anyone. Didn’t think you’d be so keen on hooking back up with her, after everything.” And the tilt of her eyebrows told Thomas that Brenda really did mean that in every possible way it could be interpreted.

“I’m not - I just - ”

“Yeah, whatever, Thomas.” Brenda waved a dismissive hand, turning back to the railing. “Talk to you later.” And with that she turned her head and started saying something to Gally in a low voice so Thomas couldn’t quite catch it.

Thomas nodded, ignoring the very self-satisfied expression on Gally’s face as he moved on with a weak wave and a ‘see-you-later’ that Brenda coldly reciprocated.

Well. It seemed Teresa hadn’t managed to mend her reputation with his friends in the time since he’d fallen unconscious.

Thomas had to admit, as he made his way towards the bow, that he wasn’t really looking forward to speaking with Teresa. But he felt it was necessary. More than anything he had to know where she stood in regards to their entire operation. He wanted to know what WCKD’s fall-back plans were, and he wanted to know how often Newt would have to be given the serum to keep the Flare virus at bay.

He knew, vaguely, that Brenda had only needed one treatment but he still wasn’t ready to believe it could be that simple when it came to Newt. Nothing was simple when it came to Newt.

He found her exactly where Brenda said she would be, at the very bow of the ship, leaning hard against the rail. That cascade of wavy brown hair was hard to miss, shining in the midday sun despite the way it kinked and curled, probably due to the salt and humidity in the air.

Thomas took a deep breath. Then he sighed. Then, he finally closed the distance to lean against the railing next to Teresa. Even though he knew she saw him, her gaze remained fixed on the waves beyond the prow of the ship. A moment passed as they stood silently next to each other, before Thomas finally worked out what he thought he wanted to say, and ventured a greeting.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Tom.”

“Actually…” Thomas looked down at his hands, considering letting it go, then resolving to say what was on his mind. “I prefer Thomas.” He swallowed nervously, casting a sideways glance at Teresa. She was still looking out at the waves.

After a moment Teresa turned her head and gave him a long look.

“Thomas, then.”

He tried not to think about how sad she sounded.

“How are you?”

“I should be asking you that, Tom - Thomas.”

“I’m fine,” he said, truthfully. “A little sore. A little tired.”

Teresa didn’t respond so he cleared his throat, heart hammering in his chest.

“Thank you,” he said at last. Teresa looked at him again, her expression unreadable, so Thomas elaborated. “For what you did. For me. For Newt.” And that last, of course, was so much more important than anything else.

“Of course, Thomas.” Teresa fiddled with her hands, looking down at them as they hung out beyond the railing over the blue waters. “That’s what I do. I help people. I always have.”

Thomas bit back a retort.

“You used to, too.”

And of course, Teresa just had to go there.

“Teresa,” Thomas sighed. “I don’t want to fight.” Because that is what discussing that topic would inevitably lead to. What did it matter, anyway? Thomas couldn’t change the past. He and Teresa had both made their choices and this is where they’d ended up. Together, after everything, but not on Teresa or WCKD’s terms.

Thomas should have felt some sense of victory or power in that, but he didn’t.

“What do you want, Thomas?”

“I want…” He trailed off with a sigh, gathering himself for a proper reply. “I want a few things, alright, so just listen for a minute?” Teresa gave the barest hint of a nod, so Thomas plowed forward. “I want to know what WCKD is planning now. I want to know what to expect from them. And I want to know how to keep Newt…safe.”

Shit, he’d almost said sane. He supposed it meant the same thing.

“Newt is fine,” Teresa said quickly. Dismissively. Thomas felt his skin prickle at how careless her tone was. “We gave him the cure. He won’t need any more injections, Thomas, because of you.” She looked directly at him then, blue eyes piercing as a blade of ice. When Thomas obviously didn’t look as relieved as she expected she released a sigh.

“You don’t believe me,” she sad flatly. “Why?”

“Why me? Why my blood? It’s just weird.” Thomas couldn’t fathom how he could be so different from every other immune.

“I can’t tell you why, Thomas, only that it’s true. Your blood holds the cure. It’s the reason Brenda only needed one treatment. It’s the reason Newt is safe from the virus forever. And it’s going to save the world. If…”

“If?”

“If you’ll help me.” Teresa pinned him with her gaze. “I know we’re not on the best of terms, Thomas, and I know you hate WCKD. But you’ve won, alright? You’ve won.” She looked down at her hands again, expression bitter. “WCKD is gone. It’s just me and you, now. Like it was at the start. I think I can get a lab set up in this new place, and if I do all I’ll need is your cooperation. A weekly blood donation from you, and we can start stockpiling the cure.”

Thomas swallowed, hard. That didn’t sound so bad, of course, but Thomas had learned to be wary of making deals with people who worked for WCKD. Had learned to be wary of Teresa.

When the silence stretched on without an answer Teresa looked away, mouth twisting in disappointment as she gazed back out over the waves.

“So you really only care about your friends, then?” She asked. “You know that’s selfish, Thomas. There are so many more people out there who need help. Just because you don’t know them personally doesn’t mean they’re any less worthy.”

Thomas felt an angry flush creep up his neck.

“I would’ve been willing to help those people if it weren’t for how WCKD treated my friends,” he shot back. “I would’ve said yes just now, without hesitation, except WCKD has made me think that trying to help people I don’t know only leads to exercising a sick power over them. WCKD isn’t good, Teresa. They didn’t have to do what they did. They did it because they wanted to, because it made them feel good, not because it was what the world needed.”

“You’re wrong.”

“You’re wrong!” Thomas groaned in frustration. “Look, I appreciate what you did for me and Newt, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive you for betraying us. None of this would’ve happened if Minho hadn’t been taken and that was on you.”

Thomas had never meant to be so harsh with Teresa. She had been through so much, just like the rest of them. But she didn’t seem sorry for her actions at all and that rankled.

“If I could go back,” Teresa began slowly, not looking at him at first but then finally turning her gaze directly on him, “I would do it all over again. I would make the same choices, even knowing how they turned out.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Thomas muttered, scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

How could he think he could ever change Teresa’s mind? She’d been stubborn from the start, just as firm in her convictions as he had always been.

“I’m not saying no,” he clarified, when Teresa looked like she had more to say. She snapped her mouth shut, waiting for him to continue. “If what you say is true, if Newt and Brenda really are cured because of me, then I can’t say no. We’ll need to have that serum ready for everyone on this ship who isn’t an immune. And maybe…maybe make enough to send back. One day. But.”

He paused for emphasis, lifting a finger.

“I need to know what WCKD is planning. I can’t lead them back to us.”

“WCKD is gone,” Teresa said, and it was so bitter that Thomas was immediately inclined to believe her. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to challenge her, though.

“The evacuation?” He pressed. “Where did all of those scientists go? Wasn’t there a backup plan, in case the Last City fell? Wouldn’t they just regroup?”

“Not without Ava and Janson.” Teresa was toying with her sleeve now. Thomas had a hard time reading her expression. “The investors were already going to pull out before the attack. Ava had just bought us some time. But without her, the board will disband. Put their resources to better use - whatever that means to them.”

“And the scientists?”

“I don’t know, Thomas.” She was exasperated, now. “The evacuation plans weren’t public knowledge. Just take the data and specimens and get in the Bergs, and everything would be handled from there. That’s all I know. That’s all any of us knew. But wherever they are now, they’re not WCKD. They’re just a group of people, like us here on this ship, fighting for their lives in this awful world.”

A harsh cry cut through the air, and Thomas and Teresa both tilted their heads up to watch as an oil-black sea bird wheeled overhead.

Thomas didn’t know what to think. He believed that Teresa was telling him the truth - or, really, what she knew to be the truth. But he had the uneasy feeling that she hadn’t been told the whole truth herself. Maybe there was more to WCKD’s plans than she knew. The organization had always been bigger than Ava Paige and Janson.

Or maybe Thomas was wrong, and it was just the stress of the last year getting to him, making him paranoid, refusing to let him relax even though the danger had passed. He couldn’t be sure.

He would just have to hold both possibilities in his mind until one of them proved false.

Thomas sighed, again - he seemed to do a lot of that, when he was around Teresa - and pushed away from the railing. He hesitated, but realized he really didn’t have anything else to say. Teresa let him go without a word, looking back out at the ocean as if she could find some answers there.

Thomas scrubbed the back of his neck as he walked away. He couldn’t help the sinking feeling that Teresa was going to be a problem.

It wasn’t that he was afraid she was going to betray them again - there was no one to betray them to. But they all still had a long road ahead of them and a lot of work to do, and it wouldn’t be easy if Teresa held herself apart from everyone else. There was already animosity between her and his friends, and Thomas could see it causing problems later on.

And despite everything that had happened, Thomas still wanted Teresa to be happy. He wanted her to find her place among them again. She had already done some things to redeem herself - saving him (twice, if you counted getting out of the WCKD building and then surgery on his wound), saving Newt.

There was good in her. There always had been. Maybe now, with WCKD gone, she could finally stop feeling pulled between two different worlds. She’d made her choice to come with them, after all. She was on the ship. Maybe there was really nothing to worry about, and she just needed some time before she was willing to face people like Brenda and Gally.

Who…Thomas would probably have to have a talk with. They’d have to meet her halfway.

His stomach growled, a sudden pang of hunger cutting through his thoughts. He realized he had no idea when he’d last eaten and began making his way towards the galley. He’d get something to eat, then go back to relieve Minho of Newt Watch so his friend could get some much-deserved sleep.

He took a wrong turn at one point and had to stop and ask a few of the immune kids for directions. He didn’t know any of their names but they seemed to know who he was. After pointing him in the right direction one of them even asked about Newt, but Thomas just gave them a noncommittal answer about him needing more rest.

By the time he finally reached the galley Thomas was feeling more tired than hungry. However, the minute he stepped over the threshold into Frypan’s territory, he was met with an exuberant hug, Frypan’s wide smile breathing life into him again.

Frypan was in his element. Even more so than could be said for him back in the Glade. The guy had to have been a cook or chef or something in his life before the Maze. The way he moved around the kitchen, tossing ingredients onto the cutting board, twirling utensils, shaking and stirring pots and pans that steamed and wafted delicious aromas all around the space made Thomas smile, and he didn’t stop until Frypan sent him on his way with a bowl of rice and stir-fried veggies that he proceeded to wolf down in a nanosecond.

The guy’s joy was infectious, and Thomas felt lighter than he had all day. He finished the food just as he was reaching the door to Newt’s room and set the bowl down on an empty chair, feeling like a new man.

“Maaan,” Minho drawled, “Going off the look on your face I guess I better get myself some of whatever Frypan’s cooking before it’s all gone.”

Thomas noticed that Minho was still sitting in the same chair beside Newt’s bed, in nearly the same position as when he’d left. It looked like Minho hadn’t moved at all.

“Guess you’d better,” Thomas grinned. “Pretty sure his stir fry healed me.” He looked down at the gunshot wound and lifted the edge of the bandages as if checking to see that it was still there. Then he shrugged. “Ahh well. Almost.”

He walked over and clapped Minho on the shoulder and winked.

“Go on then. My turn to watch sleeping beauty here.”

“Hey, maybe you can wake him up with a kiss.”

Thomas felt his face doing all sorts of things while his brain short-circuited.

“Sorry man, sorry! Just a joke.” Minho did look sorry he’d said anything and beat a quick retreat from the room after that. All Thomas could do was collapse into his vacated chair and try to sort out all the different things that little joke had made him feel.

Which he quickly gave up, because it was impossible.

Combined with Gally calling Newt his ‘boyfriend’, Thomas felt like he’d been thrust out over a precipice with nothing to grab onto. He was teetering over the edge into an atom-smashing realization that would warp the very fabric of spacetime in his little pocket of the galaxy and he wasn’t ready for that, not one bit.

Shove it down. Shove it down and refuse to look at it and never, ever speak of this again.

It was the only solution.

Thomas leaned back in the chair and time started to pass. After a while his leg started bouncing up and down. He wondered how Minho had dealt with the boredom for the past two days. There was nothing to do. He cast a glance around, saw a worn deck of cards lying on the bunk near Newt’s knees. Thomas grabbed them.

The cards were soft, the edges frayed. He frowned as he palmed them around, trying to shuffle them while ignoring how gross limp paper felt in his hands. The salty sea air was getting to them, he wagered.

What card games could you even play alone? He’d seen Brenda entertaining herself with cards on a few of the many nights they had all spent together in the Scorch while planning their rescue mission. It had something to do with laying them out in rows but Thomas didn’t know the rules. He’d never asked and he kicked himself mentally for it now. He was going to go crazy with nothing to occupy his time, but he refused to leave Newt alone.

He put the deck of cards on the floor near his chair and crossed his arms. With nothing to do, in the silent room that swayed ever so slightly and still recovering from his injury, Thomas started to feel drowsy. He figured he’d let himself doze off, since it was a way to pass the time.

Newt seemed fine. He still had that light fever but it didn’t look serious. Thomas was really just here to make sure he wasn’t alone if he woke up.

When he woke up. When.

* * *

Thomas jolted awake, his feet slamming onto the ground from where he’d had them propped up on another chair as he looked wildly around the room.

For a moment he had no idea what had woken him up or why his heart was hammering in his chest.

Then he heard it: muttering.

“Newt?” He scooted his chair closer until his knees were hard up against the bunk, leaning over to see if his friend was awake (and keeping his hands, for the moment, firmly rooted on the chair). He frowned. Newt was breathing heavily. His eyes were closed but he suddenly shifted, his head tilting to the side.

“I can’t…I can’t…”

“Newt! Hey, can you hear me?” Thomas reached out and touched his shoulder. He didn’t want to try shaking Newt awake because that might hurt him, so he just squeezed his shoulder a couple of times. It didn’t have any effect. Newt kept muttering, some of it just broken syllables under his breath, but some of it was louder, coherent words and even a phrase or two.

“I can’t - ”

“Can’t what? Newt, you’re okay, it’s okay.” Thomas reached down and grabbed Newt’s hand, realized his friend’s hands were shaking.

“Please.” It was a dry sob. “Please, no, I can’t.”

“It’s okay,” Thomas whispered, feeling his heart break. Newt’s face was scrunched up, in fear, in pain. Thomas rubbed the back of his hand, not caring anymore about maintaining distance or plausible deniability, he just wanted to make his friend feel okay again.

But he didn’t know how to help him, or what was even wrong. Newt looked like he was still asleep, so was it a nightmare?

Seemed like a pretty bad one.

“I can’t - please, stop, please…go away…”

Newt’s eyes flew open. He tried to sit up but fell back with a grunt, a hand coming up to cover the bandages over the knife wound in the center of his chest.

“Woah! Hey!” Thomas put his hands on Newt’s shoulders until it looked like his friend wasn’t going to try sitting up again. “Easy there, don’t - don’t…”

He realized he was smiling.

“Shit, Newt, it’s good to see you awake,” he said, voice shaky with relief as he sat back in the chair, putting his hands on his knees.

“Tommy,” Newt panted, “I don’t understand.” He was pulling in ragged breaths and wincing with each inhale, then stuttering out an exhale. It sounded like his breath was hitting the back of his throat each time he breathed in and Thomas’s smile vanished. His mouth was suddenly dry and he licked his lips as he tried to decide how to answer that, where to start. But a sudden outburst from Newt cut him off.

“Why did you save me?” The deep, accented voice was rough and surprisingly loud. He sounded angry. “I was going to kill you! I tried - ”

His hand moved on the bandage, fingers jerking as they balled into a fist.

“That wasn’t you,” Thomas said softly. He looked down at his hands, guilt riding up to grip him tight around the throat. “And anyway, I didn’t save you,” he admitted. “Minho did.”

“Stupid bloody slinthead shank shuck-faced twat, I’m going to - ”

Thomas couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. And he was relieved to see a bit of the anger drain out of Newt’s face as his friend watched him laugh, before his eyes rolled to look up at the bunk overhead.

“Sorry, Newt. It’s just good to hear your voice.”

“Even when I’m cussing you out? Because you’re next.” Newt winced and rubbed his chest, breath hitching again as he seemed to be trying to find a steady rhythm. “Bloody fuck, can’t breathe properly ‘round this.”

Thomas thought he did sound out of breath, but it was still better than on the Berg.

Newt was getting better. It still felt almost like a dream, like more than he could have ever asked for.

“Just take it easy for now. Maybe save the cussing out for later.”

“No. Not a chance, greenie, not when you’re sittin’ there with a badge of stupidity all your own.” Newt pointed to the bandage around Thomas’s chest. “What the fuck did you do and who do I have to kill - shit.” Newt’s eyes went wide and his voice dropped in volume until it was almost a whisper.

“Did I do that?”

“No!” Thomas was quick to reassure him. “No, it was Janson, he shot me.”

“Shot?!” Newt’s voice cracked. “Bloody hell Tommy you went and got yourself shot? Leave you alone for two seconds and…”

Newt’s voice had grown thin by the end as he ran out of air and he had to pause to suck in a breath. Thomas took the chance to jump in.

“Seriously, Newt, you need to calm down. Breathe. Stop talking so much.” Thomas was a little puzzled at the continuous outbursts. He supposed Newt was just scared and confused and it was easier to translate that into anger. But he wished his friend’s face wouldn’t twist in frustration like that.

Still, he nodded.

“Tell me what happened, then. From…from getting Minho out. From the jump. After that there’s…bits and pieces, but I’m not sure.”

So Thomas told him everything.

The fever getting worse. Carrying Newt through the city. Minho and Gally leaving to get the serum, Newt collapsing on the pavement. Their fight. The knife. The cure. The Berg. Thomas even held up the necklace which had fallen onto the bed, telling Newt he hadn’t opened it.

Newt looked at him strangely then, but took the necklace back without a word, sliding it into his pocket.

At a certain point Newt’s eyes began to drift close.

“Sorry, Tommy,” he mumbled. “Bloody tired.”

“S’alright. Get some sleep.”

“Been sleepin’.”

“Well, clearly you need more.” Thomas would’ve loved for Newt to stay awake - he didn’t feel like he’d gotten to spend nearly enough time with his best friend since nearly losing him - but more than that he wanted what was best for Newt.

“Hmm.” Newt mumbled something else.

“What was that?”

No response. Newt had already fallen asleep.

Thomas sighed, and leaned back in his chair, scrubbing a hand over his face.

He didn’t know why, but that interaction had taken a lot out of him. Maybe it was just the stress-relief-stress tug-of-war that was wearing him out.

When Minho came in a few hours later Thomas left only long enough to grab his things from the other room and move in to take up a bunk in the same room as Newt. He didn’t plan on leaving his friend alone again anytime soon. By then he was well and truly exhausted and it was barely even past sunset when Thomas fell into a deep and peaceful sleep.

Chapter Text

It was strange, waking up when he had been so certain he was going to die. Counted on it, even.

Going to the Last City to save Minho hadn’t started out as a suicide mission. But somewhere along the way it had turned into one, for Newt.

When he’d woken up to see Thomas sitting over him (the nightmare that had awoken him fading instantly from his mind), Newt had been so angry he wanted to cry.

Thomas had the worst case of results-oriented thinking Newt had ever seen. Just because everything had turned out okay in the end didn’t make him any less angry at the path they had taken to get there. And Minho was guilty of it, too. He had to remember that so he could yell at him, next.

(These constant little reminders to himself - remember, remember, remember - that was how he had lived these past few weeks. Memories were things Newt had learned not to take for granted anymore.)

He’d begged his friends to leave him behind. He’d given Thomas that letter (and the bugger hadn’t even bothered to fucking read it, could you believe that?) He’d turned the knife on himself (and how much concentration and effort that had taken, to twist that action out of his rotted crank mind, was painful to even think about) and as the darkness closed in Newt had finally felt a sense of victory - only to have that snatched away from him as he regained consciousness long enough to realize he was on the Berg.

Why didn’t his friends ever listen to him?

Didn’t they realize he simply couldn’t live with the possibility that he would hurt them? Kill them? Who would even want to live as a crank, anyway? He had known the serum was only a temporary relief and their supplies wouldn’t last forever so why bother to delay the inevitable?

He and Thomas had gotten Minho out. That was all that mattered. After that, all Newt had wanted was peace. Relief from the ache in his body, the itch in his brain that ignited searing rage that was so unlike him, so frightening, so difficult to control. Didn’t Thomas understand that the whole reason Newt had told him about his suicide attempt was to show him that Newt had already gotten his second chance?

It was more than enough for him.

He’d drifted off again with his unopened letter to Tommy burning a brand in his pocket hotter than the sting of the knife wound in his chest - a kind of hurt he couldn’t begin to explain and only wanted to forget.

This time though, when Newt woke up any sort of reprimand he had prepared for his slinthead friends died on his tongue.

He still felt slightly feverish so he figured he could blame that for the way the sight of Thomas simply sitting next to him arrested his thought, making his breath hitch in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the healing wound in the middle of his chest. Instead it opened up another one.

“Does your chest hurt?”

“Yes,” Newt answered, honestly, before he realized they were talking about two different kinds of pain. Tommy was worried about the knife wound, and that did still hurt, yes. But Newt was far more preoccupied with the way the sunlight cast a fuzzy halo around Tommy’s feather-soft brown hair and how the sight drove the breath out of his lungs and clamped a vice right around his heart.

Newt knew that he had feelings for Tommy. He’d known for a long time; maybe even since that first day together in the Glade. But he’d also known, instinctively, to repress those feelings. There had been so many reasons.

He’d seen the way the entire Glade had looked at Teresa when she came up in the Box, the first girl any of them had seen in going on three years. He knew he was supposed to like girls. He knew Tommy liked girls (heavily suspected that Tommy liked her). And even if he hadn’t there was really no room in their world for the things that he wanted with Tommy. Not when they were always on the run and fighting for their lives.

There wasn’t time for things like holding hands. Like staring into each other’s eyes. Like cupping Tommy’s jaw and trailing soft kisses down his throat, like finally pressing himself to Tommy’s chest and whispering into his ear all the fevered thoughts he’d ever had about how beautiful his eyes were, about their particular and inimitable shade of warm coffee-chocolate-hazel-with-golden-flecks-of-sunlight brown.

And even if there was time and Tommy didn’t like girls (or didn’t only like girls), he wouldn’t like Newt. Not like that.

They were friends, and they always would be. And nothing more.

Armed with all of these certainties, Newt had spent countless hours reminding himself of why his feelings for Tommy didn’t matter. Why he could never act on them and why he had to hide them, try to forget them. If he didn’t acknowledge those pesky feelings that hurt and smarted and stung like salt in a thousand tiny papercuts he hoped they would one day wither away and die and finally leave him in peace.

But it had been nearly a year since Thomas’s first day in the Glade, and here Newt was, struck speechless by the morning light pooling in those whiskey-honey eyes.

“Sorry,” Thomas said.

“Hmm?” Newt’s eyebrows drew together in confusion as he was dragged from his thoughts.

“That your chest hurts.” Why was Tommy smiling? Newt realized he was smiling, too.

“Oh. Right.” Newt carefully rearranged his expression, his smile disappearing into a casual mask. He shrugged, the nonchalance of the motion ruined by a wince. “No biggie.”

“No biggie?” Thomas chuckled. “So now being stabbed in the chest is ’no biggie’ for you, huh? Guess I don’t have to worry about you anymore. You’re basically Super-Newt.”

Newt rolled his eyes at the terrible joke.

“Well,” he said dryly, “It appears I’m simply no match for myself. Heh, who knows. Maybe third time’s the charm?”

Thomas’s smile disappeared and Newt instantly regretted saying anything.

“Sorry, Tommy. It was just a joke.”

“Yeah, I know.” Thomas made a brave attempt at bringing back the smile but it had lost a bit of its easy brilliance.

Newt glanced down and saw Thomas’s hands fidgeting in his lap as his leg bounced up and down. That was his Tommy: restless and impatient. Even when he was sitting down he was only really paused. A juggernaut arrested in motion, inertia pooling in his cells. Sometimes it frustrated Newt and he wanted to grab Tommy’s shoulders and shake all that excess energy out of him, rid him of his need to go, go, go, convince him to actually bloody rest and be truly still for once.

But then he wouldn’t be Tommy. And just as likely as it was to frustrate him it also made his own nerves fire in tandem with that juggernaut energy, opening up new avenues of heat and light and life and hope that Newt had never even realized he could feel.

It was one of Thomas’s many addicting qualities.

“How about you?” Newt flicked his wrist, pointing to Thomas’s side.

“I’m alright. No biggie.” Thomas grinned.

“Shank,” Newt said, laying his head back down and closing his eyes. Instantly he felt a hand on his shoulder and Newt opened one eye.

“M’alright, Tommy, just resting.”

“Sorry!” Thomas snatched his hand back. “Sorry, just…” He chuckled, running a hand through his hair.

“Don’t gotta be sorry. I’m sorry for worryin’ ya.”

“It’s just - are you sure you’re alright?”

“I am. Really. Just tired.” He cracked a grin. “Sorry I’m not hoppin’ out of bed yet. Believe me, I’d love to get out of here.”

“I just wish I could do something.” Thomas frowned, and Newt’s heart did a backflip when he saw the slight crinkle of worry in that adorable pert nose.

“I mean, I’m a mite peckish - ” Newt started, teasing even though he was actually rather hungry. Still, he hadn’t meant for Thomas to shoot out of the room like that. He was surprised the guy didn’t leave behind a cartoonish Thomas-shaped dust cloud in his wake.

Newt closed his eyes with a fond chuckle for his friend. Warmth suffused him before it settled pleasantly in his chest, somewhere deeper than the torn muscle and ravaged skin, where the pain didn’t reach.

Thomas came back with a bowl of something that smelled like heaven.

Newt must have visibly perked up because Thomas laughed as he approached and sat back down in his usual chair.

“Now I’ve got your attention,” he teased. “Won’t be falling asleep on me as long as I’ve got this in my hand!” And he waved a hand over the rim of the bowl, jokingly, as if wafting the aroma over to Newt.

“Just shut up and hand it over,” Newt retorted, starting to gather his arms under himself in an attempt to sit up. Thomas watched him struggling for about half a second before he placed the bowl on the ground and slipped an arm under Newt, helping him to sit up and prop his back against the wall. Then Thomas frowned and before Newt knew what was happening he’d pressed his hand against Newt’s forehead, feeling his temperature.

Newt was keenly aware of Thomas’s hands on him the entire time, although the blush that crept up his neck was mostly embarrassment at having to be helped into a sitting position. He distinctly did not like feeling this helpless. But he was also, paradoxically, pleased to be the object of Thomas’s attention, his concern.

As much as he wished he didn’t feel that way, he did. And every second Thomas spent looking at him and fussing over him made Newt’s heart soar - and alternately crash as he forced himself to face the fact that Thomas did not, would never, feel the same way about him. Which meant that he couldn’t allow this. He had to protect himself.

“Ya fussin’ over me, Tommy?” Newt refused to meet Thomas’s eyes, knowing that the words had a slight edge to them that was more than just friendly teasing. They were distancing. He just needed some distance, some space to breathe so he could learn to do so without Tommy.

Thomas jerked his hand back, a blush creeping up his neck. But his eyes were challenging.

“Aren’t I allowed to?” After everything, he didn’t say, but the unspoken words hung in the air between them.

Newt relented.

“Yeah, yeah. Well then what’s the verdict, Doctor Thomas?” He asked, mockingly serious.

And just like that any malicious intent born of the need to protect himself drained away, and suddenly they were back to their easy banter. It had always been so easy, talking to Thomas.

“You’ll live,” Thomas said, grinning. Then he bent down to pick up the bowl and hand it to Newt. Thomas’s hand lingered until he was certain Newt could hold it in his lap, and their fingers clumsily brushed together.

Newt jerked away from the bolt of lightning that raced from his fingertip up his arm, taking a left turn at his elbow and striking directly at his heart.

Bloody hell, he hadn’t felt that intense of a reaction to Thomas’s touch since some time around their escape from Janson’s facility.

A bit of the soup spilled onto his lap before Thomas could steady the bowl with a little shout of surprise while Newt felt like his ears had caught fire. Thankfully the soup wasn’t too hot, though it did sting a little where it had spilled onto his thigh.

“Shit, sorry Newt!”

“No, that was my bad, no worries Tommy.”

“I’ll just - I’ll go get a towel or something…”

“No,” Newt said, a little too forcefully. He could only imagine that the bloody fool would try mopping him up himself and what Newt did not need in that moment was Thomas’s hands anywhere near his lap.

He picked up the spoon instead, lifting his eyebrows. See? It was alright. Everything was fine.

“It’s fine Tommy, really. Just let me eat, I’m bloody starving.”

“Okay.” Thomas sat back in the chair and Newt was momentarily distracted from the awkwardness of the situation as he started spooning the soup into his mouth. It was, and he was absolutely not exaggerating here, mind-meltingly delicious.

“Ohh, Frypan did good with this one,” he mumbled into the spoon, and heard Thomas laugh.

Newt had eaten half the bowl before his hand started to shake. He lowered his hand, metal spoon clattering against the rim of the bowl. His arm felt like jelly and he tried to control his frustration over how weak he still was.

“Here, let me help.” Thomas leaned over but Newt shook his head.

“I’m not lettin’ ya spoon feed me, Thomas.” He chuckled, but it was a hollow sound. He looked forlornly down at the rest of the soup before trying to raise the spoon again. Almost immediately his hand started to shake and he sighed, lowering the spoon so he didn’t spill any. When he looked up at Thomas, he saw a flat determination on the other boy’s face.

“Scoot over.” Before Newt could react Thomas had planted himself on the bed next to Newt, shoulder to shoulder and knees touching.

“Thomas - ” Newt warned.

“You’re not gonna get any better if you don’t eat.” Thomas put his hand on Newt’s, steadying his arm. Newt sighed but gave in - Thomas was right, he was still hungry and if he wanted to be able to do things like feed himself, good lord he was going to need the energy.

So he let Thomas hold his hand, helping him guide the spoon to his mouth and trying to push down the painful mixture of embarrassment and pleasure at having Tommy so close.

When the soup was gone Thomas took the bowl from Newt and set it aside. The warm soup settling in his now-full stomach was a pleasant sensation and Newt’s eyes immediately shuttered closed before he shook his head, trying to dispel the drowsiness.

“Hey, Newt?”

“Yeah, Tommy?” Thomas hadn’t moved from the bed yet and despite his best efforts Newt found himself leaning more and more into his shoulder, finding it hard to stay upright when he was so tired even though he was propped up against the wall. Thomas didn’t seem to mind, or even show any sign that he had noticed.

“When you woke up last time, you were pretty pissed.”

“Mmm, yeah.” Newt closed his eyes. He didn’t hear the hesitation in Thomas’s voice, he was too tired.

“Are you…feeling okay?”

Now the way he said that was strange enough for Newt to open his eyes, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” he said after a minute. “Yeah, ‘m alright.”

Thomas looked away, nodding, and Newt sighed.

“Y’don’t believe me.”

“No! I do. I believe you.”

“S’okay if you don’t. I get it.” Newt toyed with his sleeve, sitting up a bit straighter. He huffed out a humorless laugh, just a little breath of air. “Last you saw of me I was tryin’ to take your bloody head off. And even before that…I was quick to anger, snappin’ at you for no reason.”

He swallowed, hard, the words don’t lie to me ringing in his ears.

“I’m sorry, Tommy. I-I tried, but - ”

How could he ever explain the way the virus had taken away any choice he might have had? Looking back, Newt was disappointed in himself for not fighting harder, for not taking a step back and calming down when he felt himself getting angry.

“You don’t have to trust me right away,” Newt found himself saying, eyes downcast.

“Newt.” Thomas had turned to face him fully, even putting a hand on Newt’s knee. Newt looked up, meeting those hazel eyes, seeing an unshakeable faith there that rocked him to his core. “I will always. Trust you.”

Newt tilted his head, face suddenly hot with some inexplicable mixture of emotions that gripped his throat, made it difficult to speak.

“Really?” It was almost a whisper. “So every time I get angry now, you’re not gonna think about the Flare?” Another humorless little laugh. “I don’t blame ya. I can’t really believe it myself. That it’s really…gone.”

“It is gone.” Now Thomas’s hands were on his shoulders. Had Thomas always touched him this much? “I’m sorry I said anything. It’s okay to be angry sometimes, it doesn’t mean you’re sick. You’re not sick. You’re here and you’re okay.”

Sure. Keep telling yourself that, Tommy.

Newt swallowed back the bitter words, simply nodded. His chest hurt and he felt his eyelids drooping again. He hated it. He wanted to be present for this conversation, but he felt almost drunk with exhaustion.

Thomas seemed to notice, because he didn’t say anything else. He finally got up from the bed, guiding Newt back down so he could lay his head on the pillow, eyelids falling shut.

