Chapter Text
Newt hit the ground hard, snow exploding around him in a white halo. He could still feel the burn of the Flare in the back of his mind, but something was different—quieter.
Like a storm finally losing the strength to scream.
Thomas stood over him, chest heaving, the gun hanging trembling in his hand.
“Newt…? Can you—can you hear me?”
Newt blinked, air fogging in front of his lips. The world was fuzzy, and his body felt like it had been hollowed out. But he was still here. Still breathing. Still him.
“Tommy…” His voice cracked. “You’re a bloody idiot, standing there crying when I’m not even dead.”
Thomas dropped to his knees so fast the snow splashed. “Newt! Newt, I thought—I was sure—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Newt muttered, grasping his friend’s arm. “Thought you shot me, did you? Missed every bloody target in training, but suddenly you’re a sharpshooter when it matters?”
Thomas let out a choked laugh that turned into a sob.
But Newt wasn’t joking—not fully. He remembered the rage, the desperation, the unbearable pain twisting his mind. He remembered clawing at Thomas, screaming for death.
And he remembered momentary clarity—just a sliver—when Thomas hesitated to pull the trigger.
Minho appeared next, skidding to a stop. “You two are the slowest shanks alive—HOLY—” His jaw almost hit the snow. “NEW—? NEWT?!”
“Hello, Minho,” Newt said, exhausted. “Still loud, I see.”
Minho punched him in the shoulder, then pulled him into the fiercest hug of his life.
“You’re alive? Alive alive?”
“Mostly,” Newt whispered. “But I’m me again.”
Because the enzyme—Thomas’s blood—had worked. Not instantly. Not cleanly. Not without ripping him apart and stitching him back together in ways he didn’t understand. But it had stopped the madness.
For the first time in months, Newt’s mind was quiet.
Then came the explosion.
The WCKD tower behind them lit up in a burst of fire—huge, violent, final. The heat washed over them even from a distance. Thomas flinched, memories tearing through him.
Newt watched the fire reflect in Thomas’s eyes. “It’s finally over, yeah?”
Thomas swallowed. “Yeah. It is.”
Newt breathed in the cold air. It hurt a little, but in the good way that reminded him he was alive.
“Now what?” Minho asked.
Newt looked between them—his brothers. All they had left. All they’d ever needed.
“We survive,” Newt said simply. “We build something new. For the ones we lost.”
Thomas stared at him like he couldn’t believe this miracle had been handed back to him.
Newt smiled faintly, nudging him. “Come on, Tommy. If I can beat the Flare, you can manage not to mope every five minutes.”
Thomas laughed—a real, broken, healing laugh—and Newt felt something inside him unfreeze.
They walked away from the burning ruins, three silhouettes against a rising sun.
Newt was alive.
And for the first time in a long time, he believed he deserved to be.