Chapter Text
"Hey, Tommy."
"Oh. Hi, Newt."
"…They’re sending me into the Maze tomorrow."
"What?! I thought you still had a month left!"
"Turns out the bloke who was s’posed to go up before me got the Flare. He wasn’t Immune, apparently."
"No… no, Newt, they can’t—"
"They can and you bloody well know it."
"Newt… god, Newt, you don’t deserve this…"
"Yeah, no shit."
"Don’t laugh right now! How can you laugh?! Newt, what the hell am I supposed to do with you gone?! I can’t watch you struggle to survive in that damn Maze—"
"Oh, so you’re callin’ me weak, now, eh?"
"That’s not what I meant and you know it, Newt. I care about you, and I’d hate to see you get hurt. The Maze is ruthless—I should know, considering I’m the one who helped make it."
"Calm yo’ tits, I was joking—"
"Okay, ‘nother rule! No joking about this!"
"Okay, okay, fine, no joking or laughing. Seriously, Tommy, what’s the big deal? I’ll be fine, so why’re you gettin’ so pissy ‘bout it?"
"For the love of… Christ, Newt, are you dense?! It’s because I—"
Thomas woke up to the sounds of shouting, screeching, and wind. Someone was shaking him—he couldn’t tell who. There was sand in his eyes, and when he opened his mouth to ask what was happening, sand invaded that, too.
Half-awake, he stumbled out of the helicopter—how’d he get in a helicopter again…?—and made it about two, maybe three steps before everything came crashing back down on him.
The Maze. The Glade. The escape. The deaths. The Grievers. The state of the world. The Flare. Ava Paige. The helicopter. Chuck.
Shit, Chuck’s carving!
Breaking free from the man who was helping him towards the huge building just a dozen meters away, Thomas ran back to the helicopter and frantically searched for the small figurine. He heard the man shout at him—something along the lines of ‘what the hell are you doing’—and felt a hand pulling at his upper arm, but only when he found the blood-stained wooden trinket did he relent and let the man shepherd him into the building.
The building was huge, the inside being something akin to a military hangar: large and impossibly open. There was machinery everywhere, and the huge doors behind Thomas whirred shut with a great sound of steely effort. Locks hissed, metal clanked.
Around him, Thomas could see his friends looking around in awe. Suddenly, he noticed how small their group had gotten—just him, Newt, Teresa, Minho, Frypan, Winston, and that kid… Erik, if Thomas remembered correctly. A weight settled in his chest, feeling guilty for all the people whom he hadn’t been able to save. So many people, dead. Because of him. Honestly, if anything was right or fair in the world, he should’ve died with them. With Alby. With Chuck.
He remembered, now, the promise he made to Chuck. How Thomas said he’d help the boy find his family, that he’d make sure that they all made it out. He broke that promise. He hadn’t saved Chuck.
But remembering that broken promise made Thomas remember the unbroken one he’d made to Newt—how he’d take the blonde to that envisioned beach, watch the sunset. Maybe even cry, if it all felt right enough.
So Thomas silently vowed to survive, if only to make Newt happy. Because even though Thomas probably didn’t deserve happiness—what, with all the blood on his hands—the stalwart blonde did. Happiness, safety, and love. That’s what Newt deserved.
Thomas was snapped out of his thoughts by a couple of armed guards herding them into a tight-knit group and escorting them through the hangar-like building. Eventually, everything got smaller—hallways, walls, normal-size doors—and after a minute or so, they were shown to a medium-sized room cluttered with an assortment of random stuff—but what caught his (and probably everyone else’s) attention was the table. The table, laden with more food than Thomas thought possible.
Thomas couldn't help but gawk at the table before him. Sure, he'd had decent food in the Maze—back in the Glade—but this? It was an unfathomable amount of good-looking food. His mouth watered.
"I’ve gotta be bloody dreaming," Newt muttered, his voice hardly more than a trembling whisper. Thomas could only barely hear him. "This can't be real."
Thomas looked over his shoulder, expecting to see the guards that had led them to the room—but there was nobody there, the door they’d entered through now closed. He heard someone—Frypan, from the sounds of it—let out a pleased comment, seemingly spoken around a mouthful of food.
Thomas looked back at the table, noticing that Frypan had been the first to trust the food—which wasn’t as surprising as it could have been.
Soon, everyone had followed in Frypan’s footsteps, and Thomas was trying not to eat too fast in fear of making himself sick. Newt was beside him, looking like he was trying to match Thomas’s pace—although, maybe a little faster than.
It made sense—Newt’s leg was probably still sore, and the boy’d gone three years without a proper, balanced meal. It made sense that he’d be a bit more appreciative of the food.