“Don’t know what I’d do without you, mate,” he murmured, already half asleep. “Sorry ‘m not myself.”

Newt wanted to be. So, so badly. He wanted to be back to his old self, strong and self-assured, calm and collected. He wanted to be up and prowling the ship, talking to his friends, heading off confrontations and conflicts, making plans for their new life, their new community. He wanted to be the one to lay a hand on Tommy’s shoulder when the other boy needed perspective. He wanted to be Newt again.

“You are,” Thomas said forcefully. “You will be.”

Newt was too tired to point out that those were contradicting statements.

* * *

“Do you think you’re well enough to get out of bed?” Thomas asked when he came to visit the next day, voice painfully hopeful. “I really want to show you something.”

As if Newt could ever deny Thomas anything.

“Course, Tommy,” Newt mumbled, ignoring (as best he could) the way his heart ached at the puppy-dog excitement that lit up Thomas’s face.

“I’ll help you,” Thomas said quickly, moving to put a hand around Newt’s shoulders as he slowly sat up.

Newt’s recovery was going well. Teresa had performed the emergency stitches on the Berg but Newt hadn’t seen her since. Instead, a couple of people from Vince’s old group - Molly and Quentin - had taken charge of caring for the injured. They had both been nurses at some point, and they’d made sure his dressing was changed and monitored him for infection. Newt suspected they had even administered some sort of painkiller or sedative that first day, otherwise he wasn’t sure how he could have even talked around the intense pain that spread out from his sternum to wrap around his spine.

It had been a few days, but it was still hard. Newt probably wouldn’t have wanted to see or speak to anyone at all if it hadn’t been Minho or Tommy. The pain was still there, like someone was trying to crack open his chest. Every time he drew in a breath it felt like his ribs were pulling apart. And he was still so bloody tired.

Apparently it took the body a while to make up for losing that much blood, but by the end of the third or fourth day (maybe even fifth - Newt wasn’t really sure and didn’t care enough to ask) he was definitely sick of his bed.

So he swung his legs over the side of the bunk while Thomas bent down to thread one arm around Newt’s waist as he pulled Newt’s left arm over his shoulder. It hurt, but Newt thought he hid it well, and soon he was levered up and on his feet for the first time since the Last City.

“What bloody time is it, anyway?” Newt mumbled as they made their way slowly across the room towards the door, stifling a yawn.

“Early.” Newt lifted an eyebrow at the vague-sounding answer.

The air outside of his stuffy recovery room was completely different. Newt was hit with a cool breeze that twined itself like deft fingers between the folds of his hair, sliding along his scalp. He immediately drew in a deep breath as a pleasant shiver worked its way down the back of his neck.

He smelled salt, rusted metal and diesel fumes. And Tommy.

They were in one of the narrow passageways of the ship and Thomas steered them to the left. Newt could see the railing up ahead, and beyond it a pink sky.

“Sunrise, Tommy? Really?”

Thomas just grinned.

Outwardly Newt rolled his eyes with an expression of humoring the other boy. But Newt did put a bit more effort into his shuffling steps, excitement taking hold as he realized he hadn’t seen anything outside of his little room yet, as he realized he was about to see the ocean for the first time that he could remember.

As they neared the railing, Newt’s jaw dropped.

He lifted his arm from Thomas’s shoulder and took the last steps himself until his hands were wrapped around the cold railing, eyes wide as he drank in the view.

“Oh, Tommy…”

The wind was brisk and strong out here and it lifted Newt’s hair completely, tugging it up as if it were as light as spun sugar, as if the wind could tease it apart and send it swirling up to mix with the sky that was alight in salmon-pink-peach fire.

Newt thought he had never seen so many colors before.

There was so much damn sky to look at that he barely registered the ocean below, mirroring the sunrise-addled clouds and throwing back reflections of burnt orange and tongue-pink and flesh-rubbed-raw red. There were yellows - harsh, sour lemon and soft dandelion and rich fire-cast gold. There were pinks, all the shades of pink Newt never could have imagined existed.

His mind was reeling for something to compare them to, some frame of reference. And to his complete and utter chagrin his thoughts turned immediately and unbendingly towards Thomas.

He saw the dark, bruised purple-pink of Thomas’s lips. He saw the dusky shade of pink Tommy’s cheeks turned when he blushed. He saw the pale rose of Thomas’s fingernails. He even saw the angry, dull russet of Thomas’s sunburns in the Scorch.

Newt inwardly cringed. He wasn’t allowed to think these thoughts. He drummed his fingers on the railing and finally tore his eyes away from the sky to look directly down at the water below them churning against the hull of the ship.

He could lose himself in this - watching the water slip by. It was endless, it was fluid, it was a perfect loop and it called to some deep, guarded part of his soul. He focused on the sounds he could hear in that very moment. The deep churning of engines, the slap and slosh of the water, the wind snapping at his and Thomas’s clothes, and birds, birds calling in the distance.

Newt lifted his gaze, picked out the black silhouette of one of the wheeling sea birds, like a spot of ink against a riot of fire-threaded sky.

“We’re really out here,” he whispered. Expression still registering shock, Newt turned to look at Thomas and found that the other boy was looking at him.

All thoughts of the sea and sky and ships and sea birds and sunrises immediately fled Newt’s mind, because in that moment Newt knew with absolute certainty that Thomas had never looked at him that way before.

Chapter Text

Thomas was transfixed.

His heart had leapt into his mouth and fallen still. He wasn’t certain he was breathing anymore.

Newt, leaning against the railing, eyes wide as he scanned the horizon, mouth open into a tiny little ‘o’ of wonder and joy, was the single most beautiful thing Thomas had ever seen.

Sure, he was still a touch too pale. And Thomas could see the slight tremor in his hands as they gripped the railing. He’d felt the way Newt had leaned into him on the short walk from his bed. He knew that objectively Newt had seen better days but that moment, that exact moment when Newt realized how wide and free their world had become, when Thomas could just sit back and watch him drink it all in with eyes as clear as a cloudless sky, without the virus rampaging through him, without the inconveniences and difficulties of the Maze and the Scorch weighing him down…

Thomas wanted to give him this. He wanted to give Newt everything.

In that moment, Thomas felt like he’d finally won.

He could have stood there staring at his friend forever. Forever and ever and ever as the stars spun overhead and the rust crept up from the sides of the ship to wrap around Thomas and crack him open so he could spill out into this moment. He wanted to break apart his own molecules and pour himself into Newt’s lungs.

And then Newt turned his gaze on Thomas.

His heart immediately sprang to life again, slipping down his throat to nestle tremulously in his chest like the rapidly-beating breaths of a small and frightened creature. He wanted to look away. He didn’t want to look away. He couldn’t look away.

For just a second, he considered it. Taking that step towards Newt, closing the distance and kissing him all in one fell swoop. He felt himself teetering on the edge of that precipice again, knowing that anything could send him reeling into empty air and then it would simply be gravity doing all of the work. A force of nature, inexorable and unyielding as it sucked away the treacherous distance between his mouth and Newt’s.

Thomas considered it, with thoughts like this is the perfect time, everything is so calm and beautiful, and I wasted so much time already, I can’t let another second go by without him knowing, without trying.

It was almost enough.

Thomas’s muscles even twitched into the micro-fraction of a step towards the blonde man holding on to the railing, his partner and best friend.

But then he saw something flicker across Newt’s face that stopped him in his tracks.

Thomas never felt like he really understood people the way Newt did, and he felt his inadequacy in that moment as he struggled to understand exactly what that expression had meant and why it had stopped him so suddenly. Thomas was still thinking about it when Newt looked away, and all of the hope and excitement that he hadn’t realized had been pooling in his chest drained away.

The moment was gone. If there had even been a moment to begin with. It had probably just been him.

Thomas looked out at the ocean, turning fully away from Newt with his heart in his throat.

Of course, there was no way that Newt could ever feel for him the things that Thomas was just now realizing he felt for Newt.

It hit him like a cold splash of water as on the heels of that thought, Thomas realized that he had been about to kiss Newt.

Newt. His friend. His best friend. The person he trusted most out of anyone in this world, who wasn’t afraid to call him out when he wasn’t thinking things through, who was always there to remind him of the bigger picture, who he trusted with his life.

He had been about to try to kiss him and potentially ruin all of that.

Thomas cringed. His mind skittered away from the what-ifs: how awkward and terrible everything would have been afterward, if he had tried to kiss Newt and Newt had rejected him. The look of confusion or disgust or even worse, pity on Newt’s face as he told Thomas he didn’t think of him like that.

What they already had was so special, Thomas couldn’t bear the thought of losing it.

And then, just barely skirting around the edge of his conscious thought, hardly even worth acknowledging, was the realization that Newt was the first boy Thomas could ever remember being attracted to. And he figured that at some point he should really look into that and face what it meant but that time was not here and not now so he pushed it away.

He tried to push it all away: the cold morning wind raising goosebumps on his neck, his jaw, the soft skin below his ears, all the places he wished he could feel long fingers tracing along his skin, strong hands wrapping possessively around his nape…

Nope. Not thinking of that.

But then…

Hope.

“Tommy.”

Thomas glanced at Newt out of the corner of his eye, not trusting himself to turn fully towards him again for fear that he’d succumb to that abandoned pulling sensation, like Newt was a black hole and Thomas an unwitting galaxy tumbling into his depths.

He saw Newt fiddling with his sleeve, fingers flexing in and out as if he wanted to be wringing his hands.

Thomas swallowed in a dry throat, unable to marshal a single word in response.

As if in slow motion, Newt angled his head towards Thomas, mouth opening to impart some form of wisdom that Thomas would hang onto with every fiber of his being -

When a loud, baritone bellow shook the deck, vibrating in his lungs and causing both Thomas and Newt to whip their heads around looking for the source.

It was the ship’s horn, and a mere second after the drawn-out monstrous intonation ceased there rose a cheer from all the rag-tag residents of the ship, lifting their voices from wherever they stood in a single, shrill and high-pitched cry of victory, while both Newt and Thomas scanned the decks and then locked eyes with each other, struggling to understand.

It was Thomas who finally pointed it out to Newt: a long, thin strip of shadow against the horizon, off the bow.

“The Safe Haven,” he whispered, hoarsely, throat suddenly closing with emotion as his wide eyes took in the sight.

It was just a strip of coastline, a barely-discernible fuzzy outline but to Thomas is represented everything. They’d all been made to hope that after everything there would be a light at the end of the tunnel. A place free of the harsh demands of the Scorch and the overbearing control and torturous experimentations of WCKD, a place safe from the pressing infected presence of the Crank hordes, a place where they could start over.

Despite all of that, Thomas knew that the only reason his heart soared at the sight was because he had Newt standing beside him.

Without Newt, it would have been nothing but an empty promise.

A safe place…to mourn. A place to watch as others began their new lives. A place of emptiness and stale promises and rotten dreams. A place where he would have had to go on, without hope, without light, without life.

That reality had surrounded him, suffused him, broken him in the time between Newt stabbing himself and when Thomas woke to find him recovering in another room on the ship.

That was a time when Thomas had wanted nothing to do with the Safe Haven. When it hadn’t meant hope to him - it had meant stagnation. It had meant failure. And every promise tumbling from Vince’s lips had rung hollow, had been a waxy seal on Thomas’s grief.

No more.

No more would the Safe Haven be an empty promise.

Because he had Newt right here beside him, even if the other man would never think of him in the same way. Even if he never got to touch Newt, even if he never learned how his cool, pale skin felt under Thomas’s palms, even if those eyes would never haze over in pleasure and love for him - Newt would still be there.

Their friendship would carry them through, and Thomas would be happy.

A minute passed in silence, during which Newt didn’t once take his eyes off of the smudge of coastline on the horizon. Thomas had to wonder what he was thinking. He didn’t look particularly happy, or unhappy - but really, he could be feeling anything under that unreadable expression.

Thomas felt like he knew Newt better than anyone else on Earth, but that didn’t mean it was always easy to tell what he was thinking. Newt had depths to him that Thomas wasn’t certain he’d ever fully reach. If he did, it would only be because the blonde man decided to open himself up to Thomas.

Thomas just hoped that one day he would earn it.

“Never thought…” Newt began in almost a whisper, trailing off with a guilty look in Thomas’s direction. Thomas furrowed his eyebrows. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the thud-thud-thud of running footsteps.

“Now there’s my two favorite shanks!”

Minho breezed up to them and clasped a hand on Thomas’s shoulder before turning to give Newt a long look over. Before he could say anything, Newt leveled a look at him and drawled,

“Now you’re not gonna start fussin’ over me too, are ya?” His raised eyebrow challenged Minho to respond in the affirmative.

Which, of course, he did.

“I’m always gonna fuss over my little Newtie,” he said, reaching up to pinch Newt’s cheeks with both hands. The corresponding eye-widening shock from Newt instantly had both Minho and Thomas bent over with laughter.

Man, this felt good.

Thomas wondered if he’d ever be able to look at Newt and Minho again without an overwhelming upswell of emotion that stung his eyes and seized his throat.

It took him a moment to realize that Newt and Minho had already gone ahead and started a conversation while he was caught up in his sappy thoughts. He wondered if that extra-sappiness he seemed prone to nowadays was a side effect of blood loss, or maybe a bit of residual lead from the bullet making him crazy.

“…long until we get there?” That was Newt.

Minho shrugged.

“You’d have to ask Vince, man, I don’t really understand all this boat stuff.” Minho squinted at the horizon. “It looks far away but I have no idea how fast we’re going.”

“Hmm.” Newt didn’t seem pleased with the answer. He tilted his head, golden eyebrows flattening into a straight line. “And what’re we meant to do when we arrive? Is there a plan in place? Or are we all just gonna gawk at it from the ship?” Newt cast an appraising look over the railing, at the side of the ship, and frowned.

“Ship like this needs a port,” he muttered. “A…dock, something. Don’t know how we’re supposed to get off the bloody thing. Jump over the side and swim? What about the vehicles? The medical equipment?”

Minho just shrugged again, but Newt looked like he hadn’t been expecting a response, anyway.

“Let’s go, Tommy.”

“Huh?” Thomas blinked.

“Let’s go.” Newt jerked a shoulder impatiently, smirking at the confusion on Thomas’s face. “You’re my bloody legs for the moment, it seems, and I need to talk to the man in charge.”

Thomas spent exactly five seconds reveling in the fact that for once, that wasn’t him. But then Newt was moving away from the railing, hand going straight from its previous support to Thomas’s shoulder and he realized that his friend was shaking with the effort of holding himself up.

“Uh, no.” Thomas gripped Newt under the arm. “Sorry to break it to you, but you’re not going anywhere other than back to bed.”

When it looked like Newt was going to protest this injustice Thomas cut him off by shooting a direct look at Minho.

“Minho, back me up.”

“Sorry, shank.” Minho slid over to Newt’s other side, with a grin that said he was not at all sorry. “Maybe when you can actually stand up on your own we’ll let you go boss everyone around. Think of it as incentive for getting better.” And he winked at Thomas.

“You two are the worst,” Newt muttered, as his friends all but dragged him back to his room. “Mother hens, that’s what you are. Not even a week on this bloody cruise liner and you’ve already lost your edge.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Minho sounded unimpressed as he helped Thomas sit Newt back down on the bunk and left his hand on Newt’s shoulder, as if worried that he’d try to make his escape. “Talk tough all you want dude but if it was me or Thomas who just had a whole-ass knife sticking out of our chests less than a week ago you’d be doing exactly what we’re doing now.”

“Thomas got shot!” Newt jabbed an accusing finger in his direction. “And you - ”

“Me, nothing, I’m fine.”

“Slim it, Minho.” Newt looked more serious now. “WCKD had you for six months, don’t tell me that didn’t leave a mark.”

Thomas shot a glance at Minho, guilty that he hadn’t thought of that before. Minho caught the look and pulled his lips aside in a silent growl.

“Don’t you two even start. I’m fine. I would tell you if I wasn’t.”

“Liar,” Newt muttered, rubbing his chest. Thomas nodded his head furiously while tapping one finger on the end of his nose and pointing another at Newt. Yeah, what that guy said. Even if Minho’s leg was falling off he’d call it a scratch.

“Hope I’m not interrupting?”

All three boys turned their heads in unison at the sound of a female voice intruding on their banter.

A young woman stood in the doorway, her round face framed by a riot of blonde curls that fell to her shoulders. She had a pleasant smile, dimples in her cheeks beneath warm, brown eyes. There was a tray in her hands, laden with two large bowls along with spoons and a few medical-themed odds and ends - a thermometer, bandages and gauze.

Before Thomas could react Minho had leapt to his feet, holding his hands out and taking the heavy tray from her.

“Molly! No, you’re not interrupting anything. Here, let me help.”

Newt and Thomas exchanged a significant look. Minho certainly sounded…chipper.

“Oh! Thank you, Minho.” Molly responded with a brilliant smile as Minho took the tray and turned around to set it on the chair he’d previously been occupying. “If I’d known you were here I would’ve brought you breakfast, too.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“It’s alright. I’m not really a breakfast kind of guy.” Minho chuckled, hands on his hips.

“Hmmm.” Molly hummed as she moved forward, taking the thermometer from the tray and handing it silently to Newt. Thomas saw his friend look skeptically at the WCKD branding on the side of the instrument before putting it under his tongue and holding it there. “That’s too bad, you know,” she said, tapping a finger on her arm as she waited beside Newt’s bunk. “I’m heading over for breakfast myself after this and could use the company.”

“Well, I mean - ”

Thomas stifled a laugh. He looked at Newt and saw that he was grinning around the thermometer. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Minho flustered before but this came pretty close.

“You know I could, I could eat.” And Minho shrugged, far too nonchalant to be believed. “A little breakfast wouldn’t kill me.”

“No.” Molly smiled. “It certainly wouldn’t.”

Newt’s thermometer beeped.

Molly took it from him and nodded at the number, seeming satisfied. Then she pushed a bowl into Newt’s hands before turning to Thomas and ushering him to his bed, handing the other bowl to him.

Thomas liked Molly. He could see that she was one of those people who thrived on caring for others and thought that nursing must have been a perfect job for her before - well, whatever had happened that had landed her with the Right Arm.

Thomas ate quickly, shoveling the food into his mouth, while Newt ate more slowly and Molly leaned against the wall, chatting with Minho. Newt and Thomas exchanged glances every now and then, sometimes adding a word or two to the conversation, but both of them were happy to sit back and be ignored as whatever this new thing was played out between their friend and the pretty young woman.

Thomas finished eating and used his spoon to point to the roll of bandages on the tray.

“Who’re those for?”

“You. Well, both of you need new bandages, but I’ll start with you since you’re finished eating.” Newt had put his spoon down but quickly picked it back up as Molly leveled a gaze at him, eyebrows lifted in a gentle pleading expression and giving him a small, apologetic smile. “It would make me happier if you’d eat a bit more, Newt.”

Yeah. Thomas liked Molly.

“I’ll see you shanks later,” Minho said, pushing off from the wall. “You might be a good-lookin’ dude, Thomas, but I think I’ve seen you without a shirt enough for about ten lifetimes.”

“Jealousy is ugly on you, Minho,” Newt quipped. Thomas snorted and even Molly lifted a hand to hide her quiet smile as she drew a chair up beside Thomas’s bunk. Minho lifted a finger as if to say something, but then quickly retreated at the look in Newt’s eye.

“Alright,” Molly said briskly, though her mouth still tugged up into a smile, “Shirt off, let’s see how you’re doing.” Thomas complied while Molly pulled on a pair of gloves and started unwrapping his old bandage. Underneath, the stitches were tender, and…

“Oh, shit,” Thomas said, while Molly frowned and clucked her tongue.

“What is it?” Newt asked immediately, his voice calm but strained.

“He popped a couple of stitches,” Molly said, sitting back and sighing.

“It was me,” Newt said, before Thomas could even open his mouth. “Fuck, Tommy, you shouldn’t have let me lean on you like that, I never would have if I’d known - ”

“It’s alright.” Molly turned to Newt with a placid smile. “It’s not ideal but he’ll be fine, I just need to redo them. Go ahead and lie down, Thomas. Newt, I’m going to change your bandages first, then I’ll go get what I need and it’ll all be right as rain in a moment. But Thomas, please, do refrain from carrying anyone else for a few more days.”

As Molly changed Newt’s bandages he was glaring daggers over at Thomas, who could only look back with a sheepish grin as he raked a hand through his hair. He knew that as soon as Molly left the room, he’d be in for it.

“I can’t believe you, Thomas.” Newt’s voice was temporarily muffled as he pulled on his shirt. “All that fuss about me taking it easy and you’re not even taking care of yourself - although, really, I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Newt - ”

“No, don’t you Newt me, I’m bloody serious.” Newt pressed a hand to his chest in what Thomas thought was becoming a bit of a sad habit. He looked like he was trying to hold himself together and he wasn’t even aware of it. He frowned. “Can you just promise me to take care of yourself? I hate worryin’ about you all the time, it’s givin’ me a bloody headache.”

“You worry about me?” Thomas couldn’t help it; he grinned.

“Oh, don’t act so pleased.”

“Aww, you care about me.”

“Of course I do. Idiot.”

“Charming.”

“Everything I say is charming.” Newt pointed at his face. “It’s the accent.”

Thomas had to agree with him, there.

“And you still didn’t promise me.”

“Alright, alright. Promise.”

“Good.” Newt nodded. “And you would’ve known all that already if you’d read the bloody letter.”

“Letter?”

“In the necklace.”

“Really?” Thomas’s curiosity was piqued. Newt had written him a letter? He suddenly regretted not opening the necklace before he’d given it back. “Can I read it now?”

“Not bloody likely,” Newt chuckled, looking away, and Thomas could have sworn he saw him blush. Or it might have been his imagination.

“I’m getting a lot of ‘bloody’s out of you today.”

“Because you’re annoying me.”

If I’m annoying you, why are you smiling?

Molly picked that moment to return with needle and thread and a small cup of what smelled like antiseptic. She saw Thomas sitting up and clucked her tongue.

“Didn’t I ask you to lie down?”

“Sorry, Molly.” Thomas stretched out on the bunk, putting an arm behind his head. He felt it then, the way the edges of his wound pulled apart without stitches to properly hold them in place. He was bleeding slightly and Molly began by wiping that away. Thomas winced as she touched the injury, even though her hands were gentle.

“This’ll hurt a little,” she said, apologetically, as she began removing the broken bits of thread.

“Tommy’s tough,” Newt grumbled. “Go ahead and poke him, he deserves it.”

Thomas smiled, shaking his head.

Molly finished removing the old thread and began the new line of stitches. Thomas frowned, then winced. It really did hurt, but he just tried to relax and breathe through it. Every now and then she’d strike an extra-sensitive patch of skin and Thomas would take in a sharp breath.

He thought he heard Newt shifting on the other bunk, but he hadn’t said anything in a while.

Molly was almost finished when it happened.

Thomas had been distracted with some errant thought about Vince or Teresa or some other problem that was worrying at his mind, not paying the slightest bit of attention to what was going on around him, when Molly’s next stitch hit a nerve. He actually yelped, jolted out of his thoughts by a bright flash of pain.

He was just about to apologize to Molly, who looked like she’d been startled nearly out of her skin by the unexpected reaction, when a crash came from the direction of Newt’s cot. Molly whipped her head around and Thomas scrambled to sit up.

His eyebrows furrowed as he saw Newt standing, staring wildly at them, breathing hard.

“Newt?”

“Get away from him!” Newt started forward, stumbling over the bowl he’d dropped at his feet. Molly was out of her chair in an instant, needle and thread abandoned on Thomas’s lap.

“It’s alright,” she said, holding up her hands. “I’m not touching him.” She advanced towards Newt, fearless and calm as she reached out as if to steady him. He did look a little wobbly as he stood there, blinking at her. “You need to sit down.”

“Don’t - you hurt him.” Newt was shaking his head, brow furrowed. But he let her herd him back onto his bunk, plopping down as if all of the energy had drained out of him.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Molly slowly lowered herself to the bunk as well, sitting beside Newt who was now looking at his lap. She brought a hand up to feel his forehead, frowning.

Thomas licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry.

He had no idea what had just happened but he knew he didn’t like it. And he didn’t like the fact that he was still only mostly stitched up, that the needle and thread were still in his lap and that he couldn’t get up and close the distance between himself and Newt.

“Newt?” He ventured. “Are you okay?”

Newt nodded without looking up.

Thomas wanted to wipe that look of confusion right off his face but he didn’t know how. Or where it had come from. Why was Newt confused? Why had he reacted so strongly to Thomas’s little yelp of pain when just a moment ago he was egging Molly on to “poke him, he deserved it”?

“Sorry, Molly,” Newt said quietly. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Just tired, I guess.”

“It’s okay.” She smiled. She seemed completely unfazed, giving Newt a gentle squeeze on his shoulder. “But I need to finish up with Thomas now.” Her tone held an unspoken question. Was he going to be okay? Newt nodded.

“Think I’ll lie down.” And he did, dragging the pillow over his head and turning away from them.

“Newt - “ Thomas began, but was cut off by Molly making a slicing motion with her hand and shaking her head. He laid back with a sigh, rubbing his eyes. She was right, whatever had happened it didn’t seem that Newt was keen on talking about it now.

Molly quickly finished up the stitches and re-wrapped Thomas’s injury, then left the room without another word - just a quiet, sympathetic smile. It seemed she didn’t want to disturb Newt but Thomas knew his friend wasn’t sleeping. In fact, almost as soon as Molly left Newt turned over and came out from under the pillow.

“Newt,” Thomas tried again, “I’m sorry if I worried you, it didn’t really hurt that much - “

“I know.” Newt was stony-faced, his voice clipped. “Let’s not talk about it. Please.”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence for a moment before Newt cleared his throat, and hesitantly asked,

“Thomas…where is Minho?”

“He went to go get breakfast with Molly.” Thomas tilted his head, confused that Newt seemed to have forgotten something that had happened only a few minutes ago. Maybe he really was tired.

“Oh. Right.” Newt looked away, but not before Thomas caught the relief flashing quickly across his features. He opened his mouth to say something, but then reconsidered, instead furrowing his brow and frowning a bit as he puzzled over the interaction.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but something about Newt’s question had been…off.

Newt had fallen silent again and Thomas’s leg started bouncing. He felt an itch to do something but didn’t want to push Newt to talk, so eventually he stood up and put his shirt on.

“Where are you going?”

“To talk to Vince. You brought up some good points when you were talking to Minho earlier, figured I’d see if the man in charge has any answers.”

“Okay.”

Thomas had half expected Newt to say he was coming with him and had been prepared to tell his friend he needed rest. But, apparently, Newt was well aware of that, and didn’t try to move from the bunk.

“I’ll let you know what he says,” Thomas offered, feeling awkward.

“Alright. Thank you, Tommy.” Newt’s voice was flat. Thomas sighed, raked a hand through his hair, and left the room.

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. Vince greeted him warmly, with a firm handshake as he admitted that he was surprised it had taken Thomas this long to track him down. Thomas had laughed and made the excuse that he’d been too tired the past couple of days to leave his room for long. But really, he knew he hadn’t rushed to involve himself in Vince’s plans as soon as he’d woken up because he’d been too preoccupied with Newt.

Even now, as he leaned over the console in the bridge while Vince began to explain what he had planned for them all when they reached the Safe Haven, Thomas had trouble focusing. If it wasn’t one thought about Newt creeping into his brain, it was another. He was worried about the episode with Molly, but just as often as he thought about that, Thomas found himself imagining running his fingers through Newt’s hair.

He bet it was soft.

Vince might have noticed that his attention wasn’t all there because he stopped giving so many details, instead telling Thomas the broad strokes of what he’d need to know. Apparently everyone had already been assigned tasks for the first few days as they set up a temporary camp. After that, Vince planned to hold a town hall - the first of many - to suss out a more permanent routine.

Even though the strip of coastline was getting bigger, taking up more of the horizon and transforming from an indistinct smudge to a more defined shape, Vince didn’t expect them to arrive until tomorrow afternoon.

“Everyone else knows what to do to prepare for disembarking,” Vince had assured him. “But I just want you and Newt to rest.”

And Thomas hadn’t fought him on it, even though he knew that prior to his experiences in the Last City he absolutely would have. But now, he was just glad he was allowed to stay by Newt’s side for another day.

As he left Vince on the bridge Thomas was strangely nervous about arriving in the Safe Haven, but he couldn’t pin down why. Maybe it all seemed too good to be true. After everything, Thomas wasn’t certain he could ever take a happy ending for granted. Wasn’t sure he could believe in it, until he saw it with his own eyes. Held it in his hands.

Well. He’d find out soon enough if it was for real, this promised happily-ever-after.

After talking to Vince, Thomas considered going back to the room, but resisted the urge. He decided to give Newt some space - he’d been rather clingy the past couple of days. So he wandered the ship, eventually arriving at the stern where Jorge was hard at work on Bertha, her hood popped and grease covering his hands.

He was delighted to see Thomas, flashing one of those rare white-toothed smiles as he wiped his hands on a rag before clapping him on the back. Thomas ended up spending a long time with Jorge, perched on the hood of a nearby Jeep as Jorge worked and they shot the shit.

It was actually really relaxing. Thomas had never had this much time before to just talk to people.

Eventually he hopped down from the Jeep and left Jorge to wander the ship, watching as his friends worked, preparing for the transition to their new lives. He found himself asking them questions, things like what they planned to do once they reached the Safe Haven, what they liked to do to relax, if they had any hobbies. Things he’d never thought to ask before.

Things that he had never thought had mattered before.

Time passed quickly. Before Thomas knew it the sun was beginning to set and his stomach was rumbling. He grabbed food for himself and Newt and finally returned to the room to find Newt sitting in bed, reading. He thanked Thomas for the food, said the book had come from Molly, and the two of them ate in a mixture of comfortable silence and idle chatter.

Minho came to visit later on in the evening, and Newt and Thomas ribbed him about how he had acted around Molly while he remained stoic and unyielding, giving nothing away.

It was Newt who started yawning first, but Thomas wasn’t far behind him, and Minho saw himself out with a sickly-sweet teasing ‘goodnight’, blowing kisses out the door while Newt flipped him off in the middle of another jaw-cracking, eye-watering yawn.

Thomas fell asleep to what had to be his new favorite sound: Newt’s slow, even breaths in the quiet of the dark room.

* * *

The gunfire was loud.

Louder than his own heartbeat. Louder than the blood rushing in his ears. Louder than the pulse of the infection in his veins that had thrummed, thrummed, thrummed through the past twenty-four hours. Or longer. Newt had long since lost count.

His world was orange. It was red-fading-to-black. It was hot and it was cloying and it refused to let him breathe.

There was smoke. There were shouts. There were friends holding him up on either side, dragging him despite his stumbling steps through the Last City.

There were pleas, tumbling from his lips and echoing in his ears. Leave me, leave me, leave me.

Where was he? He had no idea. His back was against a wall and he was canting to one side, coughing, choking on the black fluid that gummed up his lungs. The world was red and hot and there was pain, in every joint, in every cell. The only thing holding him together was the pain.

And there were strong hands, pulling him upright, and a face leaning in close, a voice speaking to him, calling his name.

Newt. He would remember his name. The voice demanded it.

It was Minho.

“Thomas.” His voice was rough and foreign to his own ears as he looked up at the ash-streaked ceiling of the abandoned storefront they had taken shelter in, calling for the name that mattered most. Panting, mouth hanging open and eyes rolling loosely in their sockets.

“He’s here. Listen, Newt, you gotta hold it together, okay?”

“Minho, I can’t.” Newt swallowed, throat working as he struggled to breathe around the slick coating of the infection. “Leave me, you have to leave me.”

Clarity washed in. He looked around, taking in their predicament, the sound of gunshots and battle-cries mere yards from their current position, the taut, tense posture of Gally to his left as he held an assault rifle, ready to defend them. And Thomas to his right, too far away, so far he had no chance of hearing the words he spoke into the radio.

His friends were in danger, and it was his fault, his fault.

“Not a chance, shank.” Minho’s hands were on his arms, holding him in place against the wall, and Newt let loose a pained, high-pitched whine that tore from the very center of his soul. “Listen to me. Are you listening?”

It took everything he had for Newt to nod, once, a jerking motion. He didn’t feel in control of his body anymore but fuck, he’d do at least that for Minho. His friend deserved no less.

“I didn’t leave you back in the Maze, and I’m not gonna leave you now.” Minho’s face was inches from his, and for a crazy moment Newt wanted to shove him away, afraid that the infection would cross the short distance between them and grasp hold of Minho.

But, of course, Minho was immune.

They all were. All of them…except Newt.

He shouldn’t have felt relief at that knowledge, but he did. He did. Because it was too late for him but his friends still had a chance to get out alive.

