Night One

"Ooh, I got top bunk!"

"Ha! Too slow."

Newt could hear shuffling behind him, then the sound of someone being hit followed by a cry of outrage, but he didn't turn away from the door, watching through the window until the last flash of copper had vanished from sight and he could no longer see Ada.

Everything about the situation felt wrong, and he hated it.

"Ohhh, I could get used to this," Winston said, and when Newt turned around it was to see him lying in a starfish position on the lower bunk of one of the many bunk beds, gangly limbs hanging off the end.

Of all the prisons he had been in, he supposed, this one was the nicest.

The rows of plush beds, complete with pillows and actual duvets, were a far cry from the glade's hammocks or the rough floor of the slammers that he had spent only one night in way back in the day, but both of those places had the one thing this didn't.

"She'll be okay," Minho said, his voice coming from somewhere above him, and Newt looked up to see him hanging upside down off the top bunk like a bat. "She's a strong girl. She'll be fine, I'm sure."

Newt would have been more inclined to believe him if his eyes weren't full of worry and his hands weren't fidgeting anxiously at his sides.

"Hey Newt," Frypan called, "come check this place out. Actual beds." He fell face first onto the lower bunk, face smushed into a pillow. "So soft."

"Yeah," Newt nodded, trying to push away the anxiety clinging to him like a shadow. "Yeah, it's not bad."

"Hey, what do you think those guys want with Teresa?" Thomas asked suddenly, voice low so that only Newt could hear.

He hesitated, not quite sure how to offer comfort on a situation so similar to the one that had him stressed out of his mind. He barely knew Teresa, could count his interactions with her on one hand, but it was clear that Thomas cared about her a great deal.

If she meant that much to Thomas, then he supposed he could at least try to be supportive of it.

"Now if there's one thing I know about that girl, it's that she can take care of herself." He offered Thomas a small smile, hoping it didn't come across as strained as it felt.

"Yeah," Thomas nodded, looking down at the floor for a moment.

It was hard, in these quiet seconds between the chaos, to reconcile the boy in front of him with the one that had come up in the box, shaking and terrified. That had been barely a week ago, when he and Ada were trading drinks and whispering around campfires, making bets and toeing the line between friends and something more, even though it felt as if a lifetime had passed.

The thought of her had his stomach twisting violently.

His unease must have shown on his face, because Thomas reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "The same goes for Ada, you know. I wouldn't have suggested she go with him if I didn't think she could handle trouble."

"It's not that," Newt shook his head.

He took a step backwards, lowering himself down onto the lower bunk behind him, sinking into the soft cushions.

"I know she can take care of herself, I'm not an idiot. And she's free to make her own choices, obviously, it's just that..." He ran a hand through his hair, not used to how soft it now was. "I don't like not knowing where she is, if she's okay. It seems that every time she's out of my sight recently she's getting hurt, or worse. It's the same feeling I used to get when she'd go into the maze every morning and I didn't know if she was going to make it back out again."

"But she always did."

"Yeah, except the one time she didn't."

Newt could recall every single swarm of fear, of terror, recall the way his heart damn near stopped in chest when those doors closed with her on the other side, and he was certain that she wasn't going to make it out breathing.

"You don't get it, Tommy. You've been a runner right from the start, you went straight into the maze and never looked back, which is great. Truly. But you haven't been on the other side of it. You were there that night, you knew everything that happened, but I wasn't. I had to watch as she was ripped away from me and I didn't know if I'd ever see her again." He looked up at his friend, jaw set in a grim line to fight off the sheen of moisture in his eyes. "I can't go through that again."

"You won't." Thomas promised.

"Yeah, well, seems like these bastards are determined to try." He was tired, so, so tired, and all he wanted was to sink down into the plush sheets and sleep his worries away.

But even after Thomas had left him, crawling into his own bunk, and the lights had blinked out so that the only illumination was the single flickering bulb above the sinks on the other side of the room, Newt found himself staring at the bottom of the bed above him.

He could hear Minho snoring, though the man would never admit it, and could hear Frypan mumbling something in his sleep. The sounds were a familiar lullaby, and if he closed his eyes Newt could almost pretend that he was home again, with the smell of grass and the remnants of dinner lazily lulling him to peace.

No, all there was now was the smell of stone and disinfectant.

It was strange that he found himself longing for the one place he had spent years trying to get out of.

