Chapter Text
Thomas doesn’t go on scavenger runs. The mere thought of heading back to where it all happened fills him with dread. There’s some part of his brain that thinks he’ll see something terrible or have to live through it all over again. Vince calls it ‘post-traumatic stress’. Thomas calls it common sense.
Minho, clearly, doesn’t have the same concern. Or, if he does, it doesn’t affect him in the same way. He’s gone on every scavenger run since they started and probably brought more back to the island in the last year than all of the other scavengers put together. They all treat him like a hero for it, but all Thomas wants is for him to stay on the island, back where it’s safe.
Yet, every time Minho returns, he’s smiling. He laughs as he helps to unload the Berg of their findings. There are times when Thomas wonders if maybe this is Minho’s way of giving back to the people who saved him from WCKD. Maybe going back there, providing more supplies to help them survive, is the best way he can think of to say ‘thank you’.
Thomas will always help him unload, listening to Minho’s stories of buildings they came across or times they had to run from cranks. Minho never treats those near-escapes like they’re nothing. He always turns to Thomas and gives him a pat on the shoulder, often accompanied by one of his casual phrases that holds so much meaning to the both of them.
“You’re not losing me, shank.”
“Don’t worry. I knew I couldn’t leave this place in your hands.”
“We made it out. Always will.”
And every time, Thomas knows he’s right. The two of them can survive anything. It’s the unfortunate burden they both live with; They’ve survived when their friends haven’t.
Today, Thomas has that at the forefront of his mind. The Berg is coming back in the next hour, so he waits on the grass, overlooking the beach. To his left is his reminder of everyone who gave their lives for him to be here. Chuck, Alby, Zart, Winston, Teresa, Newt. Those are only a few of the names, but Thomas has every single one on that rock memorised. Sometimes, when he’s feeling low, he runs through them all, reminding himself that they all want him to be here, making the most of this haven. Their names are sometimes what gives him the motivation to get up and be helpful.
Some names hurt more than others. They come with a sharp sting of regret. That sting used to keep him up at night. When he first arrived, Thomas had trouble sleeping. His mind would take the opportunity to run through every possible scenario in his head, showing him all the ways he could’ve saved them.
But, the harsh truth of it all is that he didn’t. They’re gone. And, as Vince likes to remind him, there’s nothing else he can do but live on and carry their memory with him. Thomas had huffed out a bitter laugh at that one. If he had to carry them all, that was a lot of memories for someone who was once wiped of his own.
His thoughts are interrupted by the familiar hum of the Berg returning. It’s odd to see the strange shape approaching in the distance, hovering over the sea, and to know that his friends are inside. This time, Thomas is a little worried. Word around camp was that they had to rush back today. There was an urgency behind their return. A glance towards the medical tent reassured Thomas that nobody was rushing around to prepare for some kind of horrific injury or illness. Maybe they’d found something important instead.
There’s a landing pad on the grass behind the campsite, so Thomas makes his way there now. The Berg closes in to camp, roaring above his head and causing ripples in the sea behind it.
Something else sends Thomas’ heart into overdrive because, as the Berg hovers down, the ramp is already lowering, and as it makes contact with the grass, Minho comes sprinting out, yelling out orders to someone behind him.
“Build the supplies, now! Jorge, gather the others! Vince? Where’s Vince?!”
“Minho, what’s going on?”
It’s then that Minho spots Thomas looking bewildered at the edge of the clearing. He makes his way over and grabs Thomas by the shoulder, pulling him along beside him.
“Thomas! Where’s Vince?” he asks, searching frantically around them. “We need a meeting. And a plan. But just with the old group. From the Glade and Scorch. Jorge, Brenda, you, me. Frypan too. Gally. All of us.”
The urgency in his voice and the specificity of his orders send a million questions flying around Thomas’ head. “Minho, what’s this about?”
But all he gets is a shake of the head. “I can’t tell you now.” He spots something in the distance. “Vince!” he yells. “Vince, meet us in the hall! Urgent meeting! Can you find Gally and Frypan too?! And get some people packing supplies for another run. We’re going as soon as we can!”
“Minho-”
“Not now, Thomas. I can’t tell you now.”
Despite the harshness of his statement, Minho stops in his tracks and takes the time to reassure Thomas. “It’s good news, I think,” he says. “We just… need to talk about it all together. And fast.”
He continues his way to the hall, picking up Frypan from the kitchen on the way through, somehow never letting go of Thomas’ shoulder. Thomas has now figured out that they must have found or seen something useful. What that something is is a whole different question altogether. One he hopes will be answered soon.
