Night Three

Newt kept his eyes firmly fixed on the rucksack in his hands, digging through the pockets perhaps more violently than necessary, fighting to keep his focus on anything but the pressure weighing heavy on his chest.

He recognised it as guilt, and decided immediately that he didn't like the feeling.

It was something he hadn't felt the sting of since that morning he climbed the maze wall, when it had tugged at the back of his mind, a futile reminder of what he was leaving behind. It had slammed into him again full force when his eyes cracked open days later, and saw a head of red hair asleep at his bedside.

Newt swallowed, clearing his throat, shoving the rucksack aside. Other than a few empty wrappers and a single sock caked in dirt, it was empty.

"This is pointless," Frypan groaned, tossing down a pair of pants that looked like they once belonged to a small child. "This is all just junk."

"I found these at least." Jack held up a bundle of what looked like soup tins, the logos so faded Newt could barely tell what they said. "There's like ten of them down here. Should we grab them all?"

"Yeah." Newt nodded and chucked him the rucksack. "Put them in there."

"You think this is all gonna be enough?" Frypan asked suddenly, and there was something tentative in his voice that had Newt looking up from where he was rummaging through a discarded pile of clothes.

His fingers caught on a soft material, and he glanced back down to see what it was.

There, tucked underneath a ripped raincoat and a large black puffer vest, was a jacket made of denim washed a greyish taupe colour. There were two large pockets on each breastplate, the silver buttons on them dull with age. The top tapered off into a large hood – it was made for a woman, and he instantly thought of Ada.

He clutched it to his chest, rising to his feet, shooting Frypan a confused glance. "The food? Probably not, but I'm sure there's more-"

"No," Frypan said awkwardly, and Newt had never seen him look so put out, so lost. "No, I mean... all this, is it gonna be enough for us to survive? I mean, we don't know how long we're going to be out there, or what's waiting for us, or-"

Newt suddenly regretted ever speaking up about his fears, for ever letting that leader's mask slip for even a second. For letting any ounce of his terror seep into the people around him.

He remembered, suddenly, why Ada and Alby didn't want to tell people that there was no way out when they had finished mapping the maze. He had been hurt by it, betrayed and broken, but the look on Frypan's face was a stark reminder of why it had been the right decision.

Alby wasn't there anymore, but Newt was. Ada was. And he wouldn't let her shoulder that burden alone anymore.

"We're gonna be alright, you hear me?" Newt asked, moving forward to squeeze Frypan's shoulder.

"How do you know that? You said it yourself-"

"I know what I said. I didn't mean it."

"That why you took Ada's head off for it?" Frypan raised an unamused eyebrow. "You snapping at her like that doesn't just happen, Newt."

That guilt was back.

Newt ran a hand through his hair, sighing. "Okay, you're right. This is dangerous, more than. We're stupid for doing it."

"Do you think we should have stayed?" Jack asked quietly.

Newt's throat was dry all of a sudden, the words getting lost there.

He didn't dare say out loud that he thought they never should have left the glade. Some dark, twisted part of him wished that Thomas had never found the way out, and that he could return to the grassy enclosure, surrounded by walls that kept them safe from Grievers and, more importantly, what waited for them in the outside world.

Some darker, far more desolate voice in his mind – one he hadn't listened to for more than a year – told him that perhaps it would have been better if he'd bled out at the base of that wall after all.

An echoing crash spared him from answering, the noise slamming down the hallway with so much force it made his ears ring.

Newt dropped the jacket, clamping his hands over his ears, gritting his teeth as he turned wild eyes on Jack and Frypan. They were both staring down the hallway incredulously, hands pressed tight over their ears.

"What the fuck was that?" Frypan asked when the sound died down, the tremble in his voice belying his unease.

"Nothing good," Jack said. He clutched the backpack to his chest as if it were a shield.

"Where did it come from?" Newt asked. Unease unfurled in his gut, sharp and unrelenting. "Did it-"

A sharp scream pierced the air like a bullet through glass.

Newt was running before he could stop himself, terror slicing at his heart, a piercing band of thorns in his chest.

"Ada?!" He yelled, but there was no response, and fear practically choked him as he barrelled out of the room and down the hallway towards where he knew she was.

He could hear her now, frantic cries and whimpers ricocheting down the walls and cutting him to shreds. Voices piled over each other, horrified and desperate, and any self preservation that had kept him quiet on their initial journey through the hall was gone as he ducked under the bars and sprinted to the back of the room.

