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Miyoko hadn’t realized that a person could be so completely, utterly shattered by the death of someone they’d known for less than a month. She’d spent almost three years in the Meadow. She knew better than to let someone past her walls that early. Letting people close that quickly was akin to asking their malevolent overlords for grief and loss.
As a Healer, she was forced to grow accustomed to loss. To the people you can’t save. To the forced goodbyes, or the goodbyes made to a scrap of clothing or a pile of bones.
But Rachel was different.
She was curious, inquisitive to almost a fault. Asking how and why and when and why, as if getting to the very marrow of a query was the only way to do it. She was thoughtful and kind, and so gentle with tiny Natalie, letting the youngest of their girls lead her around their unlikely home and listening attentively to her every word. She didn’t take no for an answer, shocking them all to the core by running headlong into the Maze before she even truly knew what it was.
Rachel had the spark that Miyoko had almost lost. The guttering flame within her that had once burned like the blaze of the true sun had burned just as bright, if not brighter, in Rachel.
Rachel had helped lead them all to safety. She’d held Miyoko as Julie fell from the platform and to unseen depths below. She’d taken Natalie in her lap and slid down the access hatch and to safety. She ensured everyone was stable before moving out of whatever room they’d slid into.
They had stood in a tight knot, moving as one through the freshly abandoned lab, screens still active and papers strewn everywhere. Miyoko had felt something akin to hope rising in her for the first time in a long time. She remembered weaving her way through the group so she was at the front, at Rachel’s side. Rachel grabbed her hand, holding it tight, and Miyoko would never forget how her heart skipped a beat.
They watched the video, watched the woman, Ava, be shot in the head by someone in a mask. That hope had started to die until Harriet found an exit door. They found themselves in a large hallway, near a door with windows that opened to the outside. Whispers flew through the girls as they looked upon the outside, the real outside, for the first time. Miyoko saw the sun, and wondered how much Rachel’s eyes would sparkle in the light.
Quickly, too quickly, Beth had pulled a gun.
Quickly, all too quickly, Beth pulled the trigger.
Quickly, all too quickly, in both an instant and a million years, Rachel had staggered and collapsed, crumpling to her knees as a brilliant crimson stain spread across her chest.
Quickly, all too quickly, whatever hope Miyoko had left died.
⁂
The desert of the Scorch did little to numb the pain Miyoko felt. The sun and the wind and the sand scorched her skin, got under her nails, in between her teeth, and what felt like into her very soul. But nothing touched the pain.
Nothing took away the gaping ache in her chest, the miserable heartache, the utter and unshakeable grief.
They traveled through the Scorch, captured a boy, and fought monsters Miyoko had thought they’d all left behind in the Maze. She felt numb throughout the entire experience, like an outsider in her own body, a mere observer. She scrounged and fought and protected, but it all seemed pointless.
She’d never get to make Rachel laugh.
She’d never learn what Rachel’s favorite color was, what her quirks were, how she slept at night, or what she looked like when she ugly cried.
She’d never be able to properly fall in love with Rachel.
But then they were rescued by the Right Arm, and Miyoko found an outlet. Weapons training and guard duty gave her something to unload her rage and her grief onto. Her work with the medical team made her needed and valued. Vince and Mary understood what it felt like to lose someone you loved, and let Miyoko process and work through her grief in a healthy way for the first time in months.
⁂
Everything changed when the Right Arm successfully completed the train heist.
It was the fruition of plans that had been in the works for months. Countless hours had been put into mapping where the trains were, figuring out how many kids WCKD had, how often they transported them, and where they transported them to. It was possibly the most daring operation the Right Arm had ever attempted.
The amount of resources needed were intense. Miyoko and the rest of the medical team spent hours in additional planning of their own. No one knew what condition they’d find the kids in or what treatment they’d need. Supplies were sorted and sterilized, salves and poultices and serums created from what little resources they had after the WCKD raid and what they could create from the few plants growing in the mountains.
It was good for Miyoko to have something to focus on.
And finally, the day of the raid came, and the team was successful. There was chaos, as expected, when a flood of teenagers are rescued from the clutches of a worldwide malevolent organization determined to use those said teenagers like cattle for slaughter. The medical team had prepped for triage screenings of dozens of people, and whatever field stabilization and treatment was necessary.
The world stopped when a pair of girls were shepherded to Miyoko.
Rachel and Sonya walked arm in arm.
Rachel walked.
Rachel was alive.
Miyoko forgot how to breathe.
Rachel was alive? Miyoko had watched Rachel die, watched her take a final breath, watched as a horrible crimson stain blossomed on her chest. Miyoko’s world had died in an instant.
Now that world was back in place.
“I was shocked too, Miyoko,” Sonya said, her voice hoarse. Both women were haggard; Sonya’s blonde hair was limp and greasy, and she had bags under her eyes, and Rachel looked so sad yet so gloriously alive that Miyoko couldn’t breathe. Her hair was a little longer, her skin had worrying pallid undertones, and her eyes held a haunted look that broke Miyoko’s heart, but Rachel was alive.
Rachel pulled Miyoko out of her stupor by wrapping her in a massive hug, squeezing until Miyoko’s chest hurt. She smelled of sweat and blood, but she was alive. “I did die,” she said into Miyoko’s hair, “but the WCKD doctors got to me right after you all were taken onto the Flat Trans. Took me into surgery and everything, got me right as rain. I was one of their elites, too valuable to waste.”
“You’re more than that,” Miyoko said, her throat tight and her eyes wet. She took a small step back, tracing the line of Rachel’s cheek with a shaking hand, “so much more.”
⁂
Rachel was not a morning person, but her favorite thing was sitting on the beach to watch the sunrise because she loved the explosion of color that was painted across the sky. Miyoko made sure to be at her side each and every morning.
She was also the worst blanket hog and talked in her sleep, but only when she was stressed or anxious. There were nights when she’d hardly toss or turn, and often Miyoko would find her the next day with Minho and Sonya, or another one of the WCKD rescues, talking quietly.
Rachel was also as scatterbrained as one could be, but there was a method to her organizational methods, even if it took a while to parse it together. She hated to drink her tea when it was freshly brewed, because it was too hot, but wouldn’t drink it if the tea was lukewarm. She, like Miyoko, got puffy eyed and out of breath when she ugly cried.
Miyoko was going to cherish every early morning for the sunrise, each time she woke up without her blankets, or every time she bickered with Rachel because she left her mugs scattered around their little yurt.
She loved Rachel with the fire of a thousand suns and basked in Rachel’s love for her.
Miyoko was lucky. She got her beloved back, against all odds, and had the chance to properly know and cherish and love Rachel in all her perfectly imperfect glory. For all the harm they did, for all they took from Miyoko and those she loved, for the lasting harm they caused the world, they did bring Rachel to her. And for that fact alone, there was a singular way in which WCKD was good.