“Minho,” Newt began, chest heaving as he struggled to breathe, coughing this time not from the infection but from the smoke of the burning city, head rolling to one side and eyes fluttering half-closed. Minho’s grip tightened, shaking him, but Newt couldn’t respond.

He wanted to.

“C’mon, Newt!” The emotion in Minho’s voice was somehow enough and Newt opened his eyes, head still canted to the side until Minho righted it with a hand under his chin, roughly turning his head until Newt’s black-eyed gaze was directly locked onto his friend. “I didn’t give up on you. Don’t you give up on me. You owe me this.”

“I can’t,” he whined. He didn’t have to specify. He couldn’t do anything. His body was a thousand degrees too hot and he was trembling like all of his bones wanted to escape through his skin. He couldn’t walk, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t see. Everything was blurring into non-distinct shapes that sometimes spoke to him out of the haze.

“You can,” Minho countered. The certainty in his voice was overwhelming and Newt swallowed back another mouthful of black bile, even though it settled uneasily in his stomach. “You’re stronger than this, I know you are. I’ve seen it. I remember seeing you walk again for the first time, do you remember? Do you?” His grip tightened on Newt’s shoulder.

When Newt didn’t answer, Minho frowned, but plowed ahead.

“I do. I remember watching you, taking those first steps, and you were so concentrated on not falling on your shucking ass that you didn’t even see me when I waved at you. It hurt, I know it did, and you were limping, but you did it, somehow. You took a step, and then another, and I remember thinking that if I could be half as strong as that shank I’d be in good shape.”

Newt had no words. He stared at Minho, eyes wide, breathing hard.

“So that’s what you gotta do now. It’s easy. All you gotta do is be yourself, and you’ll get through this. I know you will.”

Affection for his friend flooded him then, as intense and overpowering as any of the rage he’d felt over the past few days.

“Okay,” Newt gasped, nodding. “Okay.”

Newt snapped awake, eyes flying open in the darkened room. He rubbed his chest with one hand while the other came up to wipe at the sweat clinging to the side of his face that had been mashed against the pillow. He was breathing hard. He pressed into his chest, curling in on the dull ache and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Newt?” Thomas mumbled from across the room. Newt bit his lip, cursing silently.

“Go back to sleep, Tommy.”

“Y’alrigh’?” Thomas slurred, sounding half asleep already.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright.”

Newt heard Thomas roll over. He tried to go back to sleep, but the memory played over and over in his head. He shifted on the bunk, trying to get comfortable, but half an hour later he still hadn’t fallen asleep.

“Hey, Newt. Are you awake?”

Newt rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah, Tommy, what is it?”

“I can’t sleep.”

Newt chuckled.

“Want me to read you a bedtime story?”

“I mean…”

“Alright. Once upon a time there was a little greenie who decided to keep his friend awake instead of going to bloody sleep.”

“Hardy-har.”

“When the greenie kept talking his friend got up and whacked him upside the head. Then the little greenie saw the error of his ways and went to sleep and they all lived happily ever after. The end.”

“Is that a true story?”

“It will be.”

Thomas laughed.

“I still can’t sleep, though.”

Newt sighed.

“Me neither.”

“Do you...” There was a pause. “Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?”

“Not really, Tommy.”

“Okay.”

Newt let out a little sigh of relief, grateful that Thomas wasn’t pushing it. They fell into an easy silence again, and Newt listened to the sounds of the ship around them. The soft, faraway lapping of water, the creak and groan of metal fixtures. He closed his eyes, letting himself focus on the gentle swaying as the ship forged ahead through calm waters.

He felt relaxed, but he still wasn’t sleeping.

“Newt?” It was all but a whisper this time.

“Still awake,” Newt murmured back.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“What?” Newt chuckled softly. He imagined he could hear Thomas’s smile.

“I mean, what do you want to do? When we reach the Safe Haven and everything is all settled. What do you want out of life?”

“Are you on something, Tommy? I heard Quentin has a stash, you been gettin’ into that?”

“I’m serious,” Thomas laughed. “And no, I’ve just been talking to a lot of people today, and now I want to talk to you.”

“I’ve got no bloody idea, Tommy.”

“Jorge says he wants to learn to play guitar.”

“Do we even have one of those?”

“Apparently.”

“Who else did you talk to?”

“I saw Sonya. She wants to learn nursing from Molly.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

“Whadja think Minho wants?”

“Hmm. Beat his mile time?”

Newt chuckled.

“Yeah, I reckon he does. That and shag Molly.”

“Newt!” Thomas said in a fake scandalized voice.

“Well, he does.” Newt lifted his arms, threading his hands together behind his head as he closed his eyes. He felt more relaxed in that moment than he had in…years, probably. “This is nice.”

“What is?”

“Just…talking.”

“You sound surprised.”

Newt hummed, not really finding an answer to that.

“I’ve always liked it,” Thomas said. “Talking. To you.”

Newt’s eyes flew open. His heart had all of a sudden started hammering in his chest, and he didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, quietly:

“I like it, too.”

Just like that, Newt went from relaxed to every-nerve-on-fire, oh-god-what-did-this-mean, did-Tommy-know-what-that-had-sounded-like, a-thousand-thoughts-a-minute fretting.

There had been that moment, when they were both standing against the railing watching the sunrise, when Newt could have sworn he saw something in Thomas’s expression that felt familiar because he knew it was how he would look if he ever allowed himself to look at Thomas the way he truly wanted to.

But in the end nothing had happened and Newt, looking back, had chalked it up to wishful thinking and chided himself. He had to be more careful. If Thomas ever found out how he felt - how every time Thomas walked into the room it was like he was surrounded in his own little halo that only Newt could see, how every word Thomas spoke was the most interesting thing Newt had ever heard and he wanted nothing more than to sit there listening to him talk about nothing for the rest of his life -

Well. It would scare Thomas. Of course it would - it scared Newt.

There would be awkwardness. Discomfort. Their easy way of existing around each other - little conversations, like the one they were having right now - would cease. Things would never go back to the way they were before and Newt couldn’t have that.

Thomas was too important to him.

“Think I’ll turn in, mate,” Newt said, after an awkward moment of silence. He turned over in the bunk, burrowing his head into the pillow and frowning and trying to will himself to stop blushing furiously.

“Goodnight, Newt.”

God help me, but I love him. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Night, Tommy.”

Chapter Text

Newt pushed him roughly against the wall, a hand on either shoulder, and Thomas gasped as a creature made purely of want and need stirred to life in his stomach.

“Newt?” His voice was shaky as he watched Newt’s dark gaze flicker from his eyes down to his lips.

“This is what you want, isn’t it? Tommy?” The nickname was a sweet exhalation that tingled on his skin as Newt leaned in, close, dangerously close. Thomas felt like he had swallowed his tongue.

When Thomas didn’t answer Newt hummed, a deep sound almost like a growl. He cupped Thomas’s jaw, his thumb wrapping under Thomas’s throat to press on his pulse.

“Isn’t it?”

”Yes,” Thomas breathed. “Oh, god yes, Newt, I - ”

But Newt didn’t let him finish, instead chasing his words and sealing his mouth with a kiss.

Newt’s hands were everywhere. His mouth was everywhere. Thomas’s skin was hot and prickly and the only relief came from more. More touching, more friction, more of Newt’s slick tongue leaving cool, wet marks on his skin. And then he was coming back up to claim Thomas’s mouth with his, tongue sliding along the roof of his mouth and teeth nipping gently at his lower lip.

It was all driving him mad. Thomas was certain he’d never felt anything like this before and he needed more. More, more, more.

Thomas was pressing forward into the kiss like Newt was the last source of air on the planet, his back coming away from the metal wall of the ship. Newt made that dangerously wonderful growling sound again and suddenly one of those hands that Thomas had always admired from afar was wrapped around Thomas’s throat, forcing him back.

Thomas gasped as the back of his head bumped up against the wall, eyes widening as a smile tugged up the corners of his mouth and every single nerve between his chin and his toes leapt to life.

How had Newt known to do that? Thomas hadn’t even known what that would do to him.

“Don’t move,” Newt whispered, and Thomas moaned at the soft command. Newt’s hand pressed forward, just enough to make Thomas very aware of every breath as it surged beneath Newt’s fingertips. He swallowed, let out a shaky,

“Oh god.”

“Don’t speak.” Newt’s eyes were black in the low light, glinting with fierce amusement and intent. “You talk too much, Tommy. You always have.” Newt tilted his head forward to run his tongue along Thomas’s bottom lip, and he couldn’t help it, he groaned as a shiver wracked his body.

“Don’t. Make. A sound.” Newt squeezed the hand around his throat, a quick pulse that sent an aching spear of want through his stomach. “Just be quiet. Can you do that for me, Tommy?” And he surged forward to take him into a deep, probing kiss.

Thomas nodded frantically, eyes fluttering shut.

Yes. Anything anything anything. He’d do anything for Newt. But especially this.

He almost broke the vow of silence, immediately, when Newt’s other hand stroked his chest and then traveled down, and down…and down…And then Newt was kissing him, with one hand wrapped around his throat and the other around his cock and Thomas’s knees went weak until he was only held up by the force of Newt against him.

Newt was everything. He’d gone ahead and erased the entire world and filled it in with himself instead, and Thomas couldn’t have been more grateful. The entire length of his slender body was pressed flush against Thomas as he quickly began to stroke him, and Thomas couldn’t help it, he gasped, but somehow, through some sheer force of will he hadn’t known he possessed he managed not to voice the groan that was building up inside of him.

His hands sprang up to grasp at Newt, trying to pull him closer even though there was nowhere to go. Newt was already as close as he could possibly be but Thomas needed more. And not just more of Newt’s tongue in his mouth or hand on his cock, even though those were lovely, wonderful things, but he needed more, needed more…

He needed Newt to tell him what to do.

So he made a sound.

On the next stroke, when Newt moved his thumb over the head of his cock, Thomas let a wanton, lust-filled moan tumble from his lips, loud and uncaring. Newt immediately paused, drawing back from the kiss and tilting his head with narrowed eyes.

“You did that on purpose,” he murmured, accusing. Thomas nodded, swallowing, breath ragged as he waited, anticipation pooling in his gut.

Newt grinned.

“You’ll pay for that,” he whispered, and though the words were vaguely threatening all Thomas heard was love. Newt knew what he wanted, what he needed in that moment, and Newt was going to give it to him, and Thomas’s heart swelled fit to bursting with the knowledge that Newt cared. His hips bucked forward, his erection grinding into Newt’s, and the blonde man’s eyes flickered and hazed, mouth opening in a silent exhalation of desire…

And Thomas woke, sweating in his tangled sheets, hips pressed into the empty mattress of his bunk.

Fuck.

He was…painfully hard, painfully close, and all he had to do was stick a hand down there and buck against it, once, twice, and he came.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Thomas laid there, spent, and trying to mask his agitated breaths in case Newt was awake.

Newt. Goddamn Newt, who was laying not ten feet away from him, who had invaded his every waking thought and somehow slipped into his dreams as well.

Thomas buried his face in the pillow, wishing for death.

How was he supposed to look at Newt in the morning?

Oh god, what if Newt wanted to talk to him? Thomas would have to come up with words. Newt would definitely expect words. (Or maybe not - no. He couldn’t think about the dream.)

He was ashamed, and a little angry, because this just wasn’t fair. He didn’t ask to fall in love with his best friend, and he certainly didn’t ask for dirty dreams about him. But then, thinking about that dream…Thomas squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a painful sort of hope blossoming in his chest as he wondered what it would be like to make it real.

Thomas’s mind circled back around to every interaction he’d ever had with Newt that felt like something more.

It had started with that first night in the Glade. How Newt had taken him aside, shown him kindness where others only seemed to want to one-up him, make him feel stupid. The way he’d looked in the light of the bonfire, pale skin alight with a golden cast like he’d been dipped in dark honey. Those dark, expressive eyes, that said as much as they held back.

Another fire-lit conversation, this time in the unending emptiness of the Scorch, when everyone had given up on him, including himself - everyone except Newt. When Newt had come to him of his own accord, sat with him, talked to him, made him believe in himself again. When Thomas had first gotten an inkling of the way Newt saw himself - which was completely, wholly, devastatingly inaccurate. Something Thomas was determined to fix.

But before that, too - Thomas’s mind was jumping around - when Newt had been tackled by that crank in the abandoned mall, the first time any one of them had seen that particular danger up close. The way Thomas’s heart had fucking stopped as he was suddenly confronted with the possibility of a life without Newt.

And then, Newt calling him ‘Tommy’ for the first time. The way it had felt so natural, he had never even questioned it. Neither of them had ever acknowledged it but Thomas always felt a certain warmth when he heard the nickname, like a tiny little fire flickering to life inside of him. And Thomas knew that he would never allow anyone else to give him a nickname like that.

To the world, he was Thomas.

He would only be Tommy for Newt.

(And he would never, ever be Tom again.)

In that quiet room, with the gray light of dawn washing in through the portholes, Thomas allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to tell Newt how he felt. To take that leap over the looming precipice and see if Newt caught him.

To risk the fall.

* * *

Thomas had drifted off to sleep eventually, and when he awoke Newt was gone.

He blinked at the searing late-morning light, sighing as he pulled a hand over his face. Apparently the lack of sleep last night had caught up with him and he had slept until almost noon. As Thomas dragged himself out of bed and changed, he tried to chase thoughts of his dream from his mind. Eventually he stumbled groggily out of the room to find the entirety of the ship in a frenetic state of energy.

Everyone was preparing for arrival in the Safe Haven. He couldn’t get more than a word or two in passing from anyone he tried to talk to, including Minho and Frypan. They had all been given tasks by Vince, and everyone was up to their eyeballs in chores. Everyone except for the two recovering patients, Thomas and Newt.

So, with nothing to do and frustration igniting an itching flame in his very bones, Thomas had finally sought out Newt so that he would at least have someone to talk to. It had been long enough since his rude early-morning awakening that the dream had faded to the back of his mind and he thought he could stand to be around his friend without his cheeks bursting into flames.

Though he swallowed, hard, when he saw that familiar lean frame, all long legs and slender muscles, draped across the railing while Newt stared at the approaching shore.

Thomas came up slowly to his side, regretting every step because all he wanted to do was thread his arms around that slender waist and pull Newt in for a breathless kiss, and he couldn’t. Somehow he managed to shake the persistent dirty thoughts, and leaned as casually as he could against the railing at Newt’s side.

Thankfully, seeing the Safe Haven up close for the first time was more than enough to return his thoughts to the present and chase away the desires fueled in the night.

As it turned out, Newt had been right. There was a dock waiting to receive their ship in the Safe Haven.

Thomas wasn’t sure how Vince had settled on this place, but as the ship finally started its close approach to shore Thomas cautiously let himself admit that it seemed nearly perfect.

It was a large island, so big that from this close vantage point it seemed like another continent. There were sandy beaches stretching to either side that sloped up into grassy plains. Further inland, dense stands of forest topped the tall hills. There was a bay that gave way to a river carving its way inland. A dock made of crumbling concrete and steel pilings lead to a cluster of rusted and dilapidated metal buildings which gave Thomas pause.

Were there other people here already? It seemed possible.

Were there cranks?

Suddenly, he understood why they had a security team.

Still, it was nothing they hadn’t dealt with before. It didn’t worry Thomas - just put him a bit on guard, and as he glanced over at Newt who was also eyeing the buildings beyond the dock he thought he saw that same tension mirrored in the set of the other man’s shoulders, and the way one hand picked at the skin around his knuckles.

But all of that greenery - Thomas’s breath stuttered a bit as he looked out at it. He turned, saw the same expression in Newt’s eyes.

“We must be a long way from…wherever we bloody were before,” he muttered. Thomas just shrugged. They had been on the ship for a little more than a week; how much distance could a ship like this cover in that amount of time? He had no idea. As for where they had been before…Well. The old names on the maps weren’t relevant anymore. There had only been Scorch and more Scorch, and in the midst of it all the Maze and the Last City.

It caused a profound sense of disorientation that only made Thomas focus even harder on the immediate present. He knew this was a weakness of his, but he couldn’t help but indulge it anyway.

“I wish Alby could have seen this.”

Thomas’s head snapped up.

Newt wasn’t looking at him. He was still looking out at the Safe Haven, dark eyes roving over the shore. Thomas swallowed.

“Yeah,” he managed, nodding, though there was a bit of a question laced into the upward lilt of his voice. Newt must have caught it, because he turned his head to look at Thomas, eyes curiously blank.

“You don’t think of him much.” It wasn’t a question. Thomas nodded, throat tight.

“I didn’t really know him.”

“You knew him for as long as you knew Chuck.”

Newt had a point there. Thomas thought about Chuck far more often than he thought about Alby. He opened his mouth to say something but a single, subtle flick of Newt’s hand arrested him.

“It’s alright. I get it. Chuck always had a way with people. Everyone loved him; not everyone loved Alby. But I knew him, worked with him for a long time.”

Newt’s voice was quiet, his tone subdued, and suddenly Thomas’s heart ached for him, imagining what it must have been like for Newt to watch Alby ripped away from them all by the Grievers that terrible night in the Glade.

“He cared about everyone. You know that?” Thomas could tell that Newt wasn’t really looking for an answer but he nodded anyway. Newt kept his gaze on the horizon. “Never wanted anyone to feel like he did, when he first came up in the Box. Alone. Without a purpose.” Newt suddenly laughed, hanging his head, and Thomas’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“Those stupid rules,” Newt said, shoulders shaking in mirth. “They were mostly there just for that. A sense of purpose. For people like Gally, who needed…something to refer to. Conduct, proper behavior, consequences.” Newt lifted his head, still not looking at Thomas. “I think deep down even Gally knew they didn’t really matter, but they were comforting. That’s what Alby gave everyone. Comfort. Order. Even when…”

Newt trailed off, shaking his head.

“And you know,” he said, quietly, “It was Minho who pulled me out of that Maze, but Alby…Alby brought me back to life.”

“Newt…” Thomas swallowed again, throat painfully tight as he realized what Newt was getting at. He had no idea why Newt had chosen this moment to tell him, and it was an awful subject, painful and raw - but still, Thomas was grateful.

He wanted to know absolutely everything there was to know about Newt, and he felt lucky that Newt considered him worthy of sharing something this intimate with him.

“Alby never got that chance.” Newt’s voice was stronger now, his head lifted, and Thomas admired the strength he saw in the set of the other man’s jaw, the tense line of his shoulders. “The chance to actually hope for something more. He deserved it. He deserved this.”

“A memorial,” Thomas blurted out, drawing Newt’s full attention for the first time, his gaze coming back from some distant place to zero in, questioningly, on Thomas. Thomas blushed, stuttered out, “A-a memorial. We should make one, when we get there. For everyone who…didn’t make it. For everyone we want to remember.”

“Like the wall,” Newt said quietly. Thomas nodded, not sure if it was a good thing or not.

“Yeah. Like the wall.” The wall in the Glade where every greenie had carved their name, only for it to be crossed out when they died.

Newt gave him a smile. A muted, sad smile, that Thomas wanted to wipe away as soon as he saw it. But he was powerless in that moment. Nothing could erase the past.

“That’s a good idea, Tommy. I’d like that.”

* * *

Everyone was itching to get off of the ship.

The security team, headed by Brenda and Gally and a man from Vince’s old group whose name Thomas had never learned, had gone ahead and secured the immediate area around the dock and the cluster of old buildings.

They reported no signs of life.

The sun sank lower on the horizon and the land was awash in fiery shades and sharp shadows.

It didn’t feel right, to Thomas. He agreed with Vince - they should all stay on the ship for the night, even though they’d already drawn in to their port, anchoring next to the crumbling dock, so close to their new home and supposed salvation.

But there were over two hundred people on the ship, and the majority voices outweighed them.

So they went ashore.

They went ashore with all the provisions they could carry, in barrels and crates and canvas sacks. They went ashore with tents and hammocks, slinging fabric between the crumbling walls of the cleared buildings, nestling down close to each other in the fading light. They posted sentries. They ate dehydrated soup and vegetables and they hunkered down in light blankets, watching the stars on that mild night and listening to the crickets chirping in the nearby meadows, the waves lapping gently against the shore.

Thomas - shamelessly, and brooking no argument, and much to the blonde man’s chagrin - assigned himself to Newt. As soon as Newt stepped out of their shared room on the ship with a rucksack over his shoulder Thomas had stepped in front of him and simply held out a hand, making ‘gimme’ gestures.

“Can I help you?” Newt asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Nope,” Thomas said, popping the consonant. “But I’m gonna help you. C’mon man, yesterday you could barely stand for more than a few minutes on your own.”

“I got better.”

Thomas had to admit, Newt did look better. Less pale, steadier on his feet. But that didn’t mean Thomas was about to let him overexert himself and delay his recovery. From the way Newt was looking at him, though, Thomas figured that particular line of logic (and look at him, being logical for once! Newt should really be proud) was going to work.

So Thomas switched tactics.

“Look, just indulge me, okay?”

“What?”

“I’m gonna worry about you if you don’t just let me carry the damn bags. I know, it’s dumb, but that’s what’s gonna happen. And I just want to enjoy today, alright? Our first night in paradise.” Thomas felt himself blushing, cleared his throat, and amended, “Y’know, everyone’s...everyone’s first night in. In paradise.” Not their night, just Newt and Thomas, that made it sound like a honeymoon.

Which Thomas wouldn’t be opposed to but that was not the point.

“Anyway, what’s it gonna be?” He wiggled his fingers, “Are you gonna make me worry or are you just gonna let me carry the damn things? I could also stand here asking over and over again until you punch me, but I’d prefer it if you just gave in now.” And Thomas gave one of those smiles that, unbeknownst to him, Newt thought of as his signature shit-eating grin.

Newt looked like he was going to say something, then stopped and reconsidered. Then, wordlessly, he handed the bags to Thomas, which was only proof that he really had needed the help after all. Otherwise he would’ve just stormed off and maybe even flipped Thomas the bird on his way out.

Thomas shouldered the bags and followed close behind Newt as he limped off the ship, making heavy use of the railings along the way but with a determination in his expression that made Thomas chuckle. The poor guy. He’d never known Newt to ask for help in the whole year they’d known each other and he knew it must be killing him not to be at one hundred percent. But he’d get there. Thomas was just grateful he was here at all.

The walk down the dock to the group of buildings that would be their temporary shelter was a bit more challenging. Newt slowed down considerably, to the point where Thomas had to stop completely to wait for him on multiple occasions. And he had this angry look about him now as he pressed a hand to his chest and it made Thomas’s heart ache and all he wanted to do was help. He tried offering a hand and was promptly snapped at. Newt was in no mood for his charity.

“I’m bloody warning you, Thomas,” Newt fairly growled as Thomas again suggested that Newt lean on him a bit. Thomas bit back an irritable reply and held the hand up in surrender, backing off.

They made it there eventually, though well behind the rest of their friends.

All of the Gladers had, of course, set up their hammocks next to each other, all in a little cluster. Gally had first watch and Minho had second, Frypan was on third and Brenda was nowhere to be found - probably off with Jorge, or Sonya and Harriet. Thomas had just finished securing his hammock next to Newt’s, testing it with the weight of two hands when he turned and saw Teresa.

Teresa, being led past them by Vince, with her hands tied in front of her.

The sight of one of their own, bound like some criminal, overrode whatever moderate impulse control Thomas had ever had. Anger coursed in his veins and a sick feeling rose in the back of his throat as he turned and stalked towards them, Newt’s questions falling on deaf ears.

“Vince - Vince!” Thomas had to jog to catch up with them, thunder in his expression as he skidded to a halt. Vince turned around, face an impassive, stony mask as one hand curled around the rope tied to Teresa’s hands. “What the hell, man?” He made an angry gesture to Teresa, who just looked away from him, shame and resignation on her features. She looked tired, and that made him even angrier.

“Thomas,” Vince warned, “Stay out of this.”

Thomas just shook his head, mouth agape.

Then he lunged forward, suddenly done with even the idea of discussing this with Vince. He landed one hand on Teresa’s wrists before Vince was pushing him back. Shouts erupted behind him and Thomas recognized Minho and Newt’s voices among the crowd. He couldn’t make out what they were saying and he didn’t care. Hands grabbed him by the shoulders and Thomas twisted away, wincing as he felt the injury in his side protest the rough movement.

“Thomas - Thomas!” He ignored them all.

“Tommy.” Newt didn’t yell; he timed it for a pause between the shouting and the nickname dropped like a stone in the sudden silence. Breathing hard, Thomas turned to look at Newt, found his face a cold, unreadable mask.

“Thomas, will you just listen, for once?” That was Vince.

“There’s nothing you can say that’ll change my mind,” he fired back, tearing his gaze away from Newt. “We can’t start out like this, we can’t.” What were they going to do - put Teresa in the Safe Haven equivalent of the Slammer? The thought made his stomach churn. No, they couldn’t, they had to trust each other -

“What do you want me to do, Thomas?” Vince made an angry gesture. “She betrayed us. I can’t let that happen again. I don’t trust her and neither should you.”

“She saved Newt!” Thomas blurted out, missing the way Teresa’s eyes widened.

“Mary died because of her,” Vince shot right back, eyes icing over. “And are you forgetting what they did to Minho? What she did? I have nearly a hundred immune kids here, Thomas, I can’t risk it.”

“WCKD is gone. I made sure of it.” Thomas’s voice and expression betrayed nothing of his previous uncertainty on the subject. Now, in front of Vince, he was certain, because he knew that Teresa didn’t belong in restraints. “There’s no one for her to betray us to.”

“We have no proof of that. I’m sorry Thomas, but my mind is made up.”

“So is mine.” And Thomas lunged again. In the back of his mind he knew Vince wouldn’t fight him, not hard enough to deter him, because Thomas was still recovering from the gun shot and deep down Vince wasn’t a bad guy. Thomas just disagreed with him on fundamentally everything.

But he knew Vince wouldn’t hurt him. So when Thomas made it clear he’d fight tooth and nail to get Teresa free from the ropes Vince just held up both hands with a disgusted noise, rolling his eyes as he backed away.

Thomas pawed at the ropes in frustration until Teresa, perhaps finally sick of being jerked around like a toy, tore her hands away and finished removing the ropes herself. Then she stood there, rubbing her wrists and looking apprehensively between Thomas and Vince.

Vince just pointed a finger at Thomas and said, “She’s your problem, now.” And stalked off.

With Teresa’s hands freed Thomas stepped back and finally felt like he could breathe. He looked at Teresa, not sure what he was expecting but surprised nonetheless to see her eyes downcast, biting her lower lip.

“You should’ve just let Vince have his way, Tom - Thomas.”

Thomas spent one second hating how she couldn’t remember to use his full name before he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“Teresa, you can’t have wanted to stay like that.”

“No, but what difference does it make?” She was still looking away. “He’s right. Mary would be alive, if it weren’t for me.”

“That wasn’t your fault, that was Janson. You were just…doing what you thought was right.” And Thomas couldn’t believe he was defending Teresa’s actions, defending them against her own doubts, but here he was.

Thomas heard a disgusted sound behind him and whirled around to see Newt limping quickly away.

Confusion compounded itself until all Thomas could do was stare after him, wondering what he’d done to upset his friend. He looked at Minho, but the other boy just shook his head, looking disappointed, before he hurried after Newt.

What was going on?

He turned back to Teresa and found her looking at him, and he could have sworn her expression was sad. But that didn’t make any sense.

“I think I should set up my hammock somewhere else,” she said softly. “How about near Brenda? Someone you would trust to keep an eye on me?”

“I trust you,” Thomas said, feeling the lie on his tongue. He swallowed it back. “We have to trust each other.” He was baffled, had no idea why Teresa was so willing to be a prisoner, and why was she insisting on sleeping near someone else? Not that Thomas particularly wanted her around, and he was worried about how Newt was handling everything…but if he was the only one willing to treat Teresa like a human being then it just made sense for her to stick by him.

“Yeah, I’ll take her,” came the rolling, sardonic voice, and Thomas’s head whipped around, wondering how long Brenda had been standing there listening with a rifle slung over one shoulder and a cant to her hips that spelled out ‘attitude’. “C’mon, princess,” she said, gesturing wryly to Teresa, and the dark-haired woman went, with a less-than-pleased twist to her lips.

When Thomas started forward, mouth open to say something - he didn’t even know what - Brenda silenced him with a raised hand and a level look.

“Go see to your boy,” she said, and turned to march after Teresa without another word.

Leaving Thomas standing alone, adrenaline humming in his veins and confusion pounding out a beat on the inside of his skull.

His boy?

His feet, trusty things they were, carried him back to his hammock, and when Thomas arrived his eyes went immediately to Newt. The blonde man was sitting in his hammock, Minho on a stool close by, close enough that his knees brushed the edge of the fabric and the two were leaned in, apparently in the middle of a heated but quiet conversation.

Thomas stood there awkwardly until Newt finally noticed him. And when he locked eyes with his friend, raising a hand in the beginnings of a wave with a tentative smile on his lips, the worst possible thing happened.

Newt curled his lip briefly in disgust, and looked away.

Thomas’s smile faded. His stomach dropped and his hand fell to his side as his mouth ran dry.

That simple look from Newt was enough to make him feel like he was nothing. Or that he was, without a doubt, the worst person currently inhabiting the planet.

“Newt…”

“Thomas,” and he never thought he could have hurt more but he did when Minho answered in place of Newt, “Maybe you should take a walk.”

“No.” Newt’s voice was rough. He stood up abruptly from the hammock, not hesitating to place a steadying hand on Minho’s shoulder, and Thomas’s heart shriveled into a wailing pit in his chest. “Minho, I need…let’s go.”

“Newt, wait,” Thomas was desperate, licking his lips, trying to speak around the driest mouth he’d had since the Scorch. “What did I do?”

Newt just shook his head, still refusing to look at him. He started walking away with his characteristic uneven stride and he looked so tired but so angry, so done that Thomas didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do.

He locked eyes with Minho, begging for an explanation, but the other boy just shook his head with a clear indication of later as he was fairly dragged away by Newt.

Again, leaving Thomas standing alone in the middle of a mess he hadn’t even known he’d made until it smacked him in the face.

There were other Gladers around, along with a few immunes and people from Vince’s old group who’d set up their sleeping arrangements in the immediate vicinity, but Thomas ignored them all, and no one tried to talk to him. The air was heavy with an awkward tension. The sun had set and he couldn’t be more grateful for the cover of darkness as he flung himself face-first into his hammock.

He took a moment to just breathe, mouth and nose pressed against the fabric, before the thoughts started up.

All he wanted was to do the right thing.

He didn’t want to hold a grudge against Teresa. He disagreed with what she’d done, with so much of what she said and believed, but in the end she was helping them. She’d saved Newt. She’d saved Newt. And she was going to make more of the cure, until every last person in the Safe Haven, immune or not, was safe from the virus.

Who knows - maybe she’d even go on to save the world.

He didn’t have to like her to appreciate what she’d done. But then - Thomas bit his lip, flipping over in the hammock as he remembered Minho.

Of course, Thomas had every right to forgive Teresa for what she’d done to him, personally - but Minho had every right not to forgive her for the things he’d gone through since being captured in the Scorch.

Is that why Newt was so upset with him? Because Thomas was making it out like what had happened to Minho was no big deal?

Thomas stifled a groan, running a hand over his eyes. He was unquestionably an idiot. He didn’t regret letting Teresa go free - he was certain that she was done betraying them and so the restraints were at best unnecessary, at worst a grim portent of how Vince was planning on running his Safe Haven - but Thomas should’ve found a way to talk to his two best friends about it, to explain to them that this wasn’t about discounting Minho’s pain.

What had happened to Minho still mattered. Of course it did. But Thomas had made it seem like he didn’t care, and now Newt and Minho were off on a long walk - really long, actually, it was fully dark now so shouldn’t they be back soon? - probably talking and confirming for each other how much Thomas didn’t care about them and that was just wrong.

Thomas laid in the hammock, sleep the furthest thing from his mind as he watched the stars track across the sky through a gap in the roof.

He left a lantern burning on a crate beside their little cluster of hammocks, and when he finally heard shuffling steps approaching he shot up, hammock swinging from the sudden movement as he watched Newt and Minho pick their way through the maze of sleeping figures.

Thomas had to admit to a twinge of jealousy that ran through him when he saw how Newt was leaning on Minho, letting the other boy help him when earlier that day he’d been so adamant that he didn’t want Thomas’s help. But the jealousy disappeared into pure worry when he saw that Newt was exhausted. Minho was practically carrying him and Thomas felt a sickening little twist of guilt as he realized that Newt had wanted to get away from him so badly that he’d stayed out long after he should have been resting.

“Newt,” he tried again, keeping his voice low so he didn’t wake up any of the others. But Newt just shook his head, not looking at Thomas as Minho helped him into his hammock. He licked his lips.

“Minho?”