Winston was on his knees, hands held up placatingly. They were shaking, Newt noticed with distant horror, and his voice was trembling just as badly as he murmured in a poor attempt at a soothing tone. "Shit – it's fine, Ada, alright? You're alright, you're fine, you're – oh god-"

Teresa was standing off to the side, looking as if she didn't know what to do with herself, and Aris was nowhere to be found. The distant sound of retching drifted over from the far corner of the room.

Newt skidded to a stop, falling to his knees beside Winston, his heart plummeting when he caught sight of the figure in the corner. Ada was pressed as far back against the wall as she could get, knees curled up to her chest. Her head was mashed against them, her hands clamped tight over her ears.

She wasn't breathing properly. Her entire body was shaking, her breaths coming in short pants, too loud in the cavernous space. Newt reached forward, fingers brushing her arm, when she did something she hadn't done in almost a year.

She flinched away from him.

"Ada?" He asked, fighting to keep his voice low. "Ada, love, what's wrong?"

The smell hit him then, violent and all encompassing, so sweet he could taste the rot on his tongue. Newt blanched, coughing, shoving a hand over his mouth as he tried to blink away the moisture gathering in his eyes.

"Where the bloody hell is that coming from?" He asked, voice muffled through his palm.

Winston, still crouched beside him, jerked his head to the right. Newt followed his stare, and his heart dropped immediately.

"Is that...?"

Winston nodded grimly, looking vaguely nauseated.

Newt tore his eyes away, willing the images of bloated flesh and motionless limbs out of his mind. "What happened?" He asked darkly.

"I don't know," Teresa said. "She came over and then we heard a crash, the shelf came down I think, and then she... she screamed. When we ran over she was on top of the body thrashing around in the blanket and crying. She kept..." Teresa trailed off, a haunted look in her dark eyes. "She kept looking at her hands and screaming."

The dots connected immediately.

"There are people around me, lying next to me. They're dead, that much is obvious, but there's something... wrong with them. The one next to me, he's familiar, so familiar, like I knew him, like he meant something to me. But I don't know what. He's looking at me and his eyes are white and they're not blinking, and his entire body is covered in sores and thick veins, black veins, and his skin is all bloated and rotten and-"

Those were the words she had spoken to him, sitting on the floor of the Council Hall, right before his world tilted on its axis and he knew what it was like to touch her, to hold her hands in his, feel the press of his skin against hers.

It was an intoxicating drug, one he hadn't dared to take for granted these past few months where touching was easy.

He forgot, sometimes, just how far she had come from the closed off and terrified girl he had sat in front of in the low sheen of torchlight. He knew instantly that one press of her skin against the bloated and rotten flesh of the corpse in the corner had set back any and all progress they had made.

"Oh God, Ada," Newt said quietly, lowering his hand from his mouth as he turned back to look at Ada.

Her breathing had gotten worse, if possible, and her hands had tightened in her hair, her white-knuckle grip fisting the strands so hard he was afraid she'd pull them right out of her head.

"What do we do?" Aris asked, appearing behind Newt, wiping his mouth.

"Everyone back up," he instructed, "give her some space." Newt shuffled forward, his hands raised, making sure to keep his voice as low as possible. "Ada, love, can you look at me?"

She didn't move.

"They're all pressed up against me, like we were thrown into the same space without a care in the world, and I can feel them touching me and their weight pinning me down and I can't move. And I know it's not real, that it's just a dream, or a distant memory, but every time someone so much as brushes against me all I can hear is myself screaming to get out, and I'm back there."

"Come on, darling, can you look at me please? Just lift your head. You're not back there, alright? You're here with us, remember? With me."

A pitiful groan tore out of her throat, desperate and terrified, and Newt felt it as sure as if she had driven a knife into his chest.

"Come on, Ads, look at me." He reached forward, the tips of his fingers ghosting up her arm. "Come on honey, eyes up."

It felt like an eternity before she listened, wide greenish blue eyes glistening with unshed tears as she raised them just enough to peer above her knees.

"There you go." Newt smiled, though he knew it was feeble and nowhere near as encouraging as it ought to have been.

There was movement behind him, and Newt spared a second to glance over his shoulder. "Oh my God," Winston gagged, shoving a hand over his mouth as he stood over the body. "How long has this thing been here?"