At the thought of Newt’s leg, Thomas found himself needing to ask.
"Hey, Newt," He mumbled inquisitively, swallowing a mouthful of food, then washing it down with a sip of water. For a moment, he forgot his question, distracted by the realization of how much he’d been missing out—clean, cold water was the bomb.
"Hm?" Came Newt’s voice, a soft hum of acknowledgment to prompt Thomas’s question.
Thomas snapped out of his fresh-water-induced reverie at the sound, blinking twice as he tried to remember what he was saying. "Uh… oh, right. How’s your leg?"
Newt shrugged, taking a bite of what appeared to be grilled chicken.
"It still aches," the blonde said between chews, his focus more on the food than anything else. "Probably will for a while. Not like I'll be running anytime soon, that's for sure."
Newt took a drink from a glass of juice before speaking again. "What about you? You look like hell."
Thomas couldn't help but laugh at Newt's blunt statement. "Gee, thanks for the compliment," he replied sarcastically. "Yeah, I'm sure I look like I just crawled out of a graveyard." In reality, he was feeling a mix of exhaustion, soreness, and just a general sense of dishevelment. His clothes were torn, his hair was a mess, and he was pretty sure there was still some blood smeared on his face.
He grimaced inwardly at the thought of whose blood it probably was. Oh, what he wouldn’t do for a hot shower.
Just as he thought it, something—was that a bread roll?—flew past his face and hit Minho on the cheek.
Thomas looked over, seeing Minho glaring at the source of the bread roll—Frypan, who looked back at him sheepishly, a guilty smile on his face.
"Hey, just testing your reflexes," Frypan said with a shrug.
Minho rolled his eyes. "I don't need any testing, Fry. My reflexes are fine."
"I don't know about that one," Newt piped up, a sly smirk on his face. "Seemed like you were a bit sluggish there."
Minho's glare shifted from Frypan to Newt, his expression turning even more irritated. "Oh, and I guess you would've dodged it, huh?" he retorted, a hint of mockery in his voice.
Newt just smiled slyly, shrugging nonchalantly. "Probably. I'm a lot more coordinated than you, after all," he teased. "Plus, I'm not the one who was caught off guard by a bread roll."
Thomas, wanting to be more than a bystander, picked up another roll and tossed it at Newt. It hit the blonde on the temple, bouncing off and leaving the boy slightly surprised.
"Now you are," Thomas snickered, grinning as Newt’s face turned red with indignation.
"Oi!" Newt exclaimed, rubbing the spot where the roll had hit him. Minho started laughing, clearly finding amusement in the situation.
Newt shot Thomas a look, but there was a hint of amusement in his eyes, too. "Oh, you're gonna get it now, Tommy."
Thomas grinned wider, feeling a surge of playfulness. "Bring it on, Newt," he challenged back, grabbing another roll and getting ready to throw it again. He saw from the corner of his eye that Frypan and Minho were both watching with amusement, and heard them egging the battle on with taunts and cheers.
Soon, the small bread-roll-battle-slash-playful-altercation turned into a full-on food fight, everyone chiming in with their own attacks—even Teresa, who’d been quiet up until then.
Thomas found himself laughing, genuinely having fun even as he got pelted by a plateful of peas. He retaliated by catapulting a spoonful of mashed potatoes at his pea-wielding foe, Erik, who let out a melodramatic sigh of defeat. He seemed like a nice kid.
Eventually, they ran out of food to assault each other with, and they settled down after reeling in their respective laughter.
They sat scattered around the room, basically anywhere they found themselves comfortable. Newt had claimed a sack of what seemed like flour as a seat, propping his bad leg up slightly. Thomas took a seat opposite the blonde, smiling softly in residual glee.
Minho was leaning back against a wall a few feet away from where Thomas sat, and his face was adorned with a rare smile—as if his earlier irritation had been long forgotten.
Frypan slumped down onto the floor, a satisfied sigh escaping him. "That was fun," he announced, a lazy grin on his face.
Thomas nodded in agreement, still coming down from the adrenaline high of their food fight. It was nice to just have a moment of silliness and fun after all the stress and trauma they'd been through.
Suddenly, the door—the one they’d entered through—opened, and a man came into view.
The man was average, in a lot of ways. Middle-aged, short salt-and-pepper hair, average height and build. The thing that stood out was his face—he looked like a rat turned human. Beady-slash-squinty eyes, sinister smile, thin lips stretched over buck teeth. When he spoke, even his voice sounded seedy and sly.
"Hello, everyone. Terribly sorry for all the commotion earlier. Had ourselves… somewhat of a wee little swarm."