“Later, Thomas.” Minho sounded tired as he, too, collapsed into his hammock without another word.

Frustrated, Thomas stared up at the same patch of sky he’d been watching earlier, listening to the sound of deep, slow breaths from his friends as they fell asleep. He laid awake straight through until morning, when the cold grey light of dawn washed through the rusted and crumbled walls of the building and nothing felt like it was resolved or any better than it had been the night before.

Chapter Text

“Listen, Newt, I know you’re mad - ”

“Just slim it, Minho,” Newt sighed. “I just want to go for a bloody walk, alright?”

“Well, I want you to know that I don’t care what happens with Teresa.” Of course, Minho had to press the subject anyway, and Newt rolled his eyes as the two of them made their way down what had once been a street that ran clean through the cluster of buildings.

“How could you not care? Minho, she - she’s the absolute wanker who - ”

“Wanker?” Minho teased.

“Yeah, it means dick.”

“Dick means dick,” Minho countered. “Just like flashlight means flashlight and torch means a stick with literal fire on one end.”

“Minho, be serious.”

“No.”

Newt sighed. Fine, he’d wanted to drop the subject anyway. He took his hand off of Minho’s shoulder with a fond little pat and shrugged his shoulders, rolling his head to try to ease the tension in his neck. He felt cramped and tired but a walk would do him good. It had been too long since he’d gotten any proper exercise.

Sentries were posted at various intervals along the street and Newt and Minho nodded to them all in turn, with promises not to stray beyond the perimeter they’d set. There were a few others moving restlessly along with them, and each building that they passed was lit from within by gas lanterns. They could see shadows moving, clusters of people bedding down for the night. There was an air of guarded hope, each expression a mixture of wariness and relief.

It was good to be on land and it was good to have reached their destination and it was good to find that their so-called Safe Haven was, for the moment, to all appearances, safe. But Newt could tell that at least half of them were waiting for it all to fall apart and he counted himself among them.

The general train of thought ran as such: if such a perfect place existed in this broken world then how could they have been the first to find it?

And would they be the last?

Time passed. They came to the outskirts of the buildings, saw Gally standing there with a rifle, wearing the same bulletproof vest from their assault on WCKD.

“Evening, shanks,” he said easily, and Newt couldn’t hold back a grin. He clapped Gally on the upper arm.

“It’s good to see you, mate. Been busy, yeah?”

“Picking up your slack.”

Newt snorted.

“Well, that ends now,” he said, suddenly serious. “I’m well, I’m here. I need a job.”

Gally raised one of those eyebrows in the ultimate skeptical look.

“I dunno, man. You still kinda look like shit.”

Newt feigned offense.

“That’s your bloody second-in-command you’re talking to!”

It was Gally’s turn to snort.

“You’re joking, right? Newt, my dude, you lost all rank the second we left the Maze. It’s still Scorch rules out here.”

“Those being?”

“Every man for himself, and/or the one with the gun makes the rules.” Gally hefted his rifle for emphasis. “Take your pick.”

“Guessin’ I don’t really get a pick unless I have a bloody gun, then?”

“Hey, what’re you talkin’ about?” Minho suddenly stepped in, grabbing both of Newt’s biceps and giving them a squeeze and a little shake, Newt going noodle-armed and deadpan to emphasize the bit. “You gotta couple a guns right here!”

It wasn’t really that funny, but the three of them laughed anyway, if only for the sheer novelty of being back together and having something to laugh about.

They left Gally to his sentry duty, turning to walk slowly back down the slumbering street. In the quiet of the night the sound of the nearby ocean was a constant murmur. The moon dominated the black sky, bright and full, stars spread out behind it like a crystal exhalation, a cosmic breath frosting into pinpoint shards of brilliance.

Silver light fell on Newt and Minho, casting their features in a pallor, pouring mercury on the black of Minho’s hair.

Newt felt himself slowing down, his bad leg stiffening, the healing wound in his chest throbbing with a hot ache that shortened his breath.

“Let’s head back,” Minho said, and Newt nodded, tight-lipped as thoughts of Thomas flooded him. The way he’d looked almost crazed when he’d seen Teresa’s hands tied. The fury with which he’d flung himself at Vince, the reckless abandon that dared the older man to find a way to stop him without hurting him.

As Newt withdrew behind dark eyes into the memories and the bitterness they evoked he stumbled, and Minho caught him with both hands around his arm, holding him up.

Newt closed his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re here, Minho,” he said, meaning so much more than simply here at the moment. “I’m sorry it took us so long.”

So long to find him. So long to rescue him. So long leaving him chained and drugged and tortured behind the pristine facade of WCKD. And all because of her.

His chest ached and he pressed a hand to it. If Teresa had never betrayed them, if WCKD had never captured Minho, would he have even caught the virus? Would he have had to feel his mind slipping away until he was nothing more than a shade peering through a red haze, his thoughts no longer his, his actions no longer his?

Would he have had to watch himself try to tear Thomas apart? Bearing down on the knife with crazed, fevered strength until the point dug into his friend’s chest just above his heart?

It all went back to her, and Thomas didn’t care. Newt had come to a complete stop, leaning on Minho, looking at the ground. Thomas didn’t care about him, not in the same way that he cared for Thomas, and it had never been more evident than when he was fighting to free Teresa, after everything she’d done to them.

And it wasn’t fair of Newt to be angry and hurt because Thomas was under no obligation to share this…this bloody crush that wouldn’t go away, but he couldn’t help those feelings, and the helplessness only made him angrier.

“Me too,” Minho was saying. He nudged Newt forward, got him moving again. “I mean, I’m glad I’m here, too. And you guys came back for me, that’s all that matters.”

“Of course we did,” Newt mumbled. He swiped a hand over his face as if he could wipe away the exhaustion that seeped into his bones. “Couldn’t think of a bloody thing for six months straight except how to get you back.”

“Well, now you can think about something else.”

It was said lightly, with a touch of teasing, but Newt looked at Minho, wondering what that meant, and if he had something particular in mind.

They walked in silence for another moment or so, before Minho spoke up again.

“Maybe you should ask Thomas what he did when we got him back on the Berg and he realized you were alive.”

Newt almost missed a step.

He turned to look at Minho, eyes wide and blinking owlishly at his friend.

“What?”

“He says he doesn’t remember, but I think he does. He’s just embarrassed.”

“Why would he be embarrassed?”

“Ask him.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I can’t stand to see you two shanks fighting and I think it might clear some things up.”

“What things?”

Minho raised an eyebrow and wielded uncharacteristic silence as a weapon. Newt frowned and looked ahead, avoiding his friend’s gaze as it suddenly felt too penetrating, too frank for his liking.

“He cares about you, yaknow.”

“That’s enough, Minho,” Newt snapped. Adrenaline raced up his spine and suddenly his heart was beating too fast.

Minho knew.

Minho knew how he felt and Newt wasn’t prepared for that and his breath stuttered, agitated, and he wished he had something to do with his hands besides flex his fingers in irritation, bending his index finger to crack the knuckles against his palm again and again.

Embarrassment surged up from his stomach, pricking at him, chipping away bit by bit until he was left exposed and vulnerable and he held his breath as he waited for Minho to say something else and knew that one single word more from his friend on this subject would destroy him.

But Minho spared him.

He knew when to stop pushing and he was silent for the rest of the walk back to their hammocks and when Newt finally stepped through the threshold of their crumbling shelter, the smell of dusty brick and moldy mortar thick in his nostrils and the burning, blinding presence of Thomas a promise of searing pain on the corners of his vision he looked away, he kept his gaze averted from that pulsar of heat and light and he shook his head at words he barely even registered before falling, gracelessly, like a rag doll, into his hammock, and letting sleep take him almost instantly as his overworked mind and body shut off like a switch.

Newt awoke with annoyance and bitter disappointment lacing his tongue like a layer of acid.

It was late - probably past noon, he figured, from the way the sun burned a brash yellow through the gaps in the roof.

He’d overslept. Again. And they had let him.

When was he going to be held to the same standards as everyone else? He sat up in his hammock, irritably rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he blinked at his surroundings. Like he’d expected, everyone else was gone, and he could hear people in the alleyways between the buildings bustling about, the murmurs of clipped and busy conversations, the shuffle and scrape of supply crates being moved around.

All without him, because he was useless like this.

An intense hunger gnawed at his stomach and Newt looked down to see a crate beside his hammock with an offering of hard biscuits and lukewarm soup on a tin tray, covered by a passably clean cloth to ward off the flies. He flicked the cloth aside and immediately snagged a biscuit which he tore apart and dipped in the stew before scarfing it down.

Just as he finished gnawing away at the chewy biscuits - which he was still thankful for, because without Frypan he wasn’t certain he’d have any reliable source of food - Thomas stepped through the doorless opening in the side of the crumbling building and threaded his way around crates and stools and barrels and hammocks and sleeping bags towards Newt.

Newt looked down, anger slipping up from oily depths to clutch at his throat and color his cheeks.

He heard the sound of footsteps stuttering to a halt, listened to the pregnant pause before his dumb shank friend inevitably reached out.

“Newt…”

“Thomas.”

No, he hadn’t earned his nickname. Not today. Not after last night.

“Please tell me what’s wrong. I don’t know what I did.”

“You don’t know?” Newt’s head snapped up, food forgotten in his lap as he allowed his anger to show itself, all the better to hide the way that hurt - indefinable, amorphous, languishing slow-poisoning hurt - coated his throat and stomach and the cushioning gaps between his bones.

How could he not know? Newt thought he’d been pretty bloody obvious by that point. Even Minho seemed to know, given the hints he’d dropped last night. So how could Thomas not know that every time Newt saw him his heart raced? That every time the slinthead even opened his mouth Newt was all ears - veins humming with the anticipation of hearing his voice, the privilege of being given a window into his mind, of learning something new about him? Every single word out of Thomas’s mouth was a gift that colored Newt’s greyscale world and Thomas didn’t know?

Thomas didn’t know what it was like to watch him fawn over Teresa? The bitch who’d sold them all down the river? Who’d tortured Minho? Who’d shown she had not a shred of loyalty in her, who’d taken advantage of Thomas’s trusting nature and whatever soft spot he seemed to have for her so she could betray him? All for her bloody promise of a cure?

Newt could still hear her voice inside his head.

I know you have no reason to trust me. But I need you to come back.

All you have to do is come back. And this will all finally be over.

Please. Just come back to me.

And Thomas had gone.

He loves her, Newt thought. He had to be in love with her. No one acted this fucking stupid unless it was for love.

He would know.

As Newt met Thomas’s gaze he felt his righteous anger flickering. He breathed life into it, relishing two aspects of this:

One: his anger needed coaxing. This, more than anything that had happened since waking up on the ship, convinced him that he was no longer sick from the Flare. There was no itch that ignited searing rage, there was no gasoline-spread of catchfire fury that took the slightest irritation and blew it up to unmanageable wrath.

And two: his anger, that day that he’d finally told Thomas he was sick, had actually been justified. It hadn’t been the Flare making him see things that weren’t there.

Thomas really had been thinking about Teresa above all else. He was doing it again.

“Guess,” he snapped.

Uninvited, Thomas took a seat on a nearby crate, clasping his hands in front of him between his knees with fingers threaded as they bobbed up and down with the jigging of his leg. His bronze eyes were sad, eager, petitioning - a combination that threatened to turn Newt inside-out and bear all the soft parts of him to the open air that tasted of salt and rust.

“I already apologized to Minho,” he said. “I didn’t mean to act like what happened to him didn’t matter. It does. It matters to me.”

“Good.”

“I - what?”

Clearly, Thomas had thought that this was the main thing bothering Newt. It wasn’t. He knew Thomas well enough that he would never assume his friend had forgotten about Minho. Thomas had a big heart - too big.

“Good. I’m glad you haven’t forgotten about Minho.” Newt took a breath, calming down the anger-covering-hurt, pulling on some deep well of inner strength to slip on a mask of detached consideration instead. “But have you forgotten what Teresa did the last time you decided to trust her?”

“Newt.” Thomas looked hurt and it took an extreme effort on Newt’s part to block it out, to not let it seep into chest and twist him around like a marionette on short strings. “I didn’t think I’d have to explain this to you, of all people.”

And there it was.

The reason that this all really hurt so much.

Because Thomas did treat Newt differently and sometimes Newt allowed himself to believe that it was because he reciprocated those feelings that Newt had spent so long trying to repress.

And it wasn’t fair of Thomas to say things like that while he was obviously in love with Teresa.

And what had he done on the Berg and why had Minho insisted that Newt ask him about it?

“And what exactly does that mean?”

“I just thought you’d understand.” Thomas was sitting back now, hands on his knees and confusion written in the lines of his face. Newt sighed and set aside the bowl of soup, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand while the other pressed into the middle of his chest, fingers finding the bumpy scar beneath the fabric of his shirt.

“I understand, Tommy,” he said, resigned and cold though the nickname slipped out, as it was wont to do. “I’m not sure I agree with Vince keeping her tied up, feels a bit skeevy if I’m bein’ honest. I don’t trust all the men he brought with him and I don’t know these immunes. But the way you just…you don’t think around her, Thomas, and that scares me.”

Thomas didn’t answer that and Newt was suddenly tired, so tired of pretending that the dull words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“Do you love her?”

“Jesus, Newt, no.” Thomas jerked back like he was avoiding a blow and shook his head, adamant. “That’s never been what this was about.”

“I meant it, Tommy. Don’t lie to me.” Newt leveled a gaze at him, aware that he had once said those words in rage but no longer believing they’d been a sign of his decaying mind. No. He’d gotten this right.

“Lie to everyone else. Lie to the whole bloody world, if you have to.” His voice fell to a whisper. “But not to me.”

“I’m not lying to you,” and Thomas’s voice nearly broke with the strain. His head fell into his hands and Newt blinked, unsure what to think of this display of emotion.

“God, Newt, I hate this.”

“What?” Cautiously, uncertain what he’d done to warrant this reaction.

“This.” Thomas gestured angrily between them. “This - whatever’s happening between us right now, I hate it. I fucking hate it and I just want to go back to normal because I…” He trailed off, biting his lower lip. “I almost lost you and I feel like - I just - I don’t want us to waste any more time being angry at each other, okay?”

Waste any more time? What did that mean?

Not for the first time, Newt wondered. Wondered if Thomas could possibly know what his words sounded like, if he knew how often Newt had thought the exact same thing.

“Okay,” Newt said quietly, eyes going wide, mouth dry and hands shaking slightly as adrenaline spiked in his veins. “Let’s agree, then. No more wasting time.”

And he waited.

Waited for Thomas to say what he seemed on the cusp of saying. Waited for Thomas to define their ‘normal’, since Newt wasn’t sure what that even meant anymore. Waited for Thomas to show him what Minho had been talking about - whatever he had done while Newt was unconscious on the Berg, that Thomas had been embarrassed about later.

Newt waited, and dared to hope, and shook from the wanting and anticipation and fear.

“Newt.”

He watched Thomas swallow, throat constricting, tongue flicking out to separate dry lips.

“Yes?”

“I don’t love her.”

Was he imagining that emphasis? That crucial weight on her, as if there was another he did love?

“Alright,” he managed, around vocal cords that had suddenly seized up. “Alright, then. I trust you.”

“Newt.”

“I’m right bloody here, Thomas.”

Thomas opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

He closed it, tried again.

“I - ”

“Hey! You two ugly shanks over there!”

Newt and Thomas both jumped, heads whipping around to see that Gally had somehow managed to sneak up on them. It was a testament to how wrapped up in their conversation they had been that they hadn’t heard the thud of his heavy boots as he approached, and now he stood just a few feet away with his arms crossed and annoyance flashing across his features.

“What the hell were you two talking about?”

“Nothing,” Newt said quickly. He swung his feet to the ground, leveraging himself out of the hammock and trying to take deep breaths to calm his racing heart. “What do you want, Gally?”

And if there was the slightest bit of irritation in his voice at being interrupted, well, it couldn’t be helped. Newt cast a furtive glance at Thomas and they briefly locked eyes before both looked guiltily away.

“We’re moving out, if you care to join us.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “We cleared the beach this morning. Weather’s nice enough, Vince wants us camped out where we have more room to move around, can see things coming.” He shrugged. “And some people were saying this place gives ‘em the creeps.”

“Well, it’s nothing we haven’t done before,” Newt said calmly, already turning around to take down his hammock. He tended to agree - the idea of sleeping out in the open, surrounded by people he trusted who he could see at a glance instead of them being all spread out in this maze of buildings that seemed ready to fall down at the hint of a stiff wind sounded pretty good to him.

“Alright, well. Pack up.” Gally swirled a hand around in the air, indicating the general vicinity, with the attitude of one who was clearly enjoying the small modicum of power they’d been temporarily granted. Newt resisted rolling his eyes. “We’re hitting the road in twenty minutes.”

And Gally stalked out of the room, looking like he didn’t know what to do with his hands now that he wasn’t holding a rifle.

“Hey, Newt.”

Newt paused in untying the knots holding up his hammock to look over at Thomas, who was doing the same.

“Are we…are we good?”

“Yeah, Tommy. We’re good.”

As long as you stay away from Teresa, Newt couldn’t help but think, despite knowing that he would never hold Thomas to such an impossible standard.

He had no right to be possessive. Thomas wasn’t his.

He wasn’t. He wasn’t. He wasn’t.

Newt swallowed back bitter disappointment. He’d thought that, before Gally’s interruption, Thomas had been about to say something…meaningful. Something that maybe Newt had been hoping to hear all along.

Oh, he was a fool.

The more things changed... Newt thought.

The sand was still warm with a radiant leftover heat, the sun’s lingering touch upon the world long after it slipped below the horizon. Newt could have sworn he tasted golden sunlight through his fingers as they dug into the giving sand. Though perhaps some of that heat came from within. It wasn’t Gally’s home brew but he supposed it would have to do, this bottle of burning brown liquor rescued from the Scorch and carted over an ocean to come to rest between himself and Thomas, cradled in the sand.

Newt tipped his head, a languid smile melting across his face as he watched the world tilt just a beat behind. He was underwater, drowning so slowly that it felt like living for the first time.

“Newt,” and the word was accompanied by the softest laughter, and Newt turned his head slowly to regard the source, and the smile widened, muscles pulling into an unfamiliar shape.

“You’re drunk,” the voice accused, feather-light, smooth and beautiful, so beautiful. A symphony in a single note.

“You’re drunk,” Newt repeated. He felt a touch on his shoulder and closed his eyes.

“I am not!”

“Then I’m not, either.” His tongue forming around the “th” very deliberately, so carefully that he didn’t slur but the concentration it required was just as damning. He should also probably open his eyes but he was honestly afraid.

Just the voice was enough to undo him completely; did he really have to bear those eyes as well?

Behind the safety of shuttering eyelids, Newt let himself imagine.

What it would be to have him. Thomas.

To be allowed to touch. To reach out and cup his jaw, trace the swooping line of his neck, his collarbone. Innocent, he defended himself, his desires were so innocent. Just a touch to places always exposed. The air got to touch Thomas in that way. The sand got to touch him, the wind and the sunlight and the saltwater in the breeze. If Newt broke himself apart, if he dissolved into the world around them then he would be allowed to touch, too.

But he couldn’t. He was trapped in this body, this stupid body that would never be allowed because Thomas didn’t want it, would never want it. Newt hated it. He hated his skin, he wanted to take it off.

But he was stuck in it. And it seemed a crime to hate anything on such a wonderful night so he smiled through the pain.

He felt a finger poking at his shoulder.

“Earth to Newt.”

“Mmm, Newt’s away at the moment.” He decided not to open his eyes, enjoying Thomas’s attention, drunkenly deciding that it was a good idea to tease him. “Care to leave a message?”

“Yeah, tell him his friend is about to cart him off to bed if he doesn’t stop pretending to be asleep.”

“Don’t you dare, Thomas.” Newt’s eyes flew open, terrified at the prospect of Thomas carrying him (and knowing it was no idle threat), and Thomas burst into laughter.

“Hey man, don’t leave me alone like that then.” Thomas bumped shoulders with Newt and Newt prayed to all the deities he couldn’t remember that he wasn’t blushing as much as it felt like he was blushing. He supposed he could always blame it on the liquor. “I can’t exactly talk to Minho, after all.”

“Hmmm.” Newt squinted at where Minho sat across the fire from them, arm wrapped around Molly’s waist. “Has he made any headway yet, y’think?”

“Nah, she’s giving him hell.” Thomas chuckled. The drink made him laugh easily and Newt loved it, had never loved anything more than the sound of Thomas’s easy laughter, like the rare sight of a butterfly emerging from its dark cocoon.

“What, not even a kiss?” Thomas shook his head and Newt snorted. “Never thought Minho to be the patient type when it came to all that.”

“How would you know?” Thomas gave him a sly look. “You two have a history I don’t know about?”

“Ew. Thomas, please, you’ll upset the delicate truce between myself and my stomach.” Good to know that he could still be clever while he was drunk.

Well…passingly clever. Sort of.

“What, you don’t think he’s a little attractive?”

“Really, Tommy?” Newt ignored the icy-hot twin tongues of jealousy and confusion snaking between his chest and stomach. “Are you joking?”

He couldn’t tell. God damn it all but he couldn’t tell in the least bit whether that was an earnest question or Thomas poking fun at the idea of liking boys and suddenly Newt wanted to be anywhere but there.

“Yeah, Newt,” Thomas laughed. “Yeah, I’m joking.”

And Newt supposed he should have been disappointed or offended or something other than what he was - which was bloody relieved that they could drop the subject.

He was too drunk for this.

“Newt.”

“Yeah?”

“Newt. Newt. Newtie. Newt.” And Thomas poked him in the cheek, gently, two or three times before Newt clumsily swatted his hand away.

“Don’t call me that, and what’s the bloody matter with you?”

Thomas snorted, holding back laughter as his head shrunk down into his shoulders.

“Look at Gally,” he said in an exaggerated stage whisper, pointing with one finger and hiding it behind his hand. Newt rolled his eyes - weren’t there better ways to tell him that than bloody touching him so much? It was torture - and looked over to where Gally and Brenda were sitting close together.

Extremely close together.

Holding hands.

“Well bloody hell, wouldja look at that,” Newt said, with no small amount of wonder in his voice at seeing Gally so…soft. “Looks like everyone’s pairin’ off.” He guessed that that was just what happened when people who had spent so long fighting for their lives suddenly got the chance to slow down and simply be.

“Yup. Everyone ‘cept us.” Thomas hiccuped.

“Ah, well,” and Newt silently congratulated himself on getting so good at speaking through what should be incapacitating pain, “I’m sure you’ll find a girl eventually. Those immunes look at you like you’re some kinda shuckin’ hero. Which you are.” He nodded firmly, then grabbed the bottle up from the sand and took a long drink.

“My friend, the big damn hero.” And he nodded until it looked like his head might fall off. Meanwhile, Thomas was shaking his head with equal vigor.

“I am not,” he said, petulantly, like a child, and Newt held back a fond smile. “Not more than you are, anyway. Or Gally, or Frypan or Brenda or…or anyone. I had a lot of help.”

“That’s right. You had help. But it was your idea, yeah?” Newt’s eyes were shining, large and dark and reflecting the flickering flames of the campfire. He tilted his head. “You know I’d be lost without you, mate. Still runnin’ the Glade like it was a shuckin’ summer camp.”

And he suddenly looked away and swallowed hard, eyes flicking back and forth across the sand in front of his feet.

“Three years and I…I didn’t do a damn thing to get anyone any closer to escapin’ the Maze. Then you come in and bring the bloody walls down in the span of a few days.”

“Hey. Hey.” Thomas shook his shoulder and Newt looked back at him, with a twisted half-smile full of guilt and regret. “Listen, you did things I never could.” Thomas looked deadly serious and Newt wished he’d just kept his mouth shut because he didn’t like being responsible for erasing that easy laughter of just a moment ago.

Still, he shook his head.

“I got too caught up in all the little things,” he said softly. “Me and Alby both. We just…fed off each other like that. Runnin’ the Glade, all the day to day stuff, keepin’ the peace and all that. It became everything to us, meanwhile our people were dyin’ cuz there was no living with that place, not long-term. Fools, both of us.”

Newt took a short drink from the bottle, wiping a hand across his mouth.

“Thank fuck you showed up an’ saved us all. You’re good, Tommy, there’s no denyin’ it, and since the day I met you I was always just followin’ you. Still do.”

“Fuck, Newt, I…I wish I wasn’t drunk right now.” Thomas screwed up his face into such an intense look of concentration that Newt had to hold back laughter by biting his lip. Thomas didn’t seem to notice, though. “Cuz you’re…you’re like, so important, you don’t even know it.”

“Ah, well,” Newt said again, shrugging.

“No, don’t do that, if you get to call me a big damn hero then I, I get to say nice stuff about you, too.”

“Alright then,” and Newt didn’t know where he got the courage - probably from the bottle still clutched in his hand, “I’m waiting.”

Thomas opened his mouth, closed it, and then shifted in the sand, turning completely towards Newt and sitting forward on his knees, engaged and excited.

“Yes, okay, let’s do this. Have I really never complimented you before? I mean shit, Newt, just look at you. You’ve survived more bullshit than anyone I know and you just keep going, I mean nothing can stop you.”

And most of that bullshit was my own fault, but go on then.

“And then it’s like, you’re always thinking about other people. You’re the least selfish person I’ve ever met.”

Now that’s a bloody lie, all I do anymore is feel sorry for myself.

“I mean, you were willing to die to get Minho back. And then when I asked why you didn’t tell me you were sick you said you didn’t think it mattered.” Thomas’s face fell abruptly and Newt blinked as he registered the emotion there. “That’s sad, Newt, that’s so sad.”

“Alright, reel it in there, bucko.”

“I couldn’t even believe you’d said that, ya know? Cuz it did matter, so much. More than anything. It mattered to me.”

“Y’know this started out as you complimenting me but now I feel like I need to bloody apologize.”

“Don’t, I have more.” It almost seemed like the more Thomas spoke the more sober he became. “You’re calm under pressure. When we stopped that train you acted like we were just running another drill, like it was no big deal and you didn’t have a whole-ass Berg and like twenty soldiers firing on you. And you pick up new skills like…like it’s nothing. The way you took to target practice? Shit, Newt, you’re scary with that handgun. That’s awesome.”

Newt had no words. He knew he was blushing furiously at that point but he couldn’t look away from Thomas. He was a fly trapped in the amber of those eyes.

“Oh, and your accent is really cool. I…kinda just like listening to you talk, sometimes.”

And Thomas abruptly cut off, snapping his mouth shut with an almost audible click.

Neither of them said anything for a beat, until Newt couldn’t handle the sudden tension anymore and blew out a shaky breath.

“Is that all?” He asked, teasing, and Thomas visibly unfroze, his shoulders relaxing as he ran a hand through his hair and laughed.

“Was it enough?”

“More than enough, Thomas, you’ll give me a big head.”

“I don’t think that’s possible. But you deserve it. You’re awesome, Newt, you should think of yourself that way too.”

“Nobody thinks they’re awesome. Well - ”

“Gally,” Newt and Thomas said in unison, before dissolving into laughter.

In the end, their tents were too far away, they were too drunk, and the night was too stunningly beautiful for Newt or Thomas to want to move.

Eventually the conversation died down as both boys grew too tired to keep it up, yawning and murmuring quiet observations that went unanswered, or with little more than a sleepy “mm-hmm”. Thomas was the first to go sideways, curling up in the sand and already breathing evenly and slowly before Newt had the chance to lever himself to his feet and kick sand over the dying fire.

As he returned to his spot he sat down and looked over at Thomas, certain that he was asleep. His face was so soft and untroubled, one hand curled into a fist pressed between his cheek and the sand, and Newt nearly placed a hand over his own heart to make certain it wouldn’t beat out of his chest and flutter away.

“You’re wonderful,” he whispered, hardly even realizing he’d done so.

Then he curled up, a foot or two away from Thomas so they were in no danger of touching, and fell asleep imagining himself wrapping Thomas up in his arms and never letting go.

Chapter Text

Thomas opened his eyes and the first thing he noticed was a giant, scaly yellow foot.

There was a monster on the beach.

He blinked.

The foot scratched a little divot in the sand.

Then, a white-and-grey head ducked into view, beady black eyes regarding him with a blankly unimpressed expression as a yellow beak swiveled, back and forth.

Thomas sucked in a breath.

A seagull. It was a seagull, not a foot away from his face, and the beginnings of a cry to scare it off formed in his lungs before Thomas realized something else—something that drew him up breathlessly short.

The fingers on his right hand flexed, then froze.

He was holding someone’s hand.

His mind whispered the name of the only person it could be before he dared to believe it was true.

Thomas closed his eyes.

He counted to ten while he memorized the feeling of warm fingers interlinked with his own, his thumb moving minutely over the knuckle of a finger that was not his as if of its own accord, savoring the trace ridges and smooth planes of skin. When Thomas reached ten he opened his eyes and then slowly, carefully, turned his head, until his left cheek came to rest against the cool sand.

He let out a long, slow breath.

Of course, it could never have been anyone other than Newt.

The other man was deeply asleep. Thomas was reminded of their time together in the Scorch, those months of planning and waiting for the perfect moment to attempt their rescue of Minho, when he’d discovered that Newt was a heavy sleeper.

Nothing short of catastrophe could wake the blonde-haired boy before he was ready, and in the grey wash of pre-dawn light that just barely illuminated the beach while the sun still hung heavy and somnolent below the horizon Thomas dared to hope that it would be a long, long while before Newt stirred awake.

Because this felt right.

He remembered falling asleep, and he remembered a whisper in the dark nearly carried away by the wind—

You’re wonderful.

Had he dreamt it? He had been so close to sleep but he had sworn he heard it, clear in that deep, accented voice that he secretly loved—

And yet, Newt had lain in the sand a foot or more away from him, their bodies separated by a chasm of cold and unperturbed air.

Had he shifted in the night? Or had Newt?

Who was holding whose hand, here?

Did it matter?

More details of last night’s conversation came flooding back to him and Thomas rolled his eyes at himself. Good lord, had he really said all of that about Newt? To his face? Gushed about him like a besotted teenager? Which, he had to admit, he was, so it probably wasn’t all that surprising—

But still. Embarrassing, laying it all out like that. He’d practically confessed his undying love to Newt and of course the blonde man had just acted embarrassed and humble, had deflected the compliments to the best of his ability without making it awkward, and that had been that.

If Thomas had even seen one inkling of reciprocity on Newt’s part, he didn’t think he’d be able to stop himself from lunging forward to take the other boy into his arms and kiss him until he forgot his damn name.

But then…what was this? Thomas looked at their hands, at the way their fingers interlocked so smoothly, seamlessly, effortlessly. Newt’s hand was wrapped around his own just as much as his hand was wrapped around Newt’s. And maybe the other boy was asleep but wasn’t there some meaning in the way he looked so comfortable like this?

Or was Thomas grasping at straws?

Should he break their contact now, before Newt woke up? Was even this brief touch a violation, if only Thomas wanted it? Would want it, when Newt was again conscious and capable of wanting?

He should let go.

He should let go.

He should…

Thomas squeezed his eyes shut, his hand spasming into a tight grip, once, a brief pulse of love and desire before he tore the hand away, rolling away and looking up at the sky as the sun rose and colors washed into the grey.

He felt Newt stirring beside him but a glance out of the corner of his eye told him that Newt simply shifted and fell back into that characteristic deep sleep. A wave of affection overtook him and he turned his head to watch.

A light breeze tugging at the strands of blonde hair.

The way his chest rose and fell, rose and fell. Smooth, untroubled, slow breaths. Healthy. Alive. Whole. And so gentle, so soft, so pure. Thomas’s heart ached. He wanted to reach out and wrap himself around the other man. Protect him from anything that might disturb those innocent breaths.

And Thomas suddenly—absurdly—wanted to cry because he didn’t know how he was supposed to live with these feelings any longer.

It was the worst, slowest torture.

Well…check that.

There were worse things than not having Newt in that way.

He could not have Newt around at all.

* * *

“Alright folks, listen up.”

Vince had his hands on his hips as he addressed the gathered crowd. Then he lifted one hand, gesturing with two fingers.

“Over here, we got your security team."

Gally merely nodded while Brenda gave a jaunty, sarcastic salute.

“You need anything on the ship, you check in with one of them first. Nobody leaves the perimeter and nobody lifts a hand in anger against another member of the Safe Haven. You do that and one of them will bring you to me. And you won’t like what I have to say.”

“Alright, Dad,” one of the immunes joked, sending a ripple of laughter through the crowd. Vince raised an eyebrow, a subtle smirk the only other reaction as he plowed ahead.