“Okay,” Minho announces, once everyone’s in the hall. They’re seated in a circle. Thomas to Minho’s left, then Frypan, Gally, Brenda, Jorge, Vince. Minho’s the only one with his chair facing the wrong way, hugging the back of it in his apparent excitement. Thomas watches as his legs practically vibrate with anticipation.
“As you know, we’ve been on a scavenger run. We were flying over the eastern docks, making our way back, when I spotted something down below.”
“Minho, if this is another story about a dolphin-”
“Slim it, Gally. This is important. It’s something you’re gonna want to hear and it could change everything. I just need your help to do that. It’s… well, I didn’t really believe it for myself until… Jorge?”
Jorge’s been quiet until now, letting Minho do the talking. He pulls out a small tablet and presents it to the group. “Video surveillance,” he explains. “On the underside of every Berg is a camera. We use them to monitor flight paths usually, but sometimes they’re useful when flying over dangerous land, so you can see directly beneath you as well as ahead.”
He glances at Minho, who nods, giving him the go-ahead for the next part of the story.
“This is what Minho saw.”
He presses play on the screen and the footage is shown. At first, Thomas struggles to make sense of it but, once it’s been playing for a few seconds, it becomes clearer. The camera focuses on a boatshed at the end of one of the docks. As the Berg flies overhead, a figure comes into view, staring up at the Berg before running into the shed, presumably to hide away. It’s not the hiding that draws Thomas’ focus but the person themselves. There’s something about the way they run, the blonde hair, the startled expression…
A chill runs down Thomas’ spine as the realisation hits.
Gally gasps beside him and Thomas stands up.
“What is this?” he asks in a raised voice. “Why are you showing us this?” Thomas gestures angrily towards the screen. “That’s not… we all know who that looks like, so why are you teasing us with this footage?”
It’s not him. It can’t be him. There’s no way. It’s not possible.
“Thomas, we’re not teasing you. This is real.”
“Newt is dead, Minho. I killed him myself. You saw the knife in his chest. Last time I checked, a stab to the heart isn’t exactly compatible with life!”
“What if it missed?”
Gally’s voice is firm and it makes Thomas want to punch him. Again.
“What the hell do you mean missed , Gally? Did you not see it sitting his his fucking chest?”
“Thomas…” Frypan warns him. There’s a little voice in Thomas’ head that’s telling him to listen to Frypan; he’s working himself into a panic. He ignores both the voice and Frypan.
“I mean his heart,” Gally continues. “What if it missed his heart?”
“Oh, you think he got stabbed somewhere else then? It just slipped past his heart and didn’t kill him?”
“It happens.”
“I don’t think Newt was as lucky as you were, Gally.”
Gally’s out of his chair and grabbing Thomas by the shirt faster than anyone has time to react to, Thomas included. By the time Thomas is pinned against the wall, at least three other people are yelling and Minho’s got his arm between the two of them, shoving Gally back.
“Quit it!” he yells. “You’re acting like slintheads! Look at the footage.”
“No,” Thomas huffs.
“Thomas, I swear to God, if you don’t listen to me I’ll find a way to glue your eyes to that screen. Look at it.”
So Thomas looks, making sure to roll his eyes before doing so.
His heart clenches.
It really does look like Newt. This feels like torture.
“I’ve been watching it on repeat since we sourced it. There’s no way it’s not him. He’s the same height and he’s limping with the same leg! His hair is way longer but… it has been a year. And-- there! Looking straight up at the Berg! Tell me that’s not him! That’s Newt!”
The room is silent. Nobody can deny it; the resemblance is uncanny. It has to be him.
Thomas finds himself unable to look away from the screen. There he is, staring up at them, looking better than when Thomas last saw him, obviously, but not exactly well either. His limp is much more pronounced and Thomas thinks he can spot a scar on his face that wasn’t there before, accompanied by an unfamiliar anger in his eyes as he spots the Berg.
But it’s him. It’s Newt. The boy who sacrificed everything to save his friends. The one who suffered in silence until the Flare took over his body, forcing him to attack Thomas, even trying to kill him at one point. The boy who’d begged for death and then died in Thomas’ arms.
Or so he’d thought.
Newt survived it all.
The screen and its surroundings are blurry now as tears cloud Thomas’ vision. His legs feel weak and shaky, so he sits down before they give out, wiping at his eyes and nose as he takes a shuddering breath in and out. Thankfully, the others let him have this moment and nobody draws attention to it. He wills himself to breathe deeply, in and out until the tears start to settle again.