"That thing was a person once," Teresa snapped. "Just cover it up, quickly."

Winston obliged, using the blanket to cover every last exposed bit of flesh, his face an odd shade of green as he backed away from the corpse. He wiped his hands hastily on his trousers. "That was the most disgusting thing I have ever done, and I used to slice up pigs for a living."

Newt turned back to Ada, moving closer so that barely an inch separated their bodies. He was careful not to touch her as he sat down, bringing his legs up to mimic her position.

She looked up at him, but her eyes were hazy, as if she were looking straight through him. He hated it, wanted that defiant glimmer back that set his blood aflame.

"Come on," Frypan said, and there was shuffling behind him, and then it was just him and Ada.

"Ada," Newt murmured, lifting his hands up placatingly so that she could see his palms. She flinched at the moment, tearing away a slice of his heart. "Look at me, yeah? Okay, okay, that's it." Her eyes met his, and this time she was looking at him, not through him, and he let a small smile tug at his lips. "Hey, sweetheart."

She didn't smile back.

"Can you breathe for me, Ads?" He asked. "In and out, come on. That's it. There you go."

He lifted a hand, tentatively reaching out to brush his pinkie finger with hers. When she didn't move away, he tangled the digit with his, hooking their fingers together. "Can I move your hand?"

She allowed herself to nod, the action barely more than a disjointed jerk of her head, but Newt took it for what it was and slowly pulled her arm forwards by his grip on her finger. When it pressed against the front of his shirt, he soothed her hand open and pressed her palm against his chest.

The steady beat of his heart thrummed beneath her fingertips, and the gentle press of them against his dirtied white shirt made him smile despite the fear still simmering beneath his skin.

"Feel that?" He waited for her to nod. "You're not back there. You won't ever be back there. Focus on the feel of my heart, match your breathing to mine."

He forced himself to take slow, deep breaths, watching patiently as she slowly started to mimic him. Her shoulders slumped, her frame slowly growing more relaxed.

"There you go. You're doing so well."

Ada let out a shaky breath, lifting her free hand to press against her temple. Her fingers were shaking. It took a few minutes, but slowly her breathing slowed to match his, the rise and fall of her shoulders only slightly shaky.

"You okay?" He asked quietly, and Ada didn't look at him as she nodded, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on her knees. "Think you can stand up for me?"

"Yeah," she said, her voice quiet and croaky. He wished he had some water to give to her, but he had no idea where the others had stashed it. Slowly, with his hands on her elbows to keep her steady, Newt eased Ada onto her feet.

"You got it?"

She nodded jerkily, still not looking at him. Silence stretched between them, suddenly awkward and tense, and he felt the weight of their argument settling heavily in his stomach.

He should apologise, he felt the need to crawling up his throat, but he couldn't form the words. His mouth was dry, suddenly, and his hands were falling from her elbows before he could stop them.

"We should keep searching for supplies." She mumbled at the ground.

"Right." Newt nodded stiffly.

Ada gave the body a wide berth as she shuffled awkwardly to the other side of the room, hands tucked into her pockets – he knew it was to hide the fact that they were still shaking, and he stood there feeling like a damn fool because she deserved so much better than the silence he just gave her.

"That was hard to watch," Frypan whistled, coming up beside Newt and shaking his head. "I mean, really... yowch."

"You're not helping," Newt grumbled.

"Neither of you are helping," Winston said as he pointed to a pile of unsorted objects. "Would you two shanks come sort through this stuff before whatever heard Ada scream comes running?"

Newt coughed, nodding, and carefully manoeuvred around the body to pick up the discarded breakfast bars, tucking them into the backpack Frypan tossed him.

He moved silently to the water tanks, crouching down to rummage through their supply. His eyes flitted up every now and then, scanning the room for her, and he caught her once again beside Teresa staring at a pile of clothes.

A shriek cut through the air, and Newt was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, heart skipping a beat. The voice didn't belong to Ada – Teresa was staring wide eyed at what looked like a torn up mannequin, still vertical and right in front of her, lit up by the beam of her flashlight.

"You alright?" He asked.

"...I'm fine." Teresa turned away from the mannequin, towards where Ada was watching silently, and began to pick through the clothes. "Here," she said eventually, tugging an assortment of objects out of the pile. "We should change. We're covered in sand and you have blood all over you."