“Many if you already know what you’ll be doing here. If you don’t have an assignment yet, come see me after class.” He winked as a few people snickered. “Seriously though, we all need to work hard if we’re gonna make this place our home. We’re in this together, no room for slackers. First order of business is to get some more permanent shelters up. We’ll be in tents and lean-to’s for a while but eventually I want to see real buildings, which means we’ll need to start harvesting wood.

“We have enough food stored for a few months at least, which we can start to supplement right away with fishing, but we need to get some fields plowed—like, yesterday. Newt.” He turned to the boy, “I heard agriculture was your thing in your Maze.”

“For the last year or so, yeah.”

“Think you can be my project lead on this? I don’t want you out there digging up the soil, you’re still recovering. Don’t think I’ll forget. But pick out some good land, oversee the workers, keep them on a timeline, act as my point man?”

“You got it, Boss.” Newt stepped forward, rubbing his hands as he turned to scan the crowd. “Right then, who’s with me?”

Vince pointed to Aris.

“Take Aris here, and Aris—you know these kids better than I do. Grab around ten or twelve hard workers and get started. You all have one of the most important tasks.”

Newt walked over to Aris and clapped a hand on his shoulder, started speaking to him in tones low enough that Thomas couldn’t hear, but his heart swelled with pride to watch his friend getting to work. Newt was immediately all business, a light grin on his face, expression animated and focused and Thomas could have sworn he was standing straighter already now that Vince had finally given him something to do.

Vince couldn’t have picked a better man for the job.

As Newt and Aris moved among the crowd, picking out their team, Vince turned to the rest of them and finished outlining their tasks for the next several days. Thomas had to admire the way Vince handled himself and the crowd of hopeful yet nervous refugees. The man seemed to have everything figured out and was full of confidence that they would be able to build a safe and lasting community. Thomas found himself envying the way he shouldered such a crushing load of responsibility as if he’d been born to do just that.

He noticed some of the Gladers looking at him, and Thomas knew what they were thinking. He had been their leader for so long—the person they looked to for answers, for the next step, to take the lead and charge ahead and sweep them all into the unknown. Thomas just shrugged at them, barely holding back a smile.

Honestly, he was relieved to pass on that particular torch. He didn’t want that responsibility anymore, didn’t even think he was the best person for the job. Maybe in times of panic and desperation he could lead an attack—but now?

He just wanted to focus on his friends. On building the life for them that they all deserved.

It wasn’t until Vince dismissed the crowd, with a final instruction that Gally and two others from the security team accompany Newt and Aris’s crew as they searched out a suitable plot of land for their first fields, that Thomas realized he hadn’t been given a job.

He furrowed his brow, searching out Minho in the crowd, who looked back at him with a shrug. Before he could say anything to his friend Minho was pulled away by Jorge to head back to the ship, part of a dismantling and salvaging crew that would provide much-needed supplies to the team of builders who would begin constructing the first shelters.

Thomas’s hands itched. He wanted to help, he wanted a purpose, why wasn’t he with Minho? Or Newt? Or Gally? He could dismantle a ship. He could plow a field. He could hold a gun. Did Vince think he wasn’t trustworthy? Or that he was too weak from his gunshot wound to be of any help? That was crazy, if anyone should be resting it was Newt, he’d lost approximately an entire Newt’s worth of blood but he was still hiking out to god knows where with one of the hardest and most important jobs of them all and—

Vince locked eyes with him and Thomas realized he was waiting, having anticipated that Thomas would do exactly what he did, which was march right up to him with a slightly confused grin.

“Uh, hey Vince? I think you forgot about me.”

“No one could forget you, Thomas,” Vince said with a chuckle, landing a hand on Thomas’s shoulder in that fatherly way he had. Thomas appreciated the kind gesture but his impatience made his smile slip.

“Seriously, Vince, I’m ready to get to work.” He tried another smile. “So, uh, where do you need me? I was thinking I could join security—you were talking about some patrols…?”

Vince sighed, squeezing the hand on Thomas’s shoulder before dropping it and crossing his arms.

“Actually, kid, I’ve got another job for you.” The older man ran a hand through his long hair. “Now, listen, I don’t like this any more than you’re going to—”

Oh boy.

“But since Newt and Brenda are proof positive that this cure thing is real, I don’t really have a choice. Yeah, most of you kids are immune, but I’ve got other people here to think about. We can’t afford to lose anyone on the off chance that the virus hitched a ride along with us.” He shrugged, clearly uncomfortable. Viral biology was definitely not Vince’s forte. He lowered his voice, grey eyes leveling with Thomas. “I’m told people can be carriers, even if they don’t have the Flare themselves. Don’t really get how that works but I trust Molly and she says we need more of the cure. To keep everyone safe.”

Thomas’s heart sank.

“So this job,” he said woodenly, “Does it by any chance involve me sitting in a tent and letting Teresa take as much blood from me as possible?”

Vince sighed again.

“Yeah. Yeah, it does. I wish I didn’t have to ask you to do this, kid. You know I don’t trust that girl. Still think we should keep her locked up when she’s not working. But I’ve got to think about what’s best for everyone here.”

“I just…Wish I could actually do something. I don’t just want to be a—a test subject. Again.” Thomas rubbed a hand over his eyes, already anticipating the hours of boredom and inaction as he laid in a cot recovering from giving blood while all of his friends were out building, creating, doing things that felt so much more important and immediate.

And honestly, the thought of Teresa in a white coat, of the smell of alcohol swabs and feel of latex gloves, of submitting to a needle again was a bit overwhelming. Dizzying. Thomas suddenly leaned over, hands on his knees as he was overcome by a rush of anxiety that made his heart beat frantically in his chest.

He felt Vince’s hand on his back and tried to wave the other man off. He was fine. He just needed a minute.

“Thomas, if you need a day or two—”

“No.” Thomas let out a forceful breath as he straightened, ignoring the way his vision went cloudy and dark along with the lightheadedness before rapidly blinking it all away. “I want to get this over with. Now is as good a time as any.” And, a little bit dramatically, like a man marching to his death, Thomas started trudging up the hill towards the medical tent.

* * *

Days passed in this manner.

Newt would go off with Aris and the rest of his team to tend to the fields. There was always work for them to do: more fields to plow, seeds to plant, water to lug from the nearby river, fences to build to keep the island’s native animals from munching on the crops that would begin to sprout in a few weeks’ time.

Meanwhile Thomas would sit in the tent, let Teresa take his blood while she taught Molly and Quentin the method to turn it into the cure. Sonya was there, too, quieter than he remembered. She watched everything Molly did with something approaching reverence. Sometimes Thomas tried to talk to her but she seemed distracted, fidgety in his presence. He gave up wondering why.

After all was said and done he’d lay in his hammock, feeling drained and exhausted as he stared at the waves, watching them crashing on the shore.

Waiting for night to fall so he could enjoy his favorite part of the day.

Frypan would have dinner waiting for everyone—mostly stew because it was the easiest thing to make with their current supplies to feed the amount of people that they had.

Newt would bring him a bowl and the two of them would sit, looking out at the ocean as the sky darkened and the stars winked into existence, revealing themselves in the night.

Thomas could relate.

The day was for work. For strength, real or feigned, and for jokes, for teasing and sarcasm and bravado, for pushing aside the feelings that really drove him. But as soon as night fell those quieter, more sensitive parts came to life. He’d think about everything that had happened to him since his memory began—the day he woke up in the Box, ascending towards his new life in the Maze.

Night was time for him and Newt to talk. Or not to talk—to simply exist in each other’s space, comfortable despite the feeling that there was something they were pushing off, refusing to acknowledge, letting it prowl around the edges of their interactions like a restless predator.

It would come for them, eventually. But for now the nights were enough, for Thomas, just the way they were. Newt was enough.

And there was something else, too.

The first day or so Thomas tried to write it off.

Newt was tired. He was adjusting to his new role in the Safe Haven. He was thinking about conversations he’d had with Aris. He was planning out the tasks he had to complete the next day, for the rest of the week. That was what Thomas told himself.

Newt was tired. That was why he seemed distant, at times. That was why, when Thomas stole glances at him over dinner, spoon paused on its way to his mouth, he saw a dazed look in Newt’s eyes, like his attention was far away—or nowhere at all.

That was why, when Thomas tried to engage him in conversation, Newt came back to him so slowly, blinking back at him with a blank look and just the barest hint of confusion. Asking Thomas to repeat things he’d said only a moment ago, slow to comprehend, leaving questions unanswered, sentences unfinished.

By day three after arriving in the Safe Haven, Thomas became worried enough to ask.

It was a quiet night. A warm night. Newt had been talking about the challenges that came with planning out their fields when they had no real idea of the yearly climate of the Safe Haven, if it was warm year-round or if the rains varied or if there was an imminent frost to prepare for. He seemed worried, but not distraught—simply concerned, as they all were, with making the Safe Haven a viable community in the long run.

“Anyway, we’ve been planning this for a long time, so we’ve got supplies to last us through at least one winter, but it’s still—” Newt said, then paused to spoon more of Frypan’s stew into his mouth, clearly hungry from the day’s work.

Thomas nodded, waiting for Newt to finish the sentence, but the rest never came. Instead the other boy just looked out at the waves, seemingly content to watch the dark water, edges etched in silver moonlight, roll onto the shore. He lifted another spoonful to his mouth and that was when Thomas cleared his throat.

Newt looked over, his expression so serene, so content and lined with just a touch of amusement that Thomas almost let it go. But he’d let it go so many times over the past few days that instead, he steeled himself against the unpleasantness of bringing it up, determined to finally do so.

“It’s still what?”

“Hmm?”

“You said—” Thomas paused, adjusting in his seat so he could angle more towards Newt, his own bowl of stew left half-eaten and forgotten in his hands, “You were in the middle of saying something.”

“Oh.” Newt shrugged. “Sorry, Tommy. Guess I just forgot.”

Thomas licked his lips in a quick, nervous motion.

Sure—normally, it would be a simple case of distraction, but this wasn’t an isolated incident. It was part of a pattern, a pattern that Thomas didn’t like one bit because it was so unlike Newt. Newt with his careful, methodical mind. Newt who never talked just to talk, whose words always held such intention and purpose. Thomas wanted those words, all of them that he was due.

“You’ve been doing that a lot, lately,” he said quietly.

Recognition dawned on Newt’s face almost as quickly as it was superseded by irritation.

“Well sorry, Tommy,” he said, with no small amount of bitterness. “Guess I’ve just been a bit distracted. Lot on my mind, after all.” He took another bite of the stew but it was less out of hunger than out of an angry urge to do something with his hands. “I mean, I’ve only been tasked with feeding the lot of you for the foreseeable future.”

“Hey,” Thomas bristled. “Why are you mad at me?”

Newt huffed, and turned to look back out to sea. Even though he was worried and now a bit irritated, Thomas couldn’t help thinking that Newt was adorable when he was angry.

“Do you think it’s too much?”

“What?”

“All this—agriculture stuff. It sounds like a lot of pressure. Maybe you need a break? Or a different job? I could help you talk to Vince—”

“Tommy,” Newt rolled his eyes. “I’m not afraid of a little hard work and responsibility. Feels sort of nice, actually. Being trusted with it. I wasn’t so sure what Vince’d think of me, at first, being an ex-crank and all.”

“Why should that matter?” Thomas decided to let the whole ‘ex-crank’ thing go for the moment, even though he didn’t like that description one bit.

Newt shrugged.

“You remember what Vince was like when we first met him, yeah? When we had Brenda with us? He was ready to shoot on sight.” Newt took another bite of stew and Thomas hoped to god he wasn’t about to trail off again; thankfully, his attention held. “And Minho says he wasn’t too happy when they dragged me onto the Berg.” Newt shrugged again. “He’s cautious. I don’t blame him. Must’ve seen some terrible shit, living in the Scorch like that all those years.”

“Newt, you know you don’t have anything to prove to him, right?”

“Tommy.” Newt set down his bowl, put both hands together as if in a silent prayer for patience before leveling a hard look at him. “I’m gonna need ya to get all the way off my back on this one, yeah?”

Thomas snorted.

“Fine,” he said, giving Newt’s shoulder a playful shove. “But you know you can always talk to me, right?”

“I’m always talkin’ to ya, slinthead. ’S all I do anymore.”

“Aww, c’mon. You know you like me.”

“Yeah,” Newt said, with a resigned sigh. “Yeah, I do.”

Thomas smiled and looked down at his hands, stealing little glances at Newt and wondering if now was the time. If he’d finally just take the leap and tell him what had been on his mind since the Last City. He was almost certain now that Newt felt it, too: this thing that had been building between them for god knows how long, probably since Thomas’s first day in the Maze.

Maybe even before that, too.

Not that either of them would remember, but some days Thomas wondered. He knew that he’d been friends with many of the kids before they were sent up into the Maze. Teresa swears they had been best friends, and Thomas supposed he felt it too—which was one reason why her betrayal had hurt so much.

But what about him and Newt? In that moment, Thomas would have given anything to know.

“Hey, Shank One and Shank Two!” Minho’s voice, distant but getting closer, floated over to them on the warm currents of salty air. Thomas turned to see his friend striding up the beach, barefoot and with his trousers rolled up almost to his knees. He plopped down next to Newt.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” he said with a wink at the two of them that made Thomas blush and Newt roll his eyes. ‘’I’ve been feeling a little left out, you know. With you two always over here whispering to each other.”

“Slim it, Minho,” Newt warned, and Thomas furrowed his brow, thinking that Newt sounded more annoyed than he would have expected. Then the blonde man relaxed and even grinned. “You’re just over here cuz Molly’s had enough of you for the night.”

“Guys, I can’t do this anymore. She’s driving me nuts.” Minho’s head sagged dramatically into his hands and Newt reached over to swat his shoulder.

“Well why don’tcha leave the poor girl alone then, yeah?”

“I can’t.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I love her, you heartless bastard!”

Newt suddenly doubled over in laughter and had to set his bowl down on the sand to avoid spilling it. He wheezed, holding a hand to his chest like the force of his laughter might split his stitches and for a second Thomas worried that it might. He’d never seen Newt laugh so hard in his life and his chest had gone all warm and soft and fuzzy at the sight.

“You—Minho, you can’t—you can’t say things like that, oh, my god, oh I’m gonna die. I’m dying.”

Minho didn’t look the least bit embarrassed. Distraught and crestfallen, yes, but his response was earnest, holding nothing back.

“I do! I love her, god Newt. You’re an evil shank, you know that?”

“I know,” Newt wheezed, nodding. “I know. I’m sorry. I just—Minho. Oh, Minho. Oh, you poor thing. What’s she done to you?”

Thomas had to wonder the same thing; this was not the Minho he knew.

“I can’t help it,” Minho whined. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. All I do is think about her. What she likes, what she’s doing, how to make her smile. It’s fucking killing me, man.”

Sounds familiar, Thomas thought.

“Well does she at least like you back, mate?”

“Yes! I know she does. We eat dinner together every night—“

Just like me and Newt.

“—and we talk all the time, I tell her everything about my day and ask her about hers—“

Yep. Check.

“—and we hold hands sometimes—“

Well, he and Newt hadn’t done that while they were awake, yet, but it wasn’t for lack of wanting to, at least on Thomas’s part—

“—but that’s where it ends, I’ve tried putting my arm around her and she moves away, I’ve asked if I could kiss her and she’s said no! I don’t know what she wants or what I’m doing wrong but I really don’t think I can take this anymore.”

Thomas looked over at Newt and saw that the blonde man had stopped laughing and was starting to look genuinely sorry for his friend.

Meanwhile, all Thomas could do was wonder if Newt would have a similar reaction if Thomas ever told him that he loved him. Which he did—he was certain of it, growing more certain every day—but he was also certain he would die on the spot if his confession was met with a bout of laughter. Even from someone with a laugh as nice as Newt’s.

“Hello? Earth to Thomas?”

“Hmm?”

“You’re being quiet over there, shank.”

“Sorry,” Thomas grinned. “I just like hearing you guys talk.”

It was true. Thomas still had his moments when he couldn’t believe that they’d all made it. That they were safe and together and could just sit on the beach and talk. And he loved seeing Minho and Newt interact, he loved thinking about the friendship they’d built over the years they were in the Maze together, and he loved that they could both finally relax and just exist in each other’s space.

“Sap,” Minho accused, while Newt snickered.

“Sure am!” Thomas winked and went back to eating, quickly finishing off the stew and nudging Newt’s foot with his own.

“Eat,” he ordered, pointing at Newt’s abandoned bowl. “All of it.”

Newt raised an eyebrow, but he bent down to pick up the bowl and finished his meal, grumbling something about a mother hen as he ate.

* * *

The day that Teresa declared she had enough of Thomas’s blood to cure and vaccinate a dozen Safe Havens’ worth of people was the same day that Vince called in everyone early from their work assignments to gather around what would become their memorial to those who had died on the way to paradise.

Thomas was happy that Vince had liked his and Newt’s idea and he was impressed with the rock they found and somehow, with a lot of manpower, managed to drag to its place of honor on the beach. It was large, almost half again as tall as Thomas, and wide with an expansive flat surface on which to carve the many—all too many—names.

“When you’re ready,” Vince said to the gathered crowd, hefting a small knife. “Come and make your peace.” And he had immediately turned his back to the hushed, quiet Haveners, and begun etching out the beginnings of an ‘M’. Thomas watched for a moment, with no sound but the crackling fire and waves crashing on the shore, only the quiet murmurs of a few of the immune kids breaking the silence. Then he shared a look with Newt, and the two of them stood, and began moving among the crowd with gentle encouragements to disperse and leave Vince to his task.

Throughout the rest of the night, as soon as one person had finished carving a name into the rock, another took their place.

Somehow, wordlessly, the Gladers divided up the duty amongst themselves.

Gally carved Ben’s name.

Minho carved Winston’s.

Frypan carved out Clint, and Jeff.

Thomas carved Chuck with shaking hands.

And, finally, hours later, after the fire had died down and almost everyone else had gone to bed, Thomas had looked over to see Newt standing in front of the rock, looking up at a blank space with knife in one hand, striking rock in the other, and Thomas knew the name he was thinking of, but he couldn’t seem to start. He looked lost.

He needed help. He needed a push; and that was the only thing Thomas really felt he was any good for. Giving people the push they needed to get going, to bring them out of their rut, to make them realize how much they were really worth.

Everyone thought he was a natural-born leader but he wasn’t. He led from behind.

“Tell me about him?” He asked softly as he stepped up beside Newt. Then, he gave a quick, nervous shrug. “If you want to.”

Newt startled, as if coming out of a trance. He was silent for a long moment. Thomas figured he didn’t want to talk and shoved his hands in his pockets, then turned to walk away—but Newt’s hand darted out to catch him by the arm. When he looked back at his friend he wasn’t looking at him; he was staring up at the rock, gaze far away.

“He was good, y’know?”

Thomas didn’t know, so he said nothing.

“He was good. The way—the way you’re good.” Newt seemed to be having trouble putting to words the things he wanted to say, but Thomas waited. He could be patient, for Newt. Though the corner of his mouth ticked up into a small, sad smile, and he wanted to ask How am I good? But he didn’t, because this wasn’t about him.

Newt had apparently stalled again, so without really thinking about it Thomas asked,

“Were you two ever…?”

And Newt’s head whipped around, pinning him with a sharp gaze. Thomas felt his insides turn to ice.

“What d’ya mean by that, Tommy?” And something about the way Newt said it was heartbreaking to Thomas. He was so guarded, even aggressive in the way he threw up walls against the question, like he’d heard it all before, like he’d been hurt by it.

“Nothing,” Thomas whispered, with a slight shake of his head, brown eyes wide and open and honest. “Nothing bad.”

Newt scowled, expression still dark and unreadable, before tearing his gaze away to look back at the rock.

“I’m sorry. I’ll—I’ll leave you alone.” Thomas should have known better than to try to force anything out of Newt when he wasn’t ready to volunteer it himself.

“S’alright. Used to get that question a lot, is all.” Newt finally let out a sigh that seemed to release all of the tension in his shoulders, and then he shrugged, running a hand through his hair, the hilt of the knife dragging along his scalp. He made a sudden move with both arms, lifting them towards the rock as if to finally begin his task—but dropped them again.

“Why can’t I do it, Tommy?”

“You don’t have to do it right now. You can wait, take all the time you need.”

“I’ve had time, the shank’s been dead for months.”

“I dunno.” Thomas shrugged, hands shoved into his pockets again. He turned to look back at the beach, saw nothing but the dying fire, sparks scattered by the wind that had picked up when the sun set, the same wind that rustled through the coarse dune grasses. “It doesn’t feel that long, somehow. Y’know, we were always…running from something, fighting something. Never really had much time to just stop and think.”

“Oh, I thought plenty,” Newt said, voice far away—probably back in the Scorch, thinking of the many long nights he and Thomas had sat up by the fire, waiting for one of them to get tired enough to at least try to sleep. “But you’re right. I think I avoided thinking about him. And now it’s…I dunno. It feels too late. I can’t even picture his face any more.”

“I feel the same about Chuck,” Thomas admitted quietly. Newt turned his head, gave him a long look that made Thomas uneasy for some reason. “I know I didn’t know him for long…”

“You knew him,” Newt said firmly, and Thomas realized that the look was strange because it was so open, and so sad. Newt was sad for him and he was showing it and it was almost overwhelming because Thomas was so used to reading between the lines when it came to Newt.

Thomas just nodded, throat suddenly tight as he remembered wild curls, red cheeks, kindness and innocence. Trust. Hope. Love. All the things that made up Chuck in his mind.

“You want me to tell you about Alby? I’ll tell ya about him.” Newt rocked back onto his heels, seeming more relaxed than he’d been a few moments ago, though still grasping the knife and rock in each fist planted on his hips.

“He was solid. Like this rock, right here.” Newt rapped his knuckles against the rough surface, gave a sharp shake of his head. “Immovable. The realest thing in a manufactured world. I don’t think he ever did a single thing for himself the entire time I knew him. Never had one selfish moment. After I jumped—”

Thomas couldn’t help but flinch, but Newt was looking at him now, his head tilted, his gaze calculating, and Thomas just knew that this was a test. Newt wasn’t so frank about it with anyone—it was always ‘the accident’, if he had to talk about it at all, never something so blunt, never the truth, and if Thomas looked like he couldn’t handle it, like he was pitying Newt, then it was done for, he’d lose that trust and he wasn’t about to do that.

Whatever Newt saw in his expression, he seemed satisfied, and carried on, gaze back on the rock but growing distant as his thoughts turned inward, searching his memories.

“After I jumped, I was a bloody wreck. There was a day or two there I don’t really remember. My leg hurt so fucking much, Tommy, I can’t even describe it. I mean—shit.” Newt laughed, seeming genuinely amused. “I definitely taught him a few new curses. Minho, y’know, he still had to run the Maze, so it was Alby that sat with me most days. Didn’t want to leave me alone, and there were times I hated him for that, but he was right. He was the first to notice I wasn’t eating.”

Newt just rolled his eyes. Meanwhile Thomas was fighting to keep his expression neutral, feeling that that was what was expected of him, but damn it was hard when his insides felt so slithery and cold.

“And that made me angry, too. I was a right little shit. Still wanted to die, yaknow? That didn’t just magically go away because I failed the first time. So I stopped eating. Wasn’t hard, didn’t have much of an appetite to begin with. Again, the leg thing. Hard to eat when you’d rather just…scream.”

Thomas inhaled through his teeth, wincing, and Newt gave him a sharp look.

“Is it too much for ya, Tommy?”

“Newt, if it wasn’t too much it would mean something was wrong with me.”

Newt chuckled.

“Point taken. Well anyway, Alby let me get away with it for a few days, probably hoping I’d come around myself. When I didn’t, he told Frypan to stop bringing me meals. Waste of supplies, he said.”

“What?”

“Yeah.” Newt had a strange little smile on his face, wholly at odds with the sudden rage that coursed through Thomas’s stomach. “Said if I was just gonna die on them anyway—if I was just gonna throw my food on the ground and refuse to eat it—there was no sense wasting it on the likes of me. And that stung, yaknow? Somewhere deep down, in a place I didn’t think I had anymore. Like, what, the bugger’s just gonna let me die? That’s not how we worked in the Glade. Take care of our own, and all that. Thought he must be crazy or—y’know, royally pissed.

“And then he stopped comin’ to see me. I woke up one afternoon and he wasn’t there and—I’d come to expect it. I’d taken him for granted. And the night wore on and I’ll tell ya, Tommy, it was the worst night of my whole bloody life. I felt so alone, and I was still so angry, but now I was angry at myself. Because the one thing I had was Alby’s company and I’d driven him off. And I was starting to wonder what was goin’ on out in the Glade without me. And—shit, it’s hard to admit it, but it wasn’t even mornin’ yet before I was yellin’ for someone to come see me. Just to talk. Just to have someone else there.”

“Newt, that sounds awful, I can’t—I can’t believe Alby did that.” Thomas hadn’t known Alby long, but they hadn’t exactly gotten off on the right foot, and so far this story only cemented his impression of Alby as someone rather cold, someone he just didn’t really care to get to know.

“I’m glad he did. And you should be, too. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here right now.”

And suddenly Newt lifted his hands, placed the tip of the knife against the rock and struck the handle, chipping off the start of an ‘A’.

“He came to me when the sun was up.” As Newt spoke he struck again and again, making slow but steady progress on the letter, the dark surface of the rock chipping away, leaving a pale streak behind. “With a hearty breakfast, courtesy of Frypan, who—I learned this later—was just shy of staging a full-on rebellion against Alby’s orders not to feed me. But Alby knew how far he could push him. How far he could push me. And I ate it all, Tommy, I ate every last bit of it and I’ve never had as good a meal since. And I cried—shit—”

Newt paused, hanging his head a bit, forearms pressed against the memorial rock.

“All I did was cry and shout at people back then, you would’ve hated me.”

Impossible, Thomas thought, and it was the one coherent thought he was capable of at the moment.

“But I apologized to him and I begged him to take me out of the fucking Homestead and he did.” Newt resumed his carving, just finishing up the first letter. “He helped me hobble around the Glade—basically carried me—and I saw that everythin’ was still goin’ on without me. Everyone was still there, just trying to survive. The Runners were still there trying to find a way out. Nothing had changed. And I realized I had a choice.”

Newt paused, looking at Thomas, meeting his eyes for the briefest glance before his gaze fell to somewhere around Thomas’s shoes.

“I could stick around and try to help people, the way Alby was helping me. Or I could fuck off and die and become just another bad memory.”

Newt shrugged, and went back to his carving, the quiet, metallic chink of the knife sounding louder than it should against the background noise of the waves and the wind and Thomas’s heartbeat.

“I chose the former. Though it wasn’t like a switch, y’know, it wasn’t as simple as that. I still had my moments when I thought, ‘y’know what, fuck this and fuck everyone, I’m done’. But I never tried to, uh—pull the trigger, so to speak. Never again. ’Til I got the Flare, of course, but those were extenuating circumstances. And I hope you forgive me, for that. Well—for everything.”

Newt was working on the second hump of the ‘B’ now.

Thomas hadn’t spoken in so long that it took him a moment to realize what Newt had said.

“There’s—there’s nothing to forgive.” Thomas’s mind was reeling. He was surprised he was able to even put those words together.

“I just want ya to know that I don’t give up, anymore.” Working on the ‘Y’ now, striking against the knife with quick, efficient motions, moving along at a smooth pace. “I’m not the same Newt I was back then. I want to do right by Alby. I want to do right by you.”

The name was finished. Newt smoothed a hand over the surface, palm open and flat as he brushed off the dust and then let an index finger trace a lingering touch over the lines of each letter.

“We kissed once, y’know.”

Thomas choked on his next breath, making a strangled little ehh sound, and Newt chuckled quietly.

“It was a stupid little thing, and if y’ever tell anyone about it I’ll shave your head in your sleep and then have Minho toss ya in the bloody ocean for good measure.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Thomas said, aiming for levity and impressed with the nonchalant tone he thought he managed to pull off despite the klaxons going off in his head—

he kissed a boy he kissed a boy he kissed A BOY—

Play it cool. Right. Thomas could do that. He was tooootally coooooool.

“Seriously though, Newt, I’d never tell anyone something you told me like—like this.”

“In confidence?”

“Huh?”

“In confidence, that’s what you call it. That’s the term you’re looking for.”

“Right, yeah.” Thomas’s gaze flicked over Newt, who was standing back a little from the rock now, though his hand was still pressed against Alby’s name. “Feel any better, now?”

“Yeah, Tommy. I actually do.” Newt bent down to stick the knife in the sand at the base of the rock. “Thanks for listening.”

“Thanks for telling me all of that.”

“Really? You’re thankin’ me for dumping a whole load of crazy on ya?”

“That’s not exactly how I’d put it but you know what—yeah, I am.”

Newt turned and walked past Thomas, giving his shoulder a playful shove.

“Right, well, I’m knackered. Headin’ to bed?”

“Yeah, I’m right there with you.”

As the two of them trudged up the beach Thomas caught Newt looking over his shoulder, looking back at the rock, presumably at Alby’s name. And without really thinking about it he put a hand on Newt’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze, and Newt patted Thomas’s hand with a wry twist to his lips as they approached the large lean-to structure that sheltered a dozen hammocks, most of them filled with sleeping Gladers while two of them, set up side by side, were empty and waiting for Thomas and Newt.

Chapter Text

Morning

Thomas had always been a light sleeper.

Sometimes it was annoying, especially given the fact that he hadn’t had a sleeping situation with any amount of privacy for as long as he could remember. Someone would sigh and roll over or cough and Thomas would instantly be awake, staring up at whatever was above him—sky, more often than ceiling—and rubbing his eyes in frustration as he tried in vain to go back to sleep.

But sometimes it was useful—like out in the Scorch, when it was much better to be able to leap out of bed at the first indication of danger. He’d always been the one to frantically shake Newt awake and god, that had gotten both tiresome and worrying as the months wore on. He was quite certain that Newt could sleep through absolutely anything and without Thomas there as his alarm clock who knows what sort of trouble he’d find himself in.

Pretty, useless shank, Thomas thought to himself, smiling as he looked over at the hammock beside his.

It was quite early. The air had that morning chill to it that invigorated Thomas, made him want to roll out of his hammock and pad off to the kitchens to grab a mug of the sludgy instant coffee Frypan tried to pass off as drinkable (“Hey! I’m workin’ with what I have, here, and if you don’t like it you can take it up with the manager,” he’d say, indicating his raised middle finger). The light was grey and dull, making everything look washed-out and muted and colorless, and the ocean was a quiet rumble in the near distance.

Everyone else in their little lean-to was still asleep—Thomas could tell by the slow, deep rhythm of their breaths, by the snores coming from Gally’s hammock several feet away. But Newt was shifting around—that was what had woken Thomas—and muttering to himself. Thomas placed a hand over his mouth to silence the laughter that threatened to bubble out.

“Bloody useless goddamn thing, just go an’ fall off already, who needs ya?”

Thomas’s shoulders shook, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

“Whingein’ on an’ on like it hasn’t been who knows how bloody long—”

Thomas couldn’t take it any more. He sat up in his hammock and looked over to see Newt sitting up, rubbing his knee.

“Are you talking to your leg?” Thomas whispered, and Newt’s head snapped up, annoyance replaced by light amusement and an embarrassed yet somehow teasing grin.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “The damn thing always hurts in the mornings, and I’ve got to hike out to our farthest field today.” His expression brightened. “We’re planting potatoes, d’ya know how bloody nice it’ll be to have some fresh potatoes around here? That’s the crop for feedin’ your growing post-apocalyptic community, let me tell you.”

“Alright,” Thomas chuckled, as he slipped out of his hammock and, to Newt’s complete shock, knelt down in front of the blonde man, placing his hands on Newt’s calf and beginning to work the muscles with gentle, firm strokes of his thumbs, “Tell me.”

Newt seemed speechless for a moment, mouth hanging slightly open as he looked down at Thomas.

“What are you doing, mate?”

Thomas refused to act like it was anything out of the ordinary.

“I’ve seen you do this before and figured it’d be easier if someone else did it for you. Want me to stop?”

“I—well, no—”

Thomas grinned. Newt was so cute when he was flustered.

“So,” Thomas said, bending over his task, “Potatoes.”

“Yeah.” If Newt still sounded a little shocked and breathy, Thomas ignored it. “They’ve just, got a lot of calories, y’know. And in the right conditions they can be stored for a long time. They’ll add a lot to our food security.”

Thomas smiled.

“You’re doing something really important,” he said, looking up at Newt. “I wish I had that.”

“You pickin’ your new job today?”

“Yep!” Thomas grinned. “Just like day one in the Glade.”

“Just like,” Newt agreed, voice a little distant and suddenly appearing to look through Thomas rather than at him.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Your first day.” Newt looked down at him and grinned. “You comin’ up in the Box. You fallin’ on your ass.”

Thomas chuckled.