“It’s really him, isn’t it?” Frypan breaks the silence.
Minho nods. “Yeah, Fry. It’s him.”
Thomas has slowed his breathing down so his brain can kick into action again. He tries to picture it; flying overhead and spotting him down below. Thomas knows what Minho means when he said he didn’t believe it. Nobody would until they looked closer. It still seems impossible.
Then what? Did they just fly home? Why didn’t they stop? Was there something else happening? Was Newt safe? Is he… sick?
“Why didn’t you pick him up?” Gally asks the question before Thomas can.
“There was nowhere to park the Berg that wouldn’t have us running low on fuel and moving for miles on foot. We made the call to come back and head out there again as soon as we can,” Jorge explains.
“You couldn’t have just hovered over him?” Thomas presses, finding his voice (and anger) again. “If it’s him, he would’ve jumped in. You just left him there?!”
“Trust me, Thomas. We’ve already fought over this,” Minho sighs. Only then does Thomas notice the bruise on Jorge’s cheek, matching the one across Minho’s knuckles and it doesn’t take much to put two and two together and realise that Minho means they physically fought over this.
“If Newt’s still sick then we need to give him the serum there before bringing him back here,” Jorge adds.
“They’re right, you know, Thomas. There’s no point bringing him here if we’re endangering everyone else.”
Thomas fights the urge to tell Vince to shut up.
“Shut up, Vince.”
Gally, however, must’ve had different plans.
“He’s one of us. We’re bringing him here whether you like it or not.”
“You’re not bringing a crank into our Safe Haven, Gally. Either you treat him and bring him back, or you don’t bring him back at all. Those are your options.”
Gally goes to speak again but Brenda interrupts. “Well, if he’s alive, he’s probably not a crank, right? Did that look like a crank to any of you?”
They all look at the screen again, Thomas trying to supress the wave of emotions that comes with seeing Newt again. He’s never gotten over losing him; it’s the scenario he’s replayed the most and feels the most guilty for. Newt’s death has tormented Thomas for a year.
Yet, there he is. Alive.
And Brenda’s right; Newt looks tired, worn down, but not necessarily sick . Not with the Flare anyway. There are no black veins across his face, no deranged look in his eyes. They’re looking at Newt, not a crank.
“He doesn’t look like he did when we left him,” Minho says. “No veins. No madness. No black tar running from his mouth-”
“We get it,” Thomas interrupts, willing the images to leave his head. “He’s not a crank. Anyone can see that.”
He pats his pocket once, to check that the vial’s there, where he’s always kept it. “Besides,” he continues, pulling the small cylinder out into view, the blue serum still just as bright as the day he first arrived. “We have this. We can cure him.”
He turns to Vince, who’s still pondering the images on the screen. “Alright,” he says. “But you better be sure of it. If you bring the Flare back here, that’s on you. I’ll be testing him on arrival.”
That’s as close to content as Vince is ever going to get, so they take it.
“How soon can we go?” Brenda turns to Jorge.
He shrugs. “I don’t think it’s wise to arrive there in the dark so… sunrise tomorrow? It’ll give us enough time to fuel up and organise supplies. If we leave first thing we’ll arrive early in the afternoon.”
“We can’t go tonight?” Thomas pleads. “We’re going to leave him for another night out there? Anything could happen!”
Jorge sighs and the look he gives Thomas is akin to a parent reasoning with their child. “I’m not landing my Berg in unknown territory in the dark, hermano. Besides, your friend Newt has survived this long. I think he’ll be okay for one more night out there.”
“He’s tough,” Brenda agrees. “He’ll still be there.”
Thomas trusts Brenda. He trusts all of his friends, and none of them are arguing the case, so he gives in. “Okay,” he nods. “First thing tomorrow.”
“We’re bringing Newt back,” Minho grins and wraps an arm around Thomas’ shoulder.
Again, all Thomas can do is nod, hoping it’ll shake away the fear of false hope. What if it doesn’t work? What if they’ve discovered he’s alive just to lose him again? Is Thomas even ready to go back there? How can any of this even be real? Is this some sick dream that he’s about to wake up from?
Those thoughts are put to rest by a sudden overwhelming feeling that Thomas hasn’t felt in a long time. Maybe even since he last saw Newt. It doesn’t matter now how ready he is or how petrified he feels; Thomas has to try.
It's right then, in that moment, that he makes a promise to himself:
He will do anything he can to save Newt.