Newt's head snapped up, brow furrowed, and he mapped the blossoms of red spreading across the white of Ada's shirt. She must have torn her stitches, bled through her bandages. His chest tightened. "I can help bandage-"

"I've got it." Teresa shook her head, holding up the rolled fabric they had stolen from the facility, a grim smile on her face. She hustled Ada over to the corner, just behind a half wall, and Newt ducked his head when Ada began to shed her shirt.

A soft memory, tucked away in the recesses of his mind, tugged at his heart. A memory of her sat on the bed in the med hut, back and shoulders bare, sports bra held to her chest, of his shaking hands sewing torn skin back together.

Back when they weren't anything to each other, and each soft brush of his fingers against her skin had him dizzy with confusion and anger at himself for wanting her.

He looked away, throat burning, turning his eyes back to the empty canteens. "Fry, can you-"

Frypan was staring wide eyed at Ada's back, mouth open in disbelief. Newt reached across, eyebrows raised, and forcibly redirected his gaze.

When Frypan looked at him, Newt cocked his head to the side, lips pressed into a tight line, thoroughly unimpressed.

Frypan grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."

Newt scoffed, shaking his head. "Pack it in."

"She's very pretty."

"I'll hit you, Fry. I mean it, I will."

"Alright, alright." Frypan held his hands up in surrender, still grinning.

Footsteps crunched, and he looked up with a smile to see Ada walking towards them. His heart lurched in his chest at the sight of her. Gone were the soft grey sweatpants, replaced by a pair of snug black cargos with pockets lining the outsides.

She wore a pale grey tank top instead of the bloodied white shirt, a small threadbare hole in the bottom right hem the only sign of wear and tear. The torn white ends of a bandage peeked out through the straps, and her arms were bare, every freckle and scar on display.

She smiled down at them, though it was tight, strained in a way he wished it wasn't. "You guys ready to head out? We were thinking of heading out to find Minho and Thomas. They've been down there a while."

"Sure thing," Frypan said as he got to his feet, shrugging on the backpack now jammed full of supplies. "I'll go check on the others. You two stay here to, uh... fix the... yeah."

Ada raised an unimpressed eyebrow in his direction. "Couldn't come up with even one excuse? Shameful."

Frypan shrugged. "Not my turn with the braincell, I'm afraid."

"I don't think it's ever been your turn."

Frypan staggered backwards, hand on his chest. "Damn, Ada, why don't you just stab me with that scalpel of yours and finish the job?"

"Go on," Newt scoffed, waving him away. "We'll catch up in a second."

Frypan winked, hoisting the bag further up his shoulders before joining the others at the door, leaving Ada and Newt alone in the room. The silence that stretched between them was loaded, awkward.

He hated it.

"How are you feeling?" He asked after a moment, his voice seeming far too quiet in the suddenly cavernous space. The few feet between them seemed to stretch miles.

He took a moment to stare at her, taking in the tired purple smudges under her eyes and the freckles on her nose. Her eyes lacked that spark he was so enamoured with, and he desperately wanted to fix things between them just to bring it back when she looked at him.

"I've been better," she said quietly. Her hands were behind her back, holding something he couldn't see.

Floundering for an excuse to keep her there with him, for her to stay long enough to figure out how to even begin apologising, Newt crouched down and picked up the jacket he had found earlier. He held it out to her bashfully, his hand trembling. "I, uh... I thought you'd like this. It'll be useful out there."

Ada blinked down at it, a tiny furrow between her brows that he didn't know what to do with. Just as he was certain his heart would beat right out of his chest with mortification, she reached out to run her fingers over the material. "It's pretty."

"I thought it'd look good on you." Newt said without thinking. His cheeks flamed red. "I mean, uh-"

A slow smile spread on her face, and he felt like he had been punched in the stomach. "Thank you."

"You, uh, you're welcome." He coughed, feeling like the boy who had sheepishly handed her the gloves all those months ago. "Listen, Ada-"

"We should go."

Newt reached out, hand ghosting over her arm. "I'm sorry, love." He said quietly.

"I know." Ada nodded. She didn't offer anything else, not a smile or a joke or anything to ease the band growing tighter around his chest. She turned to leave, and everything in his body screamed at him to stop her.

He opened his mouth to do just that when the lights blinked on, bathing the world in harsh white.