“I remember that day a little differently,” he said, working his way down to Newt’s ankle. The rhythm of his hands on Newt’s leg was as soothing for him as it was for Newt—going off of the blonde man’s relaxed expression. Thomas knew he was in trouble, though, because touching Newt felt good—very good. He wanted more, like to actually feel Newt’s skin beneath his hands instead of having his stupid pants in the way.

“Yeah?” Newt had closed his eyes. He was leaning forward a bit, hands braced against the edge of the hammock to keep it taut, balancing his weight on his good leg braced against the sand underfoot.

“Yeah. I remember thinking Alby was a hardass. Being pissed when he introduced you and then sent you off to find Chuck right away. Nearly breaking my shuck neck turning around to watch you leave.”

Newt had gone quiet. Thomas felt his heart start to race as he looked up, trying to gauge the other boy’s reaction. Was he pleased or uncomfortable? Should Thomas finally tell him that he had feelings for him? More-than-best-friend feelings? That he’d maybe had them all along but hadn’t realized it until he’d almost lost him?

The cool morning breeze that carried hints of salty ocean mist tugged gently at the sandy blonde hair of the man above him, and the sight tugged just as insistently at Thomas’s heart.

This was where he belonged.

Right here, kneeling before Newt. Giving up every burden he’d ever unfairly been shouldered with so he could exist for simple, pure moments like this. Providing what comfort he was capable of—taking away just a fraction of the hardship Newt had to face—drawing out what smiles and laughter he could, now that everything had slowed down. Now that there was time.

“Now why would you have done that?” Newt was asking, his expression unreadable. Damn the man for being such a closed book when it came to personal matters like this!

I thought you were cute.

“I just...wanted to know more about you.”

“It was the accent, wasn’t it? That always used to trip greenies up.”

“Well, that was part of it,” Thomas allowed, dancing around the heart of the matter.

Suddenly, the racing of his heart was exhilarating. The nervousness he felt at revealing this part of himself was gone. He was just excited. Excited and…happy. Happier than he could ever remember being. Maybe he was still a bit groggy from it being so early in the morning or maybe he’d finally gotten over the fear that Newt would take it badly—but suddenly all of his hesitation over the past couple of weeks seemed to abruptly fade away.

Hadn’t there been enough signs already that Newt felt the same way? Wasn’t the very fact that he was allowing Thomas to massage his leg like this proof?

And what did he have to lose, really? Even if Newt didn’t feel that way about him, they would always be friends. Newt would be understanding and kind—he always was. It would be a bit awkward for a while but Thomas would make his peace with it. More of a peace than he felt at the moment, with this odd way they interacted now.

Thomas and Newt had always been able to read each other’s minds. He thought back to their assault on WCKD—had he even said a single word to Newt as they made their way through the building, after separating from Teresa? He hadn’t had to. They had acted in concert. He and Newt simply knew each other, and the fact that it felt different now—the fact that he couldn’t tell what Newt was thinking behind those closed-off eyes—that was due to their mutual unwillingness to acknowledge the true nature of their feelings for each other.

In that moment, Thomas was certain of it. They danced around each other now, and everything was just slightly off-kilter, like a blurry picture that simply needed a twist of the lens to snap back into focus.

Thomas had decided. He was going to tell Newt. The only thing left to figure out was what exactly he was going to say.

I love you?

No, that was too much, even though it was true.

You’re fucking adorable and I want to kiss you every time I look at you?

Also true, and maybe also too much.

I like you? Really, really like you?

That could be mistaken for friendship, and that was decidedly not what Thomas felt. Not just that. Not anymore.

“You’re quiet, Tommy.” Newt had opened his eyes, was looking down at Thomas with a softened expression, and he was so damned handsome in that moment that it left Thomas breathless. The morning was dawning quickly, a soft golden light fluttering down like a veil to drape gently over sand dunes and coarse, whispering grasses and beat-up wooden crates and Newt.

Always Newt, everything Newt. The shadows stretched towards a single point, the compass needle quivered and then landed solidly on him. Everything in Thomas’s world was drawn towards and sprung from this man and he didn’t know it yet and that was both a delight and a crime.

Thomas hummed, a little smile on his lips.

“I’m just thinking.”

“Well, share with the class, then.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone other than Alby?” The question slipped out before Thomas could properly vet it for stupidity. Newt tensed under his hands and Thomas paused to look up at him.

“No,” Newt said finally. Then, picking at a loose thread on his pants, he asked—perhaps too casually—“Have you?”

“Kissed anyone other than Alby?”

“Jackass,” Newt said, the hammock creaking as he leaned forward to punch his arm. Thomas laughed.

“No, I’ve never kissed anyone. Unless it was before.”

“Not even Teresa?” Newt sounded genuinely shocked and Thomas frowned.

“I told you, I don’t feel that way about her.” He hesitated before adding, “I like someone else.”

“Oh?” Now Newt’s voice was definitely too casual. “Who?”

Thomas shrugged, returning his attention to Newt’s leg to hide his smile.

“Is it Brenda? Am I gonna have to pick your teeth out of Gally’s knuckles when he finds out?”

“It’s not Brenda,” Thomas laughed.

“Sonya, then?” Newt asked after pausing to think for a moment. “She’s pretty enough, for a girl.” Thomas looked up in time to see Newt’s smile falter, his gaze flicking down and away.

“Yeah, she’s pretty,” Thomas said with a shrug, “but it’s not her.” And then, unable to help himself, and as always intent on learning as much as possible about the other man—soaking up every detail like his life would depend upon a test of his knowledge—he asked, “You don’t like girls at all, do you?”

All while working his hands on Newt’s leg, never pausing the gentle ministrations that soothed some fractured part of his soul, heart singing this is where I’m meant to be.

“That a problem?” Newt asked quietly, refusing to meet Thomas’s eyes.

“Of course not. I was just wondering.”

“Well for the record, no. I don’t.” Newt shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “I know it’s wrong.”

“It’s not wrong.” Thomas’s hands faltered, fingers tugging a bit in the fabric of Newt’s pants leg.

“Feels that way, sometimes. Like when Teresa came up in the Box. You all should’ve seen yourselves, drooling over her.” Newt rolled his eyes and it made Thomas want to laugh again but he held back, in case Newt thought he was laughing at him.

“Hey.” Thomas squeezed his knee so Newt would look at him, damn it. “I need to know that you know that it isn’t wrong. Nothing about you is wrong.” This felt...important, for some reason. Thomas’s skin crawled at the thought that Newt might go around believing that something so fundamental about who he was was in any way wrong or unacceptable.

Thomas thought he saw relief flicker across Newt’s face just before it was replaced with an odd look.

“Are you tryin’ to tell me something, Tommy?” Newt grinned. “Is it really Gally you fancy, then? Cuz I’ll tell ya, I think Brenda’s got an even meaner right hook than he does.”

“Oh god no!” Thomas laughed, shaking his head. “Jesus, no. Ugh. I’m gonna have to scrub my brain.” Thomas started moving his hands again, looking up at Newt after a moment. “How does this feel, by the way? Any better?”

“S’good, Tommy,” Newt said. “A bit harder would be nice, though. The pressure helps.”

Thomas nodded, using a bit more strength as he squeezed Newt’s calf muscle through the fabric. Newt sighed, and bowed his head.

“Good?” Thomas asked, worried he’d hurt the other man.

“Good,” Newt nodded, closing his eyes.

“You know, it would probably be better if I roll this up.” Thomas tugged at the hem of Newt’s pants, finger accidentally brushing the skin of his ankle, so completely wrapped up in the overwhelming experience of being this close to Newt that he barely realized how far he was pushing things. He wasn’t sure what he expected—probably a laughing refusal, more teasing, or simply giving him permission to do so if the massage really did provide such relief.

What he didn’t expect was Newt to jerk his leg out of reach.

His hands were cold at the loss.

“Thomas, I can’t do this any more.”

Thomas heard the finality of the Maze doors thundering shut in the cold and steely edge to Newt’s voice. Echoing like the fading sound of the grinding gears down cold corridors, swept up into frigid dry dust-heavy wind that rustled unfeeling ivy creepers. A moaning exhalation of regret—and Thomas wondered if he’d missed his chance.

“Can’t do what?” Thomas sat back, still on his knees but not trying to touch Newt any longer, hands instead resting on his upper thighs as he looked quizzically at the boy above him. “Did I do something wrong?”

“This, Thomas, I can’t do this. I dunno if you’re just playing around or if you think it’s funny, but…” Newt was chewing on his lower lip, not meeting Thomas’s eyes. Thomas had never seen him look so hesitant, so…vulnerable.

Not Newt, whose very essence exuded strength and self-possession. Not Newt, who had taken on the mantle of leader so seamlessly after Alby had been stung. Not Newt, who had bolstered Thomas’s wavering confidence that first lonely, hungry, cold and dismal and hopeless night in the Scorch. Not Newt, who had blazed a path through WCKD to find Minho, despite the fever raging in his body and the virus consuming his mind.

Something was wrong here.

Thomas’s mind whirred as he examined their current interaction and, it felt like, every one leading up to it, gears turning at such a frantic pace he was surprised he didn’t smell melted metal and fractured, flinty sparks as he sought out his mistake, whatever he had done to make Newt so…not Newt.

And he came up with a possible solution to the puzzle but, god, he didn’t want to believe it.

Did Newt…did Newt think Thomas was playing him?

Thomas cast a quick glance around at the other hammocks. The sun was rising at an alarming rate and any second now one of their friends could wake up, putting an end to this little moment of stolen privacy. Just as the thought crossed his mind he heard someone turning over—might have been Gally or Frypan who gave that little groan that translated to god damn it, it’s morning already?—and suddenly he was out of time to make this right.

Thomas scooted forward on his knees and snatched up Newt’s free hand, covering it in both of his.

The connection was electrifying. Thomas could have sworn his entire arm lit up in response. Newt’s hand was warm between his, the skin soft but strong, and he could feel calluses on his palm. He barely stopped himself from caressing the knuckles, tracing those long and nimble fingers with his own—instead simply holding it, like it was something precious, something that couldn’t be contained by force but only by the willingness of the captive. He was surprised but pleased that Newt let him take the hand, let him hold it without it being ripped away, like he’d gotten so used to when it came to Newt.

Always it was this dance, this opening up but then turning away—vulnerability followed by defensiveness, and Thomas knew he had to put an end to it, but there was no time to do it properly now.

“I don’t think it’s funny,” he whispered, quick and sincere. “I’m not playing around. Let’s talk when you get back from the fields, okay?”

“Okay,” Newt breathed, eyes wide as they flicked from Thomas’s face down to their hands.

“Jesus, Minho,” Gally’s rough voice invaded the moment, “When was the last time you showered?”

With a quick, reassuring smile Thomas stood up then, giving Newt’s hand a squeeze as he let go.

He loved his friends—even that shithead Gally, though he’d never admit it—but he didn’t want to share this moment with any of them. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed—far from it. It just felt too important, too…precious. That was the word he kept circling around to. Newt was precious to him. He knew that now, was more certain of it than anything else in this world.

Part of his heart resided outside of his body. It was cradled in long pale fingers and hummed sleepily content to the sound of a British accent and shivered at the laugh of a boy who glowed ivory and gold.

He returned to his hammock, casting a glance back at Newt to see that the other man had pulled on his boots and was quickly gathering his things. He smiled and nodded, and with a vague, slightly dazed little wave Newt headed out, slipping away just as the sun fully rose, casting a golden halo around his silhouette.

“You’re up early, shank,” Gally mumbled from his hammock, peeping at Thomas through the arm thrown over his eyes.

“This is all a dream,” Thomas said in a slow and mysterious voice, waving his arm. “You didn’t see anything. You’re still asleep.” He chuckled as Gally sleepily raised a middle finger.

Fish

Excitement for the day ahead sang in his bones.

After pulling on a new shirt taken from his quickly-dwindling pile of clean clothes, Thomas struck off across the beach at a hurried clip, eager to finally jump in and start helping. Eager for the morning to pass quickly so he could find Newt over lunch and tell him—tell him everything.

But first, he had to find a job.

He’d never felt like more of a slouch than the past few days, when he’d sit down to eat some of Frypan’s cooking, swinging in a hammock under a lean-to shelter he hadn’t built and wearing clothes recently washed by the launderers, knowing he hadn’t contributed to any of it.

Instead he’d been laying in the medical tent, trying not to grimace every time he accidentally looked Teresa in the eye.

But no more! Today he’d finally start pulling his own weight, and Thomas already had an idea of the job he wanted to do.

On his way to Vince, Thomas passed through a bustling Haven.

Up here the sand gave way to a rocky ground covered in short, coarse grass. Thomas walked the path that had already been beaten down by hundreds of feet even after this short time, overseen by seaside cliffs rising in the distance, their rocky faces smudged and blurred by distance and ocean spray. He passed by one work station where builders were busy sawing wood into long planks and hammering them together to create the wall of a new shelter.

Instead of just lean-to’s they were building huts, now. Small structures meant to house two to three people each, and outfitted with the metal bunks and mattresses scavenged from the ship. There were also plans for a larger communal building, something like a town hall—or the council building from the Glade—but that was a longer-term project. The huts would be ready in a few days yet.

Thomas gave them a nod as he passed by, his nerves singing with excitement and joy over the progress they’d made. The victories yet to come.

He passed by Frypan’s outdoor kitchen, where food preppers were seated at a long table cleaning fish and shucking oysters. A massive cauldron of stew was already bubbling over an open fire and Thomas smiled and waved to Frypan, who was standing over it all in his heavy apron with arms crossed and ladle in one hand, king of his small domain.

The path wound up a small hill and Thomas climbed it eagerly, feeling the stretch in his calves and thigh muscles and relishing the exercise after days of lethargy, until he crested the top and his boots squished into the silty bank of the river. Looking inland, several hundred feet away, were a group of people bent over the rushing water with clothes in their hands, working the dirt out and then lifting to wring them before stretching them out on a tarp under the already-hot sun.

A laundry line strung between a tree and a large boulder was decorated with garments, snapping like flags in the warm ocean breeze.

Thomas took a deep breath. He felt good.

When he finally found Vince, the older man was talking to Jorge, both of them standing with their arms crossed and surveying the Haven. Thomas was suddenly struck with the idea that they were like two proud parents watching their children learning to walk for the first time.

That feeling was validated as, surprisingly, Vince greeted him with a hug.

“Thanks, kid,” he said, clapping Thomas briskly on the back before stepping away, arms crossing at his chest again. “You did good. I know it wasn’t easy and you really took one for the team but, I’m grateful. We all are.”

“I didn’t do anything.” Thomas shook his head, with a perplexed little grin. “Teresa did all the work.”

Vince shrugged at that, looking away. Apparently Teresa was still a touchy subject with him so Thomas was happy to drop it and turn to lighter topics.

“Know what you want to do yet?”

“Yeah! I want to join the fishers.”

Thomas had seen them at work, striking out in the early mornings with their nets and spears to wade into the shallows, waiting for their quarry to wander into range. He liked the idea of working near the water—he was still fascinated by the ocean and he loved the feeling of the salt water moving against him, alive in its own way. It was so unlike anything else in his memory.

And just like that, Vince nodded, and walked Thomas down to the beach to introduce him to the team.

One of the immune kids had been put in charge of the fishers, along with a man from Vince’s old group who’d survived the raid on the Right Arm and followed him across desert and ocean to paradise (some assembly required). He was a bit younger than Vince but older than any of the Gladers, and Thomas could tell that he had quickly grown fond of his younger counterpart by the way he kept a protective hand on the immune kid’s shoulder.

“Carl, Jason—” Vince gestured to Thomas, “This is your new recruit. Don’t go easy on him, alright? Kid likes a challenge.” He grinned, nudging Thomas’s side with an elbow, before nodding once and heading back up the beach to attend to some other matter. Thomas watched him go, saw another member of the Haven immediately fall into the man’s wake, talking earnestly and gesturing with both hands. He shook his head, grinning.

Vince really had his work cut out for him. Thomas couldn’t have been more grateful that it wasn’t him everyone was looking to for all of the answers anymore.

Thomas spent the rest of the day learning how to hold a fishing spear. Learning how to work the net in concert with his teammates to trap the schools of little fish that came close to shore to munch on seaweed growing in the silty shallows. Learned their plans for building fishing boats so they could go further out, catch larger fish.

Learned that Jason, the immune kid, had an easy childlike laugh, and thought the sight of fish squirming and wiggling in the lofted nets was about the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

Learned that Carl rarely smiled, except when he saw Jason letting loose a bout of infectious laughter, and then a stiff grin would unwind, stuttering and hesitant and fleeting, before he turned to the next task at hand.

Learned the sharp sting of saltwater flooding his nose as he snorted and pawed at his face and shook his head like a horse desperate to dislodge a swarm of biting flies.

Learned the pure joy that came from putting aside their tools and flinging himself into the waves and striking out with arms that sliced through water and pulled his body along with first hesitant, then confident strokes. Learned his own power, and then the helplessness of submitting himself to ocean currents, the silent fuzziness that waited him beneath the surface.

Learned the sweetness of air as his head broke the surface, water droplets shattering like thousands of shards of glass in the bright island sunshine as he drew in deep gulps of oxygen to fill his aching lungs.

Learned what it was like to live, slowly and for himself.

And, finally, learned what it was like to flop down exhausted on the beach at midday, drying himself off with a rag before slipping back into his shirt while still slightly damp and with skin salt-tight, looking forward to returning to the communal area for lunch because of the person that was waiting for him there.

Minho

Thomas made it almost all the way to Frypan’s kitchen before he was accosted by Minho.

“Minho, hey—”

“Slim it, greenie.” Minho had a steely glint in his dark eyes that really did shut Thomas up, his mouth closing with a little click. “We need to talk.” And he grabbed Thomas’s arm just above his elbow and steered him off the path.

“I—okay, Jesus! What did I do?” Thomas felt like he had been asking this a lot, the past few days.

“You know what you did,” Minho hissed, rounding on him as soon as they were far enough away from the bustle of the community gathering for lunch to not be overheard. He poked a finger into Thomas’s chest, expression absolutely livid. “I was trying to give you time to come out with it on your own but you’re leaving me no choice, here. You have to tell him.”

“Who? What?”

“Don’t you play dumb right now, Thomas. I swear to god I am this close to punching your shuck face.” Minho held two fingers very close together, and Thomas swallowed nervously.

“Is this about Newt?”

“Of course it is! You can’t keep leading him on like this. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“I’m not—” Thomas paused, licked his lips, and reworded the statement. “Am I leading him on? I don’t mean to, Minho, honest, I just—Wait, how do you know…?”

“Because I’ve seen how you look at him. Because I heard what you were saying on the Berg. Because I know Newt, I’ve known him for three years and I know for a fact that he’s just as in love with you as you are with him, you goddamn idiot.”

Minho might as well have punched him in the gut with that statement. Thomas blinked at his friend, trying to fill his suddenly-empty lungs with air, finally managing to squeak out a desperate question:

“Has he said anything?” His voice was foreign to his own ears, high and strangled like he really was about to pass out from lack of air. He couldn’t believe he was talking to Minho about this. Things that had only existed in his mind up until that point suddenly felt all too real.

“It’s Newt,” Minho said dryly, an unimpressed gaze flickering over Thomas as he took in the other boy’s distress, “So no. But my whole point here, Thomas, is that he deserves better than…whatever this is.” And he made a gesture that seemed to encompass Thomas’s entire existence.

“Hey.” Thomas was a little crestfallen at that.

“It’s not that I don’t think you’re good enough for him, man, it’s that you’re hurting him with all this mixed signal bullshit and I can’t stand by and watch it anymore.”

Mixed signals? Had he been giving mixed signals? Thomas felt like everything in him had been screaming out for Newt ever since he saw him laying on the floor of the Berg, alive but only just. It had been torture keeping his distance, he’d barely been able to function and he thought about Newt constantly—but somehow he was still giving mixed signals? How?

Suddenly he wasn’t surprised that he was talking to Minho about this because of course Minho knew because how could anyone on the fucking planet not know how Thomas felt? How could Newt still not know?

Because you haven’t told him yet, he thought, and his mind took on a familiar British accent as it accused him, you bloody idiot.

“Well, for your information,” Thomas said, pulling together every shred of dignity he still possessed, “I was on my way to tell him exactly how I feel when you pulled me aside.”

“Really.” Minho raised an eyebrow, giving him a flat look.

“Yes, really. And it’s not that easy, you know, it’s not like I’m trying to lead him on. I just…what if he doesn’t feel the same way?”

“He does.”

“And you know, I don’t think he’d really appreciate you coming over here and talking about him behind his back like this.” Thomas was feeling a bit fired up from Minho’s assault and decided to launch a defense of himself. Because, really, it wasn’t all as simple as Minho was making it out to be. Thomas never just got what he wanted in life, things weren’t that easy for him, otherwise he’d be kissing Newt senseless behind a hut right now instead of defending himself against Minho.

“You’re right. He wouldn’t.” Minho crossed his arms and shrugged. “And you can tell him all about this little conversation and let him take me to task for it later. That’s fine. But I just…dude, I heard you guys talking this morning.”

Thomas winced.

“And you can’t just let him bare his soul like that without making a move, it’s not right. That’s the way Newt works, okay?” Minho ran a hand over his face, then lowered both hands, flat like two blades, in a frustrated chopping motion. Like he couldn’t believe he had to explain something so obvious—and Thomas was suddenly, poignantly aware of how much longer Minho had known Newt.

Despite how annoyed he was with the way this conversation had started, Thomas listened carefully.

“He’s not gonna make the first move because he’s not thinking about what he wants. He never has. He’ll give little hints, give you the opportunity, but if you don’t go for it nothing is gonna happen. That’s what he did this morning. That was a huge opening he gave you and you just turned away from it. He told you he was gay. He fucking came out to you and all you did was joke about how crushing on another dude was so gross you needed to scrub your brain? That’s pretty shitty.”

“Hey, that is not what I meant, and he knows it.” Thomas frowned, shoulders ticking up in anger. He’d made that joke about the possibility of having a crush on Gally (ew), specifically. Not other guys in general.

“Does he, Thomas? Are you sure?”

Thomas bit his lip, suddenly unsure. Suddenly wondering if that had been the reason Newt had looked so nervous and vulnerable that morning.

“…No, I guess not.”

Minho spread his arms wide in an exasperated gesture that made Thomas hang his head.

“Fuck.” He sighed. “I’m fucking this up, aren’t I?”

“A little bit, yeah.”

“He’s better off without me.”

“Oh my god, Thomas. I really am gonna punch you.”

“Seriously, Minho, all I do is fuck up. I can’t...every time I look at him I think about how he almost died, cuz of me. And now I’m making him unhappy when he should be...”

Minho sighed, and stepped in closer, putting a hand on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Man, I love you, but you really say some stupid shit sometimes.”

Thomas just blinked.

“He’s alive because of you. And you don’t make him unhappy. You don’t. I’ve never seen him as relaxed as he is around you. Why do you think I’ve been leaving you two alone during dinner? You think I don’t miss him, want to talk to him? I do, but I wanted to give you guys space to figure this out. Because you could make him so much happier, I just know it. You just have to man up and talk to him. Tell him how you feel.”

“What if it’s like with you and Molly? What if he doesn’t want what I want?”

Minho flinched, and Thomas wished he could take it back.

“Sorry, Minho, I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s alright, dude, really. Molly and I...we’re figuring things out, okay? Don’t worry about us. It’s different than what you and Newt have. I don’t have any proof of that, I just...know it. Because I know you two and I love you and just, shit man, just trust me okay? Don’t I deserve that much?”

“Of course you do,” Thomas said softly, eyebrows drawing together and up in the middle. Minho deserved everything. “You know, you can sit with us at dinner. I miss you too. And I’ve said it before, I love listening to you and Newt talking. I wish I’d known you guys for as long as you’ve known each other.”

“Alright, don’t go too soft on me now greenie. This isn’t about me.” Minho rocked back on his heels, crossing his arms over his chest. “So what’s it gonna be? Am I gonna have this talk with you again, or…?”

Thomas sighed, and rolled his eyes.

“I’m going, I’m going.”

Lunch

There were storm clouds on the horizon.

Thomas saw Vince watching the darkened clouds rolling in with both hands on his hips and an unreadable expression. The other members of the Haven went about their business, taking their meals portioned out by Frypan and his kitchen helpers, sitting wherever they could—on sand, on driftwood logs dragged into semicircles, on barrels and crates and bits of canvas and tarp. Occasionally they would stare up at the sky, the overwhelming atmosphere one of curiosity.

The sun had done nothing but shine in the Safe Haven so far, and everyone was wondering what it would be like when it rained.

As Thomas lined up for his lunch he saw some of the builders—habit made him call them that, though they didn’t have an official name—hanging canvas walls to enclose the lean-to spaces where the hammocks swayed in the now steady breeze that carried the scent of rain. Preparing for the storm to come, a hasty shelter that would hopefully withstand whatever the unfamiliar climate could throw at them since the huts weren’t ready yet.

Thomas looked for Newt, but didn’t see him anywhere nearby.

“Alright people, listen up!”

Vince had cupped his hands around his mouth to get everyone’s attention, then waved a few of the more distant clusters of Haveners over so they could hear what he had to say. In a booming orator’s voice—again, Thomas marveled at the fact that the man seemed to thrive in his role as leader—he decreed:

“The work day is over.”

There were a few scattered cheers. Minho nudged Thomas’s ribs, grinning, and Thomas rolled his eyes. Meanwhile, Vince waited for the hubbub to die down and then pointed at the clouds that were steadily rolling in.

“I don’t want anyone straying too far from the shelters and main camp when that thing hits. We don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with, so I want everyone close. Sorry, Newt.”

Thomas whipped his head around and finally saw that Newt had arrived in from the fields in time to give Vince a challenging look that made Thomas grateful he wasn’t in Vince’s shoes.

“But the crops—!”

“Can wait.”

“They really can’t,” Newt said, bristling. Vince just shook his head.

“You guys don’t have any real shelter out there in the fields. My mind is made up, Newt. Your people are done for the day.”

Newt frowned, turning abruptly and stalking off to get his lunch, and Vince looked away as if displeased with the exchange but firm in his decision.

Thomas followed Newt.

“Hey,” he said, walking as quickly as he could without spilling his bowl of Frypan-stew-du-jour.

Newt turned, and Thomas saw the remnants of agitation and bristling anger in his expression before it gave way to a tired smile.

“Hey, Tommy.”

“Is having a day off so bad?” Thomas smiled hesitantly, jerking his head in Vince’s direction.

Newt sighed.

“We still have two whole fields left to plant. I just want to get this done while I’m—”

He abruptly cut off, and Thomas cocked his head.

“While you’re what?”

“I just need to get it done,” Newt said, shrugging. “We need food, Thomas, that should come before anything else. Even if it’s a bit of a risk to stay out there during a storm.” Newt squinted at the sky. “Doesn’t look like it’s going to really get going for at least a few hours so I don’t see the point in wasting a good day.”

“I dunno, I think Vince is right.” Newt had gotten his bowl of stew and started walking with Thomas, their path slow and aimless as they threaded through the Haveners that milled about, eating as they walked and talked. “You and Aris and everyone are important, too. Where do you think we’d be if something happened to you guys? You have to be safe.” He nudged Newt with his elbow. “You know if you were in my shoes you’d be telling me the same.”

“If the rain keeps up,” Newt said, looking at the ground dejectedly, “the potato crop will be ruined anyway. We were counting on this being the dry season. On, well…a permanent dry season. I guess we really are out of the Scorch.”

Thomas clapped a comforting hand on Newt’s shoulder, and left it there. Newt stopped walking and looked at him, something in his expression relaxing, the tension leaving his shoulders.

He should tell him now.

Now was the perfect time. They were relatively isolated, the nearest group of Haveners far enough away that if Thomas talked quietly he could say anything he wanted to Newt without being overheard. Something in his mind that was used to finding excuses said that Newt was stressed and he should wait until everything was resolved—but a bigger part of him made the case that nothing was ever resolved for long.

Something would always come up, if he let it. Something would always get in the way—if he let it. He had to make the decision, and the time was now, because he didn’t want to go one more second without Newt knowing, without a doubt, how Thomas felt about him. How he was the most important thing in Thomas’s world, how his stomach fluttered whenever Newt looked at him, how he would do anything to see Newt smile.

“Hey, Newt…”

Newt was looking at him, a curious little smile on his features—and Thomas was just noticing that there was a streak of dirt on his nose, and resisting the urge to brush it away with his thumb—but then Newt’s gaze shifted to somewhere over his shoulder and before Thomas could get another word out a large hand was landing on his back and knocking him forward a step.

“Greenie!”

Why was everyone still calling him that?

“Yeah, Gally?” Thomas resisted the urge to rub his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose in irritation. This had to stop happening or he was going to get the equivalent of emotional constipation. Really, for god’s sake—

He was soothed by the realization that Newt was smirking, clearly amused as his gaze flicked between Thomas and Gally, and in that moment Thomas’s heart did a somersault as he very seriously considered the possibility that Newt knew exactly what he had been going to say and was endlessly amused by the constant interruptions.

Well, he could hope.

“Thought you and I could go for a little one-on-one.” Gally stepped back and shuffled side to side, fists raised to about chest height as he feinted and ducked and gave a few punches that he pulled at the last second. Thomas only flinched at the first one.

“Really, dude?” Thomas said, exasperated.

“Oh, go on,” Newt said, index finger smoothing over the corner of his mouth as if to flatten out the smile tugging at this lips. “I want to see this.” There was mischief dancing in his dark eyes and Thomas found himself smiling in return, rolling his eyes as he looked back at Gally and shrugged.

“Ready to lose again?”

“You wish, green bean!”

Despite his frustration over being interrupted again when he was trying to confess his feelings to Newt, Thomas was a bit excited. He knew how Gally operated and he was pretty sure he could win in a reprise of their wrestling match back in the Glade and it always gave Thomas a bit of sick satisfaction to see Gally taken down a peg.

And Thomas might have, just maybe, been a little bit excited at the chance to show off for Newt.

It all happened in a blur.

One moment, Thomas and Gally were wrestling, Minho and Newt and other Haveners ringed around them in a cheering and catcalling circle, Thomas breathing out laughter as he remembered his first night in the Glade. He tried locking his arms around Gally, was promptly thrown onto the sand and he let out a surprised oof. But he was back on his feet in a flash, smiling into Gally’s stern, composed expression before Thomas rushed him again.

This time, Gally flipped him straight over his shoulder, and before Thomas could even catch his breath from the jarring landing the other boy was on top of him, pinning him to the sand.

“Give up yet, shank?”

“You wish!” Thomas squirmed under him, trying to gain the upper hand again, but Gally had one foot and one knee braced against the sand, pushing Thomas into the ground, and he let out a hoarse cry as Gally’s elbow dug into his chest and the breath was squeezed out of his lungs.

Newt was on them in a flash.

All Thomas knew at first was that Gally’s weight was suddenly knocked off of him. He sat up, rubbing his chest and trying to catch his breath, laughter on the tip of his tongue as he turned to Gally to tell him he shouldn’t have quit so easily—

Only to see him pinned beneath Newt, with a desperate sort of fury on the blonde man’s face. His teeth were bared, lips pulled back in a snarl as he straddled Gally, who seemed too shocked to move.

Newt was strong, but he was still recovering, and no match for Gally in his prime. He grunted with the effort of trying to move his hands as Gally held onto both wrists, fending him off, and Thomas’s stomach dropped as he was reminded of their nearly fatal match in the Last City.

He sprang into action, scurrying to his feet in a spray of sand.

“Newt!”

“You keep your hands off of him,” Newt growled into Gally’s face as Thomas ripped him away. Newt went willingly at first but then spun around, hands against Thomas’s chest as he tried to push him away, staggering on the uneven ground.

“Newt. Newt. Stop.”

Thomas wrapped his arms around Newt’s skinny torso, trapping his arms by his sides. Newt immediately tried twisting out of his grasp, grunting with the effort as he tried to fling himself to the side, throwing all of his weight into it. Thomas fought to keep his balance, shuffling his feet and kicking up sand.

“Newt. Christ, Newt, listen to me!”

Newt abruptly stopped trying to break free. He was panting, head hanging and bent over like Thomas was the only thing holding him up. Thomas didn’t dare let go for fear Newt would just collapse onto the sand. He realized he was breathing hard, too; Newt was strong, it had taken everything in him to subdue the other boy. Newt’s eyes were wide but his expression was curiously blank.

“Thomas, it’s—”

“Just get outta here, Gally,” Thomas pleaded, looking at him over Newt’s shoulder. He was surprised but relieved to see Gally snap his mouth shut, nodding once before he turned and walked away, he and Minho—who, for a moment, looked too shocked to move, but eventually shook himself out of it—encouraging the others who had gathered to watch the match to do so as well, with rough shoves to their shoulders if he had to, until Newt and Thomas were alone.

“Tommy.” Newt blinked, snapping back from that vacant look. His chest was heaving, mouth open as he sucked in air.

“Yeah, Newt, I’m here.”

“Tommy,” Newt said again, then slowly straightened, blinking at his surroundings as if he had just been thrust into the sunlight. Thomas didn’t like the look on his face. He seemed…confused. Newt visibly swallowed. “I don’t know where I am.”

And just like that, Thomas’s heart broke.

“It’s okay,” he found himself saying. “I’ve got you.” He had no idea how he managed to make his voice sound so calm. “If I let you go, are you…?”

“I’m alright, now.”

Thomas let go.

Newt turned slowly to face him, clearly waiting for an explanation.

“We’re—we’re in the Safe Haven.” Thomas’s throat was dry. He swallowed, watching Newt, watching how he seemed to only be looking at Thomas now, like nothing else existed.

“Safe Haven,” Newt repeated. Inflectionless. Thomas waited to see a spark of recognition, searched Newt’s face for it. Found nothing.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Thomas asked carefully, unsure how to proceed. For a second it looked like Newt was searching for an answer; then his expression changed completely. It wasn’t exactly closed-off, it was more…business-like. It reminded Thomas of how Newt looked in the Glade, when he would go full second-in-command. There was a wall there, though it wasn’t hostile. Thomas could just tell that Newt was done thinking about himself.

“Never mind. Sorry about that, Tommy,” he said briskly, clearing his throat and straightening his shirt with a rough tug. He said it for all the world like he’d just bumped into Thomas in the breakfast line, maybe spilled a bit of tea.

“Newt…”

“Don’t look at me like that,” Newt snapped. “Don’t pity me.”

“I’m not.” Thomas licked his lips, tried again. “Just talk to me. Please.”

Newt looked around, avoiding his gaze.

“Need to find Gally,” he muttered, as if to himself. “Apologize.” He ran a hand quickly through his hair, leaving the blonde locks more of a mess than ever and chewing on his lower lip as he planted both hands on his hips. Then he started off up the beach, without a backward glance.

Thomas darted forward, grabbing his arm.

“Wait.” He spun Newt around, and found himself face to face with an unyielding, incomprehensible stare. “Talk to me.”

Newt just looked at him. As if Thomas would be the one to let go. As if he could let this go. He couldn’t.

“About what, Tommy?” Newt huffed out a humorless laugh. “About how I’m losin’ my buggin’ mind? Again?” His voice was strained despite the way his spine was rod-straight, the determined set to his shoulders yielding nothing.

“Just tell me what’s going on.”

“Wish I could, mate.”

“Newt,” and his grip on his friend’s arm tightened, a quick pulse of his hand before softening to something flexible but strong, a touch that wouldn’t give way no matter how Newt tried to distance himself. “I need to know more. So I can help you.”

Newt covered the hand in his, and Thomas’s heart fluttered briefly before he realized that Newt was prying away his fingers, one by one, until he extracted Thomas’s hand from his arm and then let it go.

“Vince is gonna hear about this,” he said quietly. Thomas shook his head. Newt nodded.

“He’ll understand.”

“Tommy—”

“I said he’ll understand,” Thomas said harshly. “You didn’t hurt anyone, you didn’t mean it. I’ll talk to him.” Anything, anything to reassure Newt.

Meanwhile, his mind was racing as he tried to put together the few pieces of information he had into a picture that could help him understand what was happening to his best friend.

Newt remembered Vince, presumably remembered Vince’s warning that he’d deal with anyone who harmed a fellow community member. But he hadn’t remembered the Safe Haven in general? His surroundings seemed to have confused him, like they didn’t compute, so he’d shoved them away to focus solely on Thomas.

Last time this had happened he couldn’t remember something Minho had said just a few moments ago…and then there were all of those smaller moments: the dazed looks, trailing off in the middle of a sentence…but what else could Newt remember? Everything? Or was there more he was holding back?

And why was this happening at all?

Thomas was more concerned about the memory loss than Newt’s angry outbursts, though he knew those should worry him, too. It just didn’t feel the same as when he’d been cranking out. It didn’t feel like pure rage, it felt more like...fear. Fear for Thomas’s safety. The first time had been when Molly was redoing his stitches; this time when Thomas had cried out as Gally’s wrestling got out of hand (which he should have honestly seen coming because it always got a little out of hand whenever Gally and Thomas squared off).

Thomas shook himself from his thoughts and saw that Newt had started up the beach again. He jogged to catch up with his friend, putting a hand on his shoulder and tugging him around to face him.

“You were trying to protect me,” Thomas said. Newt’s eyes went wide and Thomas tried to ignore how attractive the other man was when he blushed. Now was not the time.

“I don’t know what I was trying to do.”

“That’s it though, isn’t it? Newt, do you—are you...? Shit, I don’t even know how to ask this.” Thomas ran both hands through his hair, left them there as he tried again. “Are you…afraid that I’m gonna get hurt again?”

Newt looked at him flatly.

“I know you’re gonna get hurt again, you bloody fool. You’re like a danger magnet.” His mouth twisted up into a smile that loosened something in Thomas’s chest. It faded quickly, though. “Listen, Tommy, I just…I need a while, alright?”

Thomas blinked. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to realize that Newt meant he needed a while away from him.

“Oh,” he said awkwardly. “Okay.”

“Just gotta figure some stuff out, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Thomas hated how disappointed he was that Newt couldn’t figure it out with him. Newt seemed to sense that Thomas’s feelings were hurt and he didn’t head off right away, instead looking down at the sand and digging his toe in as he frowned and a little wrinkle of worry appeared between his eyebrows.

“Gonna go find Gally and apologize, then maybe check in with Molly. Just to see if…everything’s right, yaknow. What she can tell.”

“Sounds good,” Thomas said. He hesitated, then asked, “Do you…remember where everyone is?”

“Yeah, Tommy.”

Thomas nodded, swallowing back what he wanted to say—the plea for Newt to stay with him, to talk, dying on his lips. He had to respect Newt’s process. Newt needed time. He had to give him that.

But Newt wasn’t leaving. He was digging in his pocket instead, and Thomas tilted his head, eyebrows furrowing as he wondered what was keeping him now when just a second ago he couldn’t seem to get away fast enough.

When Newt pulled out the necklace, rolling the steel capsule between his fingers, Thomas’s heart stuttered to a brief halt. When Newt held it out to him, Thomas’s eyes went wide and he took a generous step back, shaking his head.

The last time Newt had given him that necklace, it had been a goodbye.

“Just take it, Tommy,” Newt said, looking both tired and somehow, in spite of everything, slightly amused. “It’s not gonna bite ya.”

“Why?” He said cautiously, wishing more than anything that people would stop trying to give him things. It was never, ever good.

He felt a few cool drops on his numb face and distantly he realized it had started to rain. Just a faint, hesitant drizzle, though out on the ocean the grey water had started to churn in the steadily increasing wind.

“Because I want you to have it. It was meant for you, okay? It doesn’t feel right keeping it, I just want you to read it and then do whatever you want with it, throw it away for all I care, just…”

Please, Tommy. Please.

And of course, Thomas wasn’t going to make Newt say it again. He took the necklace, looking down at it for a beat too long, and when he looked back up he saw that Newt was already gone, walking back up the beach with his hands in his pockets, head bowed and his hair fluttering like muted silver strands against the darkening sky.

Letter

Thomas had nothing to do but think.

He rolled the steel capsule between his fingers and wandered the beach. The rain was picking up steadily and soon he would have to go back to the hammock area unless he wanted to be soaked. But he wanted to be alone.

Well, really, he wanted to be with Newt, but he still hadn’t come back from the medical tent and Thomas knew that Newt didn’t want him there.

He rolled the capsule between his fingers, the cold metal slick with rain.

There was a letter inside; that he knew. Newt had told him as much on the ship. Thomas could guess what it contained. It was a letter that Newt had written when he thought he was dying; when he had been dying, and Thomas had been too stupid to take it seriously, to see how far gone Newt really was.

He’d kept thinking there would be more time. They would get Minho out, they would get Newt the serum, and it would cure him like it had Brenda. Inexplicably. Miraculously. Thomas hadn’t been thinking straight. He hadn’t been thinking long term—there had been too many moving parts to keep track of just to tread water. Plans within plans that risked falling apart at the slightest miscalculation.

Newt had always been the long term thinker. Thomas was only good for keeping things moving, juggling broken bits of the present and hoping he could keep it all up in the air.

In the end, he’d let the most important piece slip through his grasp.

In the end he’d overlooked Newt. He’d taken him for granted, neglected him, and it had almost cost Newt his life.

So no, he couldn’t read this letter. This letter Newt had written under duress, held at gunpoint by the Flare coursing through his body and corroding his mind, desperate to leave something behind for Thomas when Newt himself was long gone.

He couldn’t read it, but he had to, because Newt wanted him to. It was enough.

And Thomas had to admit that he was curious as to why. Why Newt wanted him to read it when he was here. Was there something written in the letter that he couldn’t say now? Thomas rolled the capsule between his fingers and chewed on his lip, looking for somewhere he could be alone and still protected from the now-steady rain that was sure to ruin the pages rolled tightly within the necklace.

His friends would be in their hammocks. Even the unfinished huts were crowded with curious people seeking temporary shelter while they talked and watched the sky grow dark and somber and heavy with menacing clouds.

In the end he’d crawled between two crates behind the medical tent like a dog desperate for a peaceful place to die. He’d pulled a scrap of canvas over him and then quickly, before he could lose his courage and what little light was left in the greying afternoon sky, twisted open one end of the tube and pulled out the little roll of paper.

He unfolded it with shaking hands, seeing that it was two pages of rumpled paper with little rips at the edges, and put a hand over his mouth as he recognized the scrawling handwriting covering the paper edge to edge.

Newt’s hand had been shaking as he wrote it; that was evident in the way the letters wavered and marched in unsteady rows like drunken soldiers committed to their fate. Thomas squeezed his eyes shut, inhaling sharply through his nose. This was going to hurt.

He was doing alright until the line that jumped out at him, haunting and sweet and so achingly wrong—

If I could do it all over again, I would. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

Thomas’s heart broke in half.

This world overlapped with another, in a stuttering double exposure: with Newt, without Newt. With him. Without him.

What did Newt mean, he wouldn’t change a thing? Everything had gone so wrong—

Thomas’s stomach flipped over and for a moment he thought he might be sick. It was too much: the realization that Newt’s memories had been slipping away from him all the while Newt had hidden his disease from Thomas. The fear Newt must be feeling now, wondering if it was happening all over again. And Thomas’s own concern for Newt, mind running wild with theories that see-sawed back and forth from worst case scenario to nothing much to be concerned about at all.

And, finally, the thought that Newt valued himself so little that he’d do everything the same—go through all the same torment and pain—and for what? So his friends could make it out alive? So they could take down WCKD?

So he could meet Thomas?

Thomas wondered what was going on in the medical tent; if Molly had any answers for Newt. He felt useless here, so distant from his best friend when all he wanted was to be glued to his side. The frustration ate at him, too, all of it compounding until Thomas realized that he was breathing rather quickly, vision going a bit blurry at the edges.

Stop. Breathe. Inhale, exhale. Again.

After he’d gotten himself together Thomas put the letter back into the capsule—which was a lot harder than it looked, by the way—and hung the necklace around his neck, tucking it into his shirt. Newt had said he could throw it away when he was finished reading it but Thomas was never going to let it go. If only because it reminded him of how lucky he was and how precious and delicate and fleeting life could be. If only so he would always have a reminder to never take Newt for granted, because he could be living a completely different life right now, one where every moment was a yawning chasm of ache and sorrow threatening to swallow him whole because Newt was no longer there.

Whatever was wrong with Newt, he would find a way to fix it. Thomas would help him and protect him and love him until the end of his days.

If only Newt would let him.

Rain

By dinner time the gentle rain had become a true storm, driving and harsh, wind howling against the hastily-secured canvas walls of their lean-to.

Like he had every night since they’d arrived in the Safe Haven, Thomas brought back two bowls of stew, one for himself and one for Newt. As he ducked into the opening he looked around at the hammocks, lit by a few scattered gas lanterns flickering in the wind that slipped in through the gaps in the canvas, brow furrowing in confusion.

He saw Frypan and Gally and Minho, Aris and Brenda and Sonya and Harriet and an empty hammock where Newt should be.

“Has anyone seen Newt?” He asked, trying to keep his voice calm as he set down the bowls on a nearby crate.

Minho immediately sat up in his hammock, and when Thomas looked at him his eyes were wide with alarm.

“I thought he was with you.”

Thomas froze.

“No,” he said quietly, when he could finally speak. “I haven’t seen him since just after lunch.” He turned to look back at the direction he’d come from, out at the night. The rain lashed against the canvas and the wind moaned and whistled. The ocean was whipped into a frothy torrent and the sand had turned heavy and treacherous with scattered pools of water.

Lightning illuminated the world in brief, jagged flashes of silver and thunder rolled like dice the size of moons tumbling on the tabletop of the sky.

“Shit.”

Without another word, Thomas and Minho raced out into the storm.

It was hard to see in the rain and dark but the beach was empty and when the next lightning flash illuminated his surroundings Thomas spotted the figure standing alone on a rocky outcrop, the ocean’s turbulent white-capped waves nearly level with his feet.

Thomas’s heart tried to climb into his throat, as if that was any safer of a place to be than hammering in his chest.

What was Newt doing?

When he looked back at Minho he saw his own fear radiating back at him.

“Go talk to him,” Minho said, his voice having the cadence of a whisper despite the fact that it was actually slightly raised to be heard over the elements. “Bring him back, Thomas.”

An iron hand gripped his heart at those words, at the way that they tasted of ivy and dark corridors and unforgiving stone.

The rocks were slippery. Treacherous, even, and Thomas hated the fact that Newt had walked out here on his own. It would have been so easy for him to slip and fall into the waves and be gone forever; had he been thinking of that? Thomas wanted to shake him.

Newt was looking out at the ocean and even when Thomas drew level with him it seemed he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“What are you doing out here?” Thomas had to raise his voice a bit just to hear himself over the pounding rain.

“Oh, you know.” Newt shrugged, still turned towards the ocean, his blonde hair dark and plastered against his face. He wore a strange smile, like it was someone else’s expression molded haphazardly over his own. “Just thinking.”

“Why don’t you do your thinking inside? With the rest of us?”

He glanced down and saw Newt’s hand spasm into a fist.

“Things have been so weird between us,” Newt went on as if he hadn’t heard Thomas. “And I keep wondering if it isn’t because of me.”

“It’s not—why would you think that?” Thomas took another step towards his friend, squinting to try to make out his expression through the driving rain and cloud-darkened sky. His own shirt was already sticking to his skin and wind clawed at his back and arms with icy fingers.

“I’m not the same person you met in the Maze. I’m sorry, Thomas. You all saved me only for me to be…this. Broken and—and strange. I don’t think I came back from the Flare. Not really. Not all of me.”

Thomas grabbed Newt by the shoulders, turning him to face him, hands clutching at his drenched shirt. He angled for eye contact, his own gaze wide and earnest as he spoke carefully, slowly, wanting Newt to hear and feel and believe every word.

“You did. You’re here. You’re still the same person, you’re still my friend.”

“Teresa tested me for the Flare.”

Thomas blinked, mind reeling at this stilted conversation where Newt always seemed to answer a question Thomas hadn’t voiced. He could barely follow along and felt himself scrabbling for comprehension.

“You told her…?”

“I told her, I told Molly. I told Vince. I don’t want to be a danger to anyone. If I can’t control myself—” Newt hung his head so suddenly it was like his neck had snapped. His hands came up to grip Thomas’s forearms and it was like Thomas was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

“The test was negative. Molly thinks it’s psychological. All in my head. My responses are fucked up. Disproportionate. Everything’s in pieces and sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in that day.”

Thomas shook his head, not following, not understanding any of this, wishing Newt would finish a thought before moving on to the next one, wishing they could talk somewhere out of the rain. He blinked, wiped a hand quickly across his eyes and dripping forehead, returned the hand to Newt.

“I wish I could take myself away from all of you. You, Minho, you deserve to have your friend back. You deserve the person I was, not the person I am.”

Thomas’s insides turned cold. His fingers dug into Newt’s shoulders until the other man gasped and looked up at him, blinking as water cascaded down from his forehead to his chin.

“Don’t say that. Never say that.” Something in him broke and gave way and he loosened his grip so he could slide his hands up from Newt’s shoulders to his neck, thumbs pressed up under his jaw and fingers wrapping around to meet in the back. “I have everything I want right here in front of me.”

Newt first looked astonished. He gave a broken laugh and Thomas wanted to kiss him in that moment—at least it might shock some damn sense into him—but all of a sudden Newt tore himself away. Thomas felt himself chasing the contact, stumbling forward like Newt was pulling him along by a string.

He took a few steps, then turned to look back at Thomas, tilting his head, expression different now. A thin calculating veneer hiding something tense and raw.

“What did you say on the Berg?” From the sound of Newt’s voice, fractured and strained, Thomas thought he might be on the verge of tears. “Minho told me to ask you and I never did.”

Thomas hesitated, hands hanging uselessly at his sides, heart beating wildly and the sound of rain drowning everything in the world except for Newt’s voice.

“Thomas?” And now Thomas knew that Newt was crying, just a single tear squeezed out and mingling immediately with the rivulets of rain that coursed down his pale face, twisted in some kind of pain Thomas didn’t understand. “Tommy? What did you say?”

Thomas licked his lips, took a step forward.

“What did you say?” It was a desperate cry accompanied by a harsh motion with his left hand, like Newt was striking out at all of this—and somehow, Thomas understood that.

“I said I needed you!” He shouted, arms spasming as he dove forward and grabbed hold of Newt again, tugging him hard enough that the other man’s hands leapt up to grasp his wrists and he stumbled forward, suddenly closer to Thomas than he’d ever been. Thomas’s hands were cupping the sides of his face, thumbs pressed in almost painfully hard against his cheekbones and fingernails scraping the back of Newt’s neck. Thomas felt hot tears sting his own eyes and he released a shuddering breath, half sob and half laughter.

Newt just looked at him with wide, searching eyes, breathing fast.

“What?” He whispered, Thomas feeling rather than hearing the word as it was chased away by the wind.

“You were dying, Newt, and I couldn’t take it. I lost my fucking mind. I begged you to stay. I told you I needed you—I needed to hear your voice, I needed you, I couldn’t do it without you. And I can’t. Newt, don’t you get it?”

Thomas’s hands fell to Newt’s shoulders and he shook him; he couldn’t help it. Newt’s face was a mask of confusion and raw, shattered hope and it was like he didn’t believe he was really here, that Thomas was really saying these things to him.

“Everything we’ve been through—from the Maze to the Scorch to the Last City, there was something keeping me together, keeping me going. It wasn’t Teresa or Minho or any of the others. It wasn’t a death wish or my vendetta against WCKD and it sure as hell wasn’t the hope of finding a cure I never believed in, it was—it was you, Newt.” His fingers tightened on Newt’s shoulders in a bruising grip as he repeated, just to get it through Newt’s thick skull:

“It was you, Newt. All along, it was you.”

Newt drew in a breath sharp enough to slice flesh.

Thomas didn’t remember leaning in, all he knew was that suddenly his mouth was on Newt’s and he was kissing him and everything was cold and wet from the rain and they were both trembling and so they pressed together, hard, so hard that Thomas thought his lips would bruise where they were smashed against his own teeth.

And then Newt’s hand was holding the back of his neck and his heart was thrumming and everything melted as if washed away by the rain, leaving only the two of them there, fortified and made real through each other. Thomas opened his mouth to breathe and Newt gasped and Thomas slid his hand up to Newt’s face and then Newt dove forward with his entire body and flung his arms around Thomas’s shoulders and was kissing him with such desperation that Thomas moaned.

It was overwhelming. It was too much, Newt was too much and Thomas felt a tremor starting at the base of his spine as he threaded his arms around Newt’s waist and crushed the other man against him and fought for breath. All the while Newt was murmuring between their frantic kisses,

“Thomas, Thomas. Tommy.”

Distantly, Thomas thought he heard Minho cheering.

Eventually, Newt broke away from the kiss long enough to ask, shakily and seemingly torn between laughter and despair:

“Thomas, what the fuck?” He did laugh then, a tired and strained laugh into the crook of Thomas’s jaw. “I thought…I thought you didn’t…you never said anything, I thought I was a creep—”

“I read your letter,” Thomas said suddenly, as if that explained everything—and maybe, to him, it did. “You said if you could do it all over again you would, and you wouldn’t change a thing?”

Newt could only nod.

“God, Newt, I’d change everything.”

He kissed Newt again, gentle this time, relishing the way that his nerves leapt to life whenever he felt Newt’s lips against his. He couldn’t even feel the rain anymore, there was no room for anything else in his mind other than Newt.

“I’m sorry things have been weird.” Thomas lifted a hand to push Newt’s wet bangs out of his eyes, his own gaze falling to Newt’s mouth. God, he wanted to kiss him again—was this normal? “That’s on me, it’s all my fault. I should’ve told you sooner. I should have told you the second you woke up on the ship.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“A lot of little reasons that all seem really stupid now.”

Thomas drew him into another hug, laying his head on Newt’s shoulder, the two of them completely soaked as if they’d fallen into the ocean that lashed at their ankles.

“Newt…Whatever is going on, I want you to know that I’m here. You don’t have to go through it alone. I want to be there for you, I want to help. But you have to talk to me. Do you think you can do that? Do you think you can try?”

Newt simply nodded, stroking his face and looking at Thomas like he was truly seeing him for the first time.

“Alright.” Thomas nodded. “Let’s get out of the rain.”

Chapter Text

Thomas had his arms around Newt when he brought him back into the tent.

Minho was hovering a half-step behind them and everyone looked up from their hammocks with worry etched in their faces—Gally especially, Thomas noticed, as the man got out of his hammock and took a hesitant step towards them, eyes never leaving Newt.

“Everything alright?” He asked, cautious.

Newt looked up, shivering from his time spent in the rain. Thomas’s arm around his shoulders made sense; he looked like he was freezing. Still, his gaze was steady as he regarded Gally with a long, unreadable look, before nodding.

Thomas knew that Newt had gone to apologize to Gally for what had happened on the beach, but he didn’t know what else might have transpired between them to result in such a charged exchange of glances.

Although Thomas could tell that everyone was brimming with questions—and he wondered how many of them knew what had happened at lunch, or how much Sonya had heard when Newt was in the medical tent—they all politely looked away as he and Newt and Minho stripped out of their soaked clothes and changed into dry ones.

“If I’m sick tomorrow cuz of you two shanks,” Minho called over his shoulder as he pulled on a new shirt, “I’m gonna be so pissed. And by the way—you, you, and you—” he pointed out Aris, Gally, and Harriet in turn, “Owe me.” Then he flopped down onto his hammock.

“Owe you what?” Aris called from the back of the lean-to. “If you hadn’t noticed this is a post-apocalyptic commune type of situation and I don’t exactly have money.”

“Favors.” Minho leisurely waved a hand.

“If you’re saying what I think you’re saying,” Frypan said slowly, and Minho immediately groaned, “Then I believe you owe me.”

“Couldn’t let me bask in the win for even a moment, Fry?”

“Nope.”

“Uh, guys?” Thomas looked around. “What are you talking about?”

“That,” Gally said bluntly, pointing to Newt and Thomas’s interlinked hands.

Well, shit. He hadn’t even noticed.

As soon as Newt had finished dressing Thomas had taken his hand, moving his thumb over the knuckles, stroking his palm with a single finger—just needing to feel him. To touch and verify and comfort and let Newt know that he was still there, that he was never, ever leaving him.

Not again.

Newt had seemed so uncharacteristically fragile since his episode at lunch. Wandering off into a damn-near monsoon; what had he been thinking? It scared Thomas. He just wanted to keep the blonde man close until he was certain he was okay.

Newt was also looking down at their hands with his bronze eyebrows arcing so high they disappeared into his wet bangs. For a moment Thomas thought he was going to pull away, embarrassed to be seen like this in front of their friends. But then he simply sighed and closed his eyes and leaned his forehead into Thomas’s shoulder.

“I’m tired, guys,” he said, but his voice was strong enough to carry to the back of the shelter, and a smile quirked up the corner of his mouth. “So can we leave the harassment for the morning?”

The effect was immediate.

Harriet started whistling and applauding wildly. Sonya just gave them her quiet, radiant smile, while Aris threw his hands up in the air, grumbling about his lost bet. Gally did much the same, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest until Brenda punched him in the shoulder, grinning madly before joining in with Harriet’s applause. Frypan just nodded quietly in approval while Thomas’s cheeks burst into flames at all the attention.

And all the while Minho was rocking in his hammock with his hands behind his head, smirking and looking smug as hell.

“Me,” he said, jerking a thumb at his own chest. “I did that. You’re all welcome.”

“I mean,” Thomas laughed, “I’m pretty sure it was me.” He looked over at Newt to back him up but saw the other man biting back a smirk.

“Puh-lease,” Minho drawled. “If it weren’t for me you two would still be off whining about how much the other one doesn’t like him.” He pitched his voice mockingly high. “What if Newt doesn’t feel the same way? What if Thomas isn’t gay?”

“Minho,” Newt shot him a warning look, and Minho shrugged, still smiling.

“Look, I’m riding high on victory right now so you can give me all the ‘slim-it-I’m-in-charge-here’ looks you want but I’m never gonna shut up about this.”

“Oh man,” Aris suddenly laughed. “Wait until I tell Rick about this!” And for some reason he held his sides, wheezing with laughter, while Newt turned scarlet red.

Thomas, brown eyes wide and innocent as a newborn pup, looked at Newt in confusion.

“Who’s Rick?”

Aris howled.

“He’s no one,” Newt muttered, scratching the back of his neck. Thomas’s eyes went wide and Newt held up a placating hand. “It’s not—listen, Tommy, I really am buggin’ tired, alright?” He chuckled. “Can we not do this right now?”

“Uh, sure.” Thomas shook his head, certain he was missing something. He couldn’t help shooting a look at Aris, who wouldn’t stop laughing like it was all the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

“Aris,” Newt snapped, and the boy went quiet. Even Thomas moved a half-step away; that was Newt’s serious voice and he was just glad it wasn’t directed at him. “I’m tired. Please. None of us are gettin’ any sleep with you cackling back there.”

He looked around, saw that everyone in the tent was still looking at him, and sighed. He ran a hand through his damp hair, which flopped limply to one side, and then clapped his hands once.

“Plenty of time for this in the mornin’, like I said. Gally, you need help finding your hammock?”

“Nope,” the bigger man said, flopping backwards into his hammock. “I’m tired too. I’ve got the hardest job here anyway so you all better listen to Newtie here and shut the fuck up.”

“Oh lord,” Minho rolled his eyes, while Frypan launched into a tirade over how no one had to get up as early as he did so really he had the hardest job, especially with everyone complaining over eating the same thing every night—

“Slim it!” Newt pointed at him with a glare as he settled into his own hammock. “Christ, it’s like wrangling a herd of toddlers with you lot. Brenda, ya gonna head off to bed or just stand there looking smug?”

“Hey,” Brenda lifted an eyebrow, not moving from where she was leaned up against a pole with her arms crossed, “You’re not the boss of me, blondie. I don’t like your tone.”

“Why are you even in here, anyway?” Newt asked casually, lifting his thumb to the corner of his mouth to bite at the nail.

“And where else should I be?”

“Dunno, thought Jorge started throwing punches the second you left his sight.”

Gally snickered.

“I do what I want,” Brenda said, pushing off from the pole with a dangerous look and hooking a thumb at her own chest. “I go where I want, when I want. Mark that down in your little Glader handbook, blondie.”

Newt shrugged, looking at his hand. He looked like he was trying not to smile as he ran his tongue over his teeth, the motion drawing Thomas’s attention in a way it might not have six months ago.

Though what past-Thomas had been doing other than drooling over Newt’s mouth-thing, present-Thomas couldn’t even begin to fathom.

“Alright,” Newt drawled, “Just seems like you’re followin’ your new man, now.”

The tent went deathly quiet.

“My what?”

“Newt,” Thomas whispered, “What are you doing?” He felt his spine tingle with the distinct fear that his first night as Newt’s boyfriend (was he Newt’s boyfriend? Oh god, they hadn’t talked about that yet, what if—) would also be his last because Brenda was going to kill him.

“Just pointin’ the attention back where it should be.” Newt leveled an accusatory finger at Brenda. “You, and Mr. Eyebrows over here.”

“Leave me out of this,” Gally mumbled, face lodged in the bundle of fabric that functioned as a makeshift pillow.

“A second ago you were telling us all to shut up and let you sleep,” Minho pointed out. “What are you doing starting shit with Brenda?”

Newt just smiled.

Brenda threw up her hands.

“Is this all because I dared to suggest that you’re not in charge of someone on this fucking planet? You’re unbelievable!” She stalked over and punched Newt in the arm, and Newt started laughing outright.

“I swear to god I will never understand you Gladers.” Brenda cast a look around the tent. “You all know you don’t actually have to listen to him, right?”

Frypan shrugged.

“He normally makes a good point.”

“Yeah,” even Gally piped up, grudgingly. “He’s got this infuriating thing where he’s normally, yaknow, right? And then you look like an idiot if you disagree so eventually you learn to just go with it.” Gally snorted. “So good luck with that, Thomas.”

Thomas felt himself blushing, so he just cleared his throat and looked over at Newt.

He caught Newt in a moment when the other man appeared to think that no one was watching him, because Thomas saw his teasing grin slip just a fraction as he closed his eyes and raised a hand to rub his chest, pressing down into his sternum in that holding-together motion that Thomas had noticed before.

“Well, I think he’s right,” Thomas said, earning an immediate groan from at least three different sources before he rushed to say, “Hey! All I’m saying is I’m tired too. Jeeze.”

“Give it up, Tommy, they’ll never quit.”

Eventually everyone did quiet down and settle in to their hammocks—even Brenda, though she was the last to go and spent quite a pointed amount of time leaning against the pole and sharpening her knife, the rasp of metal echoing around in the stillness while the rain still pounded outside.

However, even she had to sleep eventually, and Thomas watched as she bent down to turn the last gas lantern down until it was no more than a flicker giving off a warm glow in the darkness of the shelter.

He closed his eyes.

He could hear quiet breathing, every once in a while someone shifting to get comfortable, and he smiled.

He had everyone here, safe.

Even Teresa was accounted for, somewhere nearby, in a tent of her own. Nobody was sick, nobody was hurt. There were no monsters or Mazes or scientists to worry about. No armored cars, no swarms of desperate people, no cranks. No one was chasing them. Manipulating them, pitting them against each other. They were safe.

And Newt liked him. Newt liked him.

Thomas, not tired at all, opened his eyes and lifted a finger to run it over his bottom lip. Their kiss in the rain felt like a dream.

He wished he could have kept Newt all to himself, just a little bit longer. He wondered if Newt was rethinking things now that he knew exactly what it would be like being around their friends now that they were—

What were they?

Thomas sighed, and closed his eyes again, hand reaching up to pluck the necklace out from under his shirt and hold it tightly against his palm.

In the end, it didn’t matter, did it? As long as Newt was here with him and he got to wake up and hear Newt’s voice, his laugh, see his teasing smirk, watch him talking and joking with his friends, that was enough. More than enough.

Thomas woke up in a cold sweat, his heart pounding.

Fear still tugged at every nerve as he laid in his hammock, tears pricking his eyes. The hand that came up to rub the side of his face was shaking.

It had been an awful nightmare, and it was fading so slowly. He still felt it grasping at the edges of his mind, threatening to pull him down into the all-consuming belief that it was real. Real reality—the quiet tent, the hammocks filled with sleeping friends around him, the staccato drum of rain against canvas—felt tenuous at best.

Before he really knew what he was doing, Thomas slipped out of his hammock, bare feet finding the cool, sandy ground.

It was only a couple of steps until he was standing over Newt’s hammock.

He stood there for a long moment, long enough to start to feel quite stupid. It had just been a dream; he didn’t need to reach out and touch Newt, he knew that Newt was alive, could see the rise and fall of his chest beneath the thin blanket even in the dim light.

He sighed, scrubbing a hand over his eyes, and turned to go back to bed.

He heard the hammock creak.

“Thomas?”

Thomas turned back and saw that Newt was sitting up. He looked more than half asleep, hair standing up in a riot of half-dried straw-colored nonsense, blinking blearily as if he wasn’t sure that Thomas was really there. Unable to help the fond smile that came over him, and obeying that gravitational pull that always drew him to the other man, Thomas took a step towards him only so he could bend down and whisper,

“Go back to sleep, Newt.”

But as he turned to go, Newt’s hand closed over his wrist. As soon as he felt those long fingers wrapping around him, Thomas froze.

“C’mere,” Newt murmured, and gave a gentle tug.

Thomas looked around. Then he knelt beside the hammock, hand still arrested in Newt’s.

“What, in your hammock?” He chuckled softly. “I don’t know if it’ll hold both of us.”

“It will.” Newt smiled. “I’ve seen Gally and Brenda share one.”

“Ew,” Thomas said automatically, before standing up. “Alright. Scoot over.”

Newt obligingly wiggled over as best he could to allow Thomas room to slip in beside of him.

Thomas felt heat rising to his cheeks and he looked shyly up at the canvas ceiling as he nestled in beside of Newt. It was the first time they’d ever been this close and the hammock really gave them no choice but to immediately cuddle, Newt somehow ending up mostly on top of Thomas after a moment of them both shifting awkwardly around for the best position.

Newt sighed as his head came to rest on Thomas’s chest, one arm around his back and the other laying comfortably on top of him, hand lightly gripping his shoulder, their legs tangled hopelessly together. Thomas was grateful for the low light because he knew that he was grinning like an idiot.

Newt’s hair was tickling his chin so he lifted a hand to try to flatten it down a bit, chuckling when the blonde locks refused to submit and kissing the top of Newt’s head.

“I like this,” he whispered. He was grateful for the rain; it was loud enough to give them a bit of privacy, if they talked quietly. Newt hummed in response, fingers playing with his shirt collar.

“Why were you up?”

“Bad dream.”

Newt stroked his arm.

“I get them, too,” he admitted. “Though they’re not as bad now as when I was on the ship. I think a couple of the other lads also have them.” He hummed again, and Thomas could imagine the frown that always seemed to appear when Newt was turning a puzzle over in his mind.

“Suppose it’s not a surprise, really,” he continued, “with everything we’ve been subjected to.” Thomas noticed that Newt’s accent seemed thicker while his voice was still blurry around the edges with sleep. “I’m worried about Minho, though. Think there’s somethin’ he’s not tellin’ us.”

Thomas frowned.

“He seems fine to me,” he whispered back. “Maybe a little too preoccupied with our relationship status.” He said it as a joke, but as the words left his mouth he found he didn’t have it in him to chuckle.

“Well, now that’s settled he shouldn’t have much to worry about.”

“Um,” Thomas swallowed, “Is it? Settled?”

Newt lifted his head so he could look at Thomas with those big, night-dark eyes.

“Well I certainly thought so.”

“I mean—are we—?” Thomas’s gaze roamed frantically around as if seeking out help before landing back on Newt, whose expression was some mixture of curiosity and guardedness. Thomas wanted to hit himself. “What are we, exactly?”

“What do you want us to be, Thomas? You’re the one who nearly knocked my teeth out back there, kissin’ me in the rain.”

“I want what you want,” Thomas deflected, but knew it was the wrong thing to say when Newt pushed himself up even further, eyes going flint-hard and steel-sharp.

“No. That’s not how this is gonna work, mate.” Newt sighed, closing his eyes briefly. When he opened them again he looked almost sad. “I’ve been pinin’ after you—like a right idiot, mind—ever since you came up in that bloody Box. You’ve only really looked at me that way for what—a couple of weeks at most?” He shook his head. “Whatever we are, it’s up to you, Thomas. If you regret this you can go back to your hammock now and we’ll never speak of it again. No hard feelings.”

“No!” Thomas fought to keep his voice at a whisper as his hands gripped desperately at Newt’s shirt. “I want this. I want you. I want to be with you, Newt, I’m just scared—” He abruptly cut off, biting his lip.

Newt just looked at him, and Thomas knew he had no choice but to finish the thought.

“I’m scared that I’ll—I dunno, scare you off?” Thomas squeezed his eyes briefly shut, cheeks aflame. This was all so new to him, how could he not be terrified? And embarrassed. Definitely, definitely embarrassed.

“Tell me what you want, Tommy.” Newt’s voice was suddenly soft as he lifted a hand to gently stroke Thomas’s cheek.

“Shit, Newt, I just want you. I want us to be boyfriends and I want to spend every waking moment with you since I already spend every second thinking about you.”

Thomas held his breath, forcing open one eye to take in Newt’s reaction.

Newt was chuckling.

“Poor Tommy,” he whispered. “I’m sorry to do that to you, love, but I had to hear it.” His thumb traced over Thomas’s cheekbone and his eyes followed the motion before flicking back up to meet Thomas’s gaze. “I want that too. Well, most of it. Boyfriends sounds lovely. Don’t think we can spend every waking moment together, but I wouldn’t mind spending some of the non-waking ones with you as well. And, for the record—”

Newt leaned down, eyes falling halfway shut as his lips suddenly hovered a mere inch above Thomas’s.

“You really are very cute when you blush.”

Newt kissed him then, and it was nothing like their first desperate kiss out in the cold, driving rain.

This time their kiss was soft and slow, gentle and tender and finally warm as they huddled together in the hammock with a blanket thrown over them to shield them from the world.

And as Thomas fell asleep for the second time that night, now with his arms wrapped around Newt and the blonde man’s comforting weight on his chest, all he heard was the gentle rain and echoes of the word ‘love’ dancing like fireflies in his mind.

Chapter Text

Minho was out.

He was out and he was with them and that was all that mattered.

Newt’s feet pounded on the pavement as he struggled to keep up with his friends. Sirens blared in the distance and searchlights seared across his vision from the Bergs that hovered overhead. The entire armed force of WCKD was out looking for them and they had to get out of the city, like, now.

He followed Thomas and Gally as they darted across an empty plaza and, with Minho just a step behind him, slid down behind a low wall. His boots squelched with water from their dive into the ornamental pond outside of the WCKD lab building, his clothes wet and heavy against his fevered skin.

He was freezing. He was burning up.

He was dying.

It doesn’t matter.

He had done what he came here to do. As he leaned against the wall he started tearing at the front of his sodden jacket, desperate to free himself from the cloying fabric. He coughed, feeling something shift in his chest. He swallowed back whatever it was that was suddenly coating his throat.

It was getting harder to breathe but it didn’t matter because he had gotten Minho out. He’d seen Minho again, for what he was now certain would be the last time. He’d heard his friend’s voice. Seen the way Minho’s eyes—dark-ringed, hollow, but still bright, still Minho—had lit up when he recognized Newt and Thomas in the hallway. Had felt the crushing presence of someone who had been his dear friend for all of the life he could remember as they shared one last embrace.

It was enough. It would have to be.

He was out of time.

More coughing. He gave up on the jacket and slumped against the wall. It was like everything he’d done in the last few hours suddenly caught up to him—marching up to WCKD in heavy guard fatigues with a rifle in his arms, tearing through the building, fighting their way free. The jump. Running here.

He was exhausted.

The lights of the city were too bright, glancing off of slick surfaces, shattering and multiplying and pushing back against the soft darkness of the night sky. It was probably cool up there, he thought, as a shiver wracked his body. Sweat beaded on his brow. It was probably cool up there amongst the stars.

“Hey, Newt. How ya feeling?”

He blinked. Minho was kneeling in front of him, and thoughts of clean starlight and cool horizons and endless soothing wind fled his mind. He swallowed and tried on a smile, but could no longer hide the effort it took him to catch his breath.

“Terrible,” he admitted, then lifted a hand to Minho’s shoulder, letting it hang heavy there. It felt like his arm weighed a hundred pounds. “It’s good to see you, though.”

And he meant it. It was all worth it to see Minho again, to know that he was free. Newt didn’t want to think about what WCKD had done to him. What Teresa had done to him. Minho didn’t deserve that. He was good, he was a good person and Newt was going to miss him so fucking much.

But he wasn’t. Soon he wouldn’t miss anything at all. He’d just be gone, but still—it felt like a loss. A loss he wasn’t ready for. Strangely, he could handle the thought of himself dying, but the thought of never seeing Minho again?

Well, that’s the thought that had led Newt and Thomas out of the Scorch and to this city with its high walls and weaponry and infected air.

Worth it. He had to remember that.

Minho touched his hand and Newt closed his eyes, trying to drink it all in, willing the moment to last forever.

But it didn’t, and eventually he felt Minho moving away. He let his hand fall to his side, head rolling as he looked at it. Pale, clammy, and with those awful blue-black veins sticking out.

He hated them.

He should end it all now.

He was too far gone. He couldn’t keep up with his friends like this. He would be a burden, a liability. Dragging them down, slowing their progress towards the tunnels, their only chance of escape. And what if he turned? His mind was already going around in circles, thoughts stuttered and stitched together. How close was he, exactly, to completely losing it? To becoming something he didn’t recognize, something inhuman?

As if in answer to that, Newt leaned his head back to look at the sky as his vision clouded over in red. He shivered.

He forgot what he’d been thinking about. Something—something important. Something he should do? He couldn’t remember. He was so hot. He—

Thomas. Thomas was in front of him, suddenly, like he’d appeared out of thin air.

“Hey, Newt. C’mon bud, we gotta get you up.”

Newt almost laughed.

Get up? He couldn’t even lift a bloody hand to tear off this jacket.

But telling Thomas no—well, that word wasn’t really in his vocabulary when it came right down to it. So instead he found himself swallowing back the—whatever it was that he felt rumbling in his chest and working its way further up his throat with each new cough—and nodding.

“Okay.”

Breathing heavily, Newt steeled himself for the task. With every last remaining bit of strength he had he pushed himself off the wall and staggered to his feet.

Just take it one step at a time. He could do this for Thomas, he had to do this because Thomas asked it of him and Newt had never let him down before and he wasn’t about to start now.

But as soon as he hauled himself to his feet the world tilted around him.

“Woah, woah!”

Newt reeled, vision going dark and head swimming. He felt Thomas’s arms around his waist and his hand flailed in thin air until he managed to latch on to his friend’s shirt, trying to steady himself.

“You okay?”

Newt nodded, panting. He blinked as he tried to bring his surroundings back into focus again. There was an ever-present red tinge to everything now and he was embarrassed to note that he had no idea where he was or what they were trying to do.

But Thomas was there. He remembered Thomas, and that was enough.

“Newt, are you gonna be alright?” He could hear the worry in Thomas’s voice and hated himself for being the cause of it. As if Thomas didn’t have enough to worry about already. Figuring out how they were going to get into the city to get—

Minho. No, wait, Minho was there, he was standing next to Newt with the same worried look in his eyes that Thomas had.

Newt stared at them, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath and blinking hard, willing the pieces of his memory to slot into place.

“I don’t—” he managed, wavering on unsteady feet before suddenly pitching forward as his knees gave out. Thomas and Minho both swooped in at the same moment and then he was being held up between them, his arms around their shoulders. He couldn’t stand on his own anymore, that much was clear.

“I’m sorry,” he panted, trying to keep his head up. He shook his head, wet hair falling limply into his eyes. “I can’t, I—you’re gonna have to leave me.”

But Thomas and Minho were already moving forward, ignoring him, and Newt stumbled as he was forced to walk. All he could do now was try his hardest not to slow them down too much.

Newt awoke expecting to smell the city burning around him.

He frowned at the lack of heat from its fires, the absence of gunfire-crackle in the distance.

Of course, what he could hear and feel and smell was infinitely better, but he wasn’t inclined to believe in it just yet.

Because it really couldn’t be possible.

He was sleeping with someone.

Not in the—you know, the other way. He was curled around another person. Each rise and fall of their chest lifted his head and it was such a soothing rhythm that he almost allowed himself to drift back off to sleep. Instead he opted to catalogue every minute detail of his sensory experience in this moment, hoping that perhaps the sum total would make some sense.

Maybe he’d died, he thought, as his fingers began to idly trace the other person’s shirt, feeling the warm give of skin beneath the rough fabric. This could certainly be a heaven, though he wasn’t sure if he’d been quite good enough to warrant a place in that great cosmic reward. He thought he vaguely remembered something about not killing oneself—and he’d done it twice, or tried.

Newt turned his head slightly, just enough to plant a gentle, sleepy kiss on whatever bit of fabric-covered skin was available to him. He still wasn’t sure where he was or who he was holding—he was running off of instinct. It just felt right, and that was good enough for him.

It probably would have helped his confusion if he opened his eyes, but his eyelids were heavy with sleep and his mind was, too, and Newt was content to bask in it all for a bit longer. The warmth. He was warm all over. It was wonderful.

He heard quiet chuckling above his head, and then a hand was running through his hair, stroking his scalp.

Newt sighed, and nestled in even further, arms tightening around the other person as he slipped back into something that was closer to sleep than wakefulness.

Some time later—it could have been minutes or hours—Newt swam back up into consciousness.

This time, the creak and gentle swing of the hammock convinced him he was back in the Glade.

It shouldn’t have been possible. He remembered the Scorch, the raid on Vince’s camp, losing Minho, getting sick. He thought he remembered dying. His mind circled back around to the previous conclusion—maybe heaven was like the Glade? That would be sort of nice, actually.

For all that he’d hated it while he was there, Newt had grown to miss those grassy, sun-drenched meadows while he learned the taste of sand and heat and hunger out in the Scorch.

So who was in the hammock with him?

…Alby?

Alby would be here, if this was Glade-heaven. Of course he would.

Newt smiled. He opened his eyes and lifted his head, looking up to see—

“Thomas?” He blinked, forehead crinkling in confusion.

“Yeah,” Thomas chuckled. His hand rubbed Newt’s back. “Who else would I be?”

Newt laid his head back down on Thomas’s chest to hide his expression.

It wasn’t that he was disappointed. Far from it. In fact, his heart soared at the realization that he and Thomas were apparently together, in whatever timeline or universe this happened to be. He was just worried that Thomas had gone and gotten himself killed to end up here with Newt.

No. That couldn’t be the answer. Neither of them were dead, that was ridiculous of course. He had no evidence that there even was such a thing as an afterlife so, logically, they were far more likely to still be alive and on earth. He just…didn’t know when. Or where. Or how.

“Sorry,” Newt murmured. “Just sleepy.”

All of the speculation had lost its charming flavor. Newt lifted a hand to rub at his eyes, willing himself to understand. He had to figure this all out quickly or he’d raise suspicion. Thomas would worry.

“S’okay,” Thomas said, somewhere above him. Newt heard him yawn. “I’m tired, too. But we need to get up eventually.”

“Yes.” Newt could imagine that Thomas was itching to get up—such a light sleeper. Always had been. And always with that incessant need to move. The poor thing. Newt shifted so that his head was resting on the hammock, lifted his arm. “Go on.”

Thomas stretched, then ruffled Newt’s hair.

“Aren’t you coming? Breakfast—”

“A minute, Tommy. Just need a minute.” Newt could tell his own voice sounded distant but he couldn’t help it. He was desperately trying to put the pieces together, starting with the last memory he was certain was real.

The Last City. Thomas. A gun—a knife—

“Newt? Is everything okay?”

Thomas just had to stop interrupting him.

What happened after the knife?

“I—”

It all hit him at once.

It was an onslaught of memory, like standing in front of a dam and being swept away by the sudden release of water, or breaking through a cell wall and being blinded by a piercing beam of light. Images and sounds flashed relentlessly through his mind.

Berg-shouting-engines. Ship-Tommy-Minho.

Rust and salt and wind and blue and blue and blue.

Sunrise. Colors and Tommy and too much beauty and heartache for ten lifetimes, a hundred.

A smudge of green, far away.

Then close.

Mortar and dust. Anger. Teresa. Moonlight and Minho again and Tommy, always Tommy.

Sand and sunlight and Vince and Aris and trudging up grassy hills and the rich smell of plowed earth and dirt beneath his fingernails and—

Safe Haven.

He was in the Safe Haven.

He raised a hand to press on his shirt, directly in the center of his chest, and moved his fingers over the ropey, tender scar. He let out a long breath, closing his eyes. He remembered. He remembered everything, even standing in the rain last night and kissing Tommy for the first time. His hands shook with relief.

He felt a hand on his forehead. He opened his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Checking for a fever,” Thomas said, very seriously, and Newt felt himself relaxing. An easy grin spread across his face.

“I’m fine, mother hen.”

“You were out in the rain for a while,” Thomas countered, and Newt hummed. “And you’re acting weird.”

“Well I’m still bloody half-asleep,” he griped, and saw Thomas’s expression relax. Good. It was believable. He finally took stock of the situation in context with how they’d left off the night before: the rain seemed to have ceased completely, and the shelter was almost as dark as if it were full night. Quiet, too. “Is anyone else awake?” Newt lowered his voice to a whisper, frowning.

“Er…no. Well, just Frypan, I think.”

“So why are you in such a bloody hurry to leave?”

Newt’s stomach dropped as the pieces fell into place.

“Ah.”

“What?”

Newt pushed off from Thomas, sitting up in the hammock.

“You don’t want…” He jerked his head in a random direction, indicating the nearest sleeping friend—Gally, it happened to be. Newt pursed his lips, patted Thomas briskly on the chest, and then began angling himself to get out of the hammock. His stomach was in knots and his face on fire but he tried his level best to act like everything was normal—despite now being certain that Thomas was embarrassed to be seen with him like this.

It was a struggle to get his bad leg to cooperate, stiff as it always was in the mornings and not helped at all by the sleeping situation. The hammocks were always hell on the injury but sharing a hammock with Thomas meant that his legs had been twisted around in a less-than-ideal position for hours now. Pins and needles shot up from toe to knee.

“I don’t want what?”

“Don’t be thick, Tommy. Or—don’t act like I am.” Newt grimaced as he finally put both hands under his knee and forcefully lifted his leg into position, wincing as he braced his foot against the ground. “Bloody hell,” he breathed out. “I’d be better off sleeping on the fucking ground.”

Thomas jerked up, nearly spilling Newt out of the hammock entirely, and scurried to his feet.

“Here, let me help you—”

“Don’t,” Newt laughed humorlessly, shaking his head. “Don’t start. I can take care of myself.”

Thomas frowned.

“What…is happening right now?”

Newt looked at him for a long moment. He felt something close to anger thrumming in his spine—though it wasn’t, really, it was more like…preparedness. As if that made any sense. Then, all at once, he sighed and hung his head. He couldn’t stand seeing Thomas so unhappy, even though he rather thought the bloke deserved it if he was still going to tug Newt around like this.

“Just go on then, Tommy,” he said tiredly. “No one has to know we slept together. They all seem dead to the world, anyway. I would be too if you and your endless bloody energy hadn’t gotten me up.”

Thomas shook his head, eyes wide. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“Why don’t you…seem to believe me? That this—this is what I want?”

“You can want it and still be embarrassed by it. It’s called a guilty pleasure.”

“You know, Newt, that really hurts.”

Newt’s head shot up to look at Thomas. He was hurt? No. Newt was the one who was hurting, thank you very much and good night.

“Last night I told you I wanted us to be boyfriends. Does that really sound like I’m embarrassed to be seen with you? It’s like,” Thomas made a frustrated gesture with his hand, like he was trying to scoop up a handful of air, “It’s like you don’t trust me, or something.”

“Of course I trust you,” Newt hissed, looking around the lean-to in the hopes that no one was privy to this immensely sensitive of conversations. “I trust you with my life! I’ve proven that I don’t know how many times over by now.”

Thomas was an idiot. A beautiful, beautiful idiot.

“Then why are you acting like I’m trying to hurt you? Don’t you know I’d never—”

“Well you might not mean to and still—”

“Hey, guys?” Minho’s sleep-roughened voice made them both whip their heads around. “Can you take the lover’s quarrel outside?”

Well, that was the last straw for Newt.

Cheeks aflame and mind reeling from a mixture of sadness and embarrassment and disappointment and disillusionment—all of the many emotions that came with having something lovely in the palm of your hand only to watch it burst into mocking flames and crumple into a sorry, irrecoverable heap—he levered himself up out of the hammock and stormed out of the lean-to.

He heard Thomas following him but was more concerned at the moment with cursing the sand beneath his feet. It was hell on his leg, shifting and soupy and unpredictable footing as it was, and he wished for probably the millionth time since he’d woken up in the Glade after that stupid, ill-thought-out attempt that he could just go back to being like everybody else.

He stopped when he was just a few strides away, breathing hard.

Newt vaguely registered the fact that it was barely dawn. There were only a few souls up and about at this hour, and most were gathered around the kitchen area some several hundred feet away, preparing breakfast for the rest of camp under the hazy veil of smoke from the cookfire. The light was low, the sand looked almost purple in the muted greyness of the world, and the sky was dark and still twinkling with a handful of late-setting stars.

It was beautiful, but he couldn’t appreciate it.

“Newt!”

He turned to see Thomas—achingly beautiful, of course, as he had always been to Newt—standing with his arms crossed, exasperation and definite anger in his expression. The fresh morning wind—cool bordering on chilly—tugged at his hair. Newt had always thought Thomas’s hair to be rather unfair. Baby-soft, like a fawn’s first coat, but rich and dark like chocolate. Newt hated that, angry and hurt as he was, he still wanted to run his fingers through that hair.

“What the hell, man?”

Newt flattened out his lips and shrugged, eyes wide.

“What the hell, indeed, Thomas.”

“Why would you ever think I was embarrassed by you? About—about us?” Thomas shook his head angrily. “You and me, being together? That is, without a doubt, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Those words knocked Newt back a step.

“Newt, I think maybe you’re the one who’s embarrassed.”

“What?” Newt’s voice held the ghost of disbelieving laughter as he shook his head. This was just bloody ridiculous.

“It’s okay if you are.” Thomas’s voice was softer, now, and Newt looked on with a sort of numb horror as all of the anger and defensiveness drained out of the other man to be replaced by something approaching pity. The one thing he really couldn’t stand.

“Thomas, stop.” Newt took a step closer, closing his eyes and holding out a hand. “Just stop, alright? This isn’t about me, this about you tripping over yourself to hide the fact that you’d spent the bloody night with me—”

“That’s not what I was doing and I think you know that!” Thomas fairly shouted.

Newt blinked. Thomas hadn’t raised his voice at him since—well, had he ever?

“I know what I want,” Thomas said firmly. “Do you?”

Newt pressed his lips together, breathing through his nose and clenching his hands into fists to try to stop them from shaking. He opened his mouth, thought better of it and closed it. He looked away, down at the sand, shaking his head.

Then he took another step towards Thomas, raising a single finger—

But couldn’t follow through. He closed his hand into a fist again, pressing it against his lips and shaking his head once more.

Thomas didn’t speak. He just watched Newt, waiting, and Newt hated that it appeared that Thomas had learned a thing or two from watching him because that’s exactly what he would have done in this situation and shuck all but it was working.

“Thomas,” he said quietly, voice a little shaky as he took yet another step towards the other man. “Do you know what it was like to—do you have even the slightest bloody idea what it was like to—?”

He couldn’t finish. It was all so fucking stupid.

“No, I don’t.” Thomas was defiant. “Tell me.”

“I spent—” Newt broke off to laugh, a hopeless and bitter sound. “I spent so bloody long looking at you and telling myself that you could never feel for me the things I felt for you. I rationalized it in so many different ways. I made my peace with it. I really did. Don’t look at me like that.”

All of a sudden the tension bled out of him and despite himself Newt felt an exasperated smirk pulling at his lips and he rolled his eyes because Thomas was giving him those sad puppy eyes again and he should really be more frugal with those.

Newt closed his eyes and threaded his fingers together, pressing them against his mouth as he took in a deep, steadying breath through his nose. When he opened his eyes again Thomas was grinning at him.

“So this is about you,” he said smugly, and Newt tilted his head in confusion until Thomas proudly declared: “I didn’t do anything wrong at all!” And then he bloody punched the air in celebration.

It was adorable. Thomas was adorable and Newt was having trouble remembering why he’d been angry and hurt in the first place. And Thomas wasn’t giving him much of a chance to think about it because he was coming towards Newt and wrapping him up in a hug and kissing him and—

Yep. Newt was fucked. All hope was lost.

Newt gave up completely and leaned in, lifting a hand to cup the back of Thomas’s neck while the other rested gently on his shoulder and a pleased little sigh escaped him as he felt Thomas’s lips on his own.

He marveled at the fact that every time he kissed Thomas it felt completely different from the last, like something entirely new.

Their first kiss, in the rain, had been something desperate and wild as they threw themselves at each other, clashing in a way that was almost painful. Their kiss in the hammock had been gentle and sweet and warm, something so soft Newt was inclined to believe it had been more of a fuzzy-haloed dream than reality.

Now this, it was, well…

It was good. It was very good. Newt’s brain really couldn’t come up with any adjective beyond that. This kiss wiped away everything else—the sand beneath his feet, the dry rustle of dune grasses in the crisp morning wind, all of it faded under the warmth of Thomas’s lips. And then, for the first time—and Newt wasn’t even sure who had started it, or maybe they had done it simultaneously, it would be like them to do so—tongue.

Oh, glorious tongue.

This should have been disgusting, Newt thought, in a vague and distant way as he opened his mouth and felt Thomas’s tongue running across his lips and then sliding in, warm and wet and—

He needed more of this, please. Only this, forever. He literally wanted to stand here snogging Thomas’s brains out until the sun grew old and exploded and wiped the planet clean in a fiery exhalation of what the fuck why was this so good.

It went without saying that Newt had never kissed anyone like this before. His one little fleeting kiss with Alby, what felt like a thousand years ago, had been a chaste peck by comparison. This kiss consumed him.

Thomas’s tongue curled along his and Newt gasped as that one little motion sent a cascade of sparks crackling along his own tongue and then down the back of his neck and straight to the base of his spine, nerves pinging with a sharp metallic buzz like a live wire. His grip on Thomas’s neck tightened and he pressed forward, running his tongue along the roof of Thomas’s mouth and earning a little gasp in return.

Oh, so he could make Thomas make sounds, too?

Fun.

Newt’s hands fell to Thomas’s hips and he gripped hard as he endeavored to pull as many different noises from Thomas as he possibly could, completely losing track of the fact that they were standing in the middle of the beach not all that far from the lean-to and that the day was quickly dawning.

His brain just said ‘But, sounds? Please?’

Maybe if he—

Newt pulled Thomas’s hips towards his and the friction sent a bright spark of pleasure ripping through his own stomach. He bit down gently on Thomas’s lower lip and moaned.

“Newt,” Thomas breathed, hands threading through Newt’s hair, and Newt opened his eyes—hadn’t even realized they’d been closed—to see Thomas looking at him with wide, dark eyes. Had his eyes always been so dark? They were almost all pupil. Newt had no idea what that was supposed to mean but for some reason he found it irresistibly enticing.

He dove in hungrily for another kiss, but after a few seconds Thomas’s hands came up to cup the sides of his face and then he was gently pushing Newt away.

But but but but—

“Newt.” Thomas sounded out of breath and Newt realized that he, too, was breathing a bit heavily, like he’d just finished sprinting some distance. “Wait, just—”

Newt, playfully and really quite innocently, he swore, it was just an experiment to see what would happen if he did it again—well, did it again. He pulled Thomas’s hips in and—yep, the experiment was a success, he felt that same flood of heat and even got to watch as Thomas’s eyes fluttered shut. When they opened again Thomas looked like he’d forgotten everything he’d ever thought of saying and maybe every word in the English language, too.

Newt made a pleased little sound as Thomas resumed their heated kiss like there had never been a pause. They drank each other in, getting more and more flustered and hips moving fitfully now while little sounds spilled out of both of their mouths—

Until a shriek of disgust sounded behind Thomas, ripping them apart.

“C’mon, guys! Really?”

And Newt maybe should have felt guilty at how truly horrified Sonya looked, with one hand on the canvas flap and looking like she was thinking of retreating back to her hammock, maybe forever, but he simply couldn’t seem to wipe the silly lopsided grin from his flushed face.

Newt winked at her, and Sonya rolled her eyes dramatically, and Newt enjoyed the confusion and curiosity that the exchange brought to Thomas’s face.

Something was lifting and buoying him, tugging upwards from his chest into the pinkly-dawning air and he smiled as he realized he actually had some rather good news to share with Thomas, for once.

Another time.

For now, he could enjoy the way that Thomas’s face turned an almost alarming shade of beet-red at being caught, and a wicked part of Newt decided that this would not be the last time they were caught.

Of course, not being caught would be its own reward, and Newt allowed himself to briefly imagine what he might like to do if he and Thomas ever found a place to exchange those fevered touches and shimmer-bright, tsunami-force kisses in private.

Newt’s mind was far away as Thomas stammered out an apology to Sonya, before the girl finally left in a huff and Thomas cradled his head in his hands and groaned.

“Now you’re embarrassed,” Newt couldn’t help but tease, before tugging Thomas in for another kiss.

They decided to break off and head for breakfast before more of their friends could pour out of the lean-to only to be traumatized forever. Newt let Thomas go with a fond squeeze of his hip, fingers sliding briefly beneath his shirt to brush warm skin and smirking as Thomas jumped at the contact.

They only made it a few steps before Thomas stopped.

“Hey.” Thomas grabbed Newt’s hand and pulled him back a step, those brown doe-eyes suddenly serious. “Whatever stuff you used to tell yourself—you know none of it was true, right?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The stuff about why I would never have feelings for you. I don’t know what it was, how you used to rationalize it, but I know that it was all wrong. All of it. Every last thing.” Thomas took his other hand, now holding both of Newt’s in his own, and Newt was so taken aback by the raw kindness in the gesture that he was having a rather hard time concentrating on the words.

“You are wonderful and perfect and way, way too good for me. I probably shouldn’t be telling you that since you were gonna figure it out on your own anyway and then dump me for that Rick guy—”

And that made Newt snort, though Thomas had no way of knowing why.

“—But it’s true. Don’t put yourself down anymore, alright?”

Newt lifted an eyebrow.

Thomas dropped Newt’s hands and held his own up in defense, taking a step back and grinning.

“Sorry, sorry. I know. Too much?”

“Entirely.” Newt followed him, lifting a hand to swiftly cup Thomas’s chin and regarding him for a long moment with a gaze that seemed to take the other man apart. “But that’s your way.”

And that’s why I love you.

His Tommy had a point, of course, though he’d never admit it out loud. Perhaps it was still a bit difficult for Newt to believe certain things.

That he’d made it to the Safe Haven.

That Thomas could really want him in that way—reciprocate the feelings that Newt had spent so long believing were one-sided.

Well. He supposed there was really nothing for it but to practice believing.

He cuffed Tommy lightly on the chin with his knuckles, before leading him off to breakfast with a fond smile that Thomas followed like a trail of bread crumbs pointing the way home.

“No field work today?” Thomas tilted his head as he plopped down beside Newt a few hours later. They had parted ways after breakfast to join their respective work teams but the ocean was still too rough after the previous day’s storm for the fishers to do much other than repair a few nets and wait it all out.

“The paths are flooded,” Newt replied, still frowning down at the plans spread out under his fingertips.

Newt had used the precious little paper they had—the backs of sea charts that mapped out wind patterns and currents along their route to the island, that they would hopefully no longer need—to start sketching out a rough plan of the fields.

Crop schedules were noted in lists along the margins in his unpracticed scrawl (hadn’t had much time for writing since before he’d come up in the Box, after all), along with equipment needs and rotating shifts of workers. A rough timeline was forming in his mind, of harvest and sowing, a plan that he would eventually stretch on into the coming years.

Newt’s vision of a self-sustaining agriculture for the Safe Haven was far from reality, but they would get there, eventually. He would make sure of it.

He was currently bent over a crate with the papers spread out beneath him, concentration furrowing his brow as he shifted the charts, leaned one elbow on the crate and covered his hand with his mouth, thinking.

“Newt doesn’t like to admit it,” Aris piped up, from where the boy was sitting on another crate with a mug of Frypan’s dubious approximation of tea cupped in his hands, “but there’s plenty of work for us to do here at camp. Draw up plans for new fields, come up with ration schedules for Frypan and the other cooks, repair equipment.”

Newt waved a silencing hand.

“Hush, you. You’ll take any excuse to stay at camp.”

“And you’ll take any excuse to get away.”

Newt glared at Aris, and the boy had the audacity to stick his tongue out at him.

“Cheeky bastard,” he grumbled, though a fond smile threatened at the corner of his mouth. “You’ve been spending too much time with the little immunes.”

Just then, while he was looking at Aris, Newt happened to spot Brenda striding across the sand, purpose in the cant of her head and gaze locked on something far across the beach.

Something Gally once said to him (only yesterday but, already, feeling like a lifetime ago) came flooding back and suddenly Newt was abandoning the crate with the charts, leaving Aris and Tommy with confused expressions in his wake as he jogged with his uneven, lilting stride to catch up to her.

“Brenda!” He called out, and the woman stopped, turning with her customary look of fond annoyance as he finished jogging over.

“Brenda? Can I…talk to you?”