Ada would know what to say, if she were here. Newt was sure of it. She wouldn't need to say anything, in fact – it seemed that recently all it took was one gentle smile and soothing squeeze of his fingers from her and he was floating as weightless as a lost balloon in the sky.

He pulled the duvet higher over his shoulders, trying to rid himself of the cold that had settled over him.

The bed felt too big, empty.

He closed his eyes, trying to conjure up the image of her, red hair loose around her shoulders, blue-green eyes shining, the freckles on her nose looking like a splattering of stars.

He had been so caught off guard when he had seen her in that medical suite, looking a world away from the stubborn girl he knew in the glade. He had never seen her without her runners harness or at least one weapon, always in the same green cargos and black or white tank top. On the rare moments he had been blessed with another side of her, he had been too ashamed to look, too lost in what he was feeling, refusing to accept the fact that he was falling head over heels in love with her.

In that moment, clean and safe and free, she had looked so soft, so innocent, everything she should be and would have been if WICKED hadn't fucked with their lives and cost them so much.

That rage was back again.

Newt turned so that he faced the wall, tracing the grey veins in the concrete with his eyes, trying to quell the bite of his emotions enough for sleep to claim him.

It didn't work.

—

Ada hadn't known what to expect when the door swung open and she was rudely shoved inside, but she supposed she should have been ready for the dozens of girls and rows of bunk beds that awaited her. The door slammed at her back, the click of the lock sealing her inside.

She didn't recognise many of the girls, apart from a few fleeting faces she had scanned at dinner, but supposed that these must have been the inhabitants from Leora and Wyn's mazes. She spotted the two girls almost instantly, sat side by side on the bed farthest from the door, chatting idly about something that she couldn't make out over the noise.

Two other girls sat with them, crowded around the bed on the floor. Everyone else seemed to be clumped in groups, spread out along the beds, some silent and staring into the distance, others speaking with their hands moving excitedly.

Discomfort welled up inside her, along with the unfamiliar feeling of not knowing what to do with herself.

She missed the glade with a stab of intensity that left her breathless.

"Ada!" It was Leora who had called her over, waving excitedly, and Ada gulped as she weaved her way through groups of people, trying her hardest not to step on any. Something told her it wouldn't be a great first impression to be breaking the fingers of her new bunkmates. "There you are, was worried for a second they'd keep you separate. There's another room with more girls, so we didn't know which one you'd be in."

How, exactly, is a person supposed to reply to that? Ada simply smiled awkwardly, feeling distinctly as if she were dealing with a whole new batch of greenies. Oh God, she thought, it's the other way around.

"You alright?" Wyn asked, harsh brown eyes studying her intently. Ada got the distinct impression that she wasn't trying to be rude, but there was a certain coldness to her that clung to her like a second skin.

She reminded her so much of Alby in that moment that Ada's heart lurched violently in her chest. Had that been who she had been to her maze? A teacher, a leader, someone who held together a world that crumbled around them for the sake of keeping those in it intact?

She missed Alby so fiercely then that she swore she could have died from it.

"Fine," Ada nodded, realising that Wyn had, in fact, asked her a question. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You worried about your friends?" Leora guessed, reaching out to take Ada's hand with a soothing smile.

She didn't flinch, the gloves a comforting barrier between their palms, but the feeling of her fingers against hers was strange and foreign. They were slender, dainty, so unlike the calloused ones that she held so dearly. She couldn't decide if she liked it or not.

"Don't worry, I'm sure they're fine. They don't like the boys and girls staying together. I'm not sure why."

Ada settled onto the bed, marvelling for a moment at the softness she was so unused to, tucking her knees up close to her chest protectively.

"It's stupid." Wyn's voice was so sharp that Ada was taken aback. "I spent every night the week he was there with Aris, and everything was fine. It's not fair that they're trying to keep us separate, not now."

"Now?" Ada asked curiously.

"They've taken everyone else," one of the other girls supplied kindly. Ada didn't know her name, nor did she ask, but she took in the girl's tanned complexion and wavy brown hair with mild interest.

It was strange, she thought distantly, seeing so many other women around her, having been in the exact same situation as her.

"Aris and Wyn are the only ones left from their maze."

"You're from Leora's maze, then?" Ada asked as she moved to fiddle with the gold chain around her neck. It was only then that she realised her hand was still linked with Leora's, and she shuffled her grip away as politely as she was able.

Trying to wrap her head around the fact that there were more mazes, that they weren't the only one, made her dizzy and exhausted.

"We all are," the girl nodded. "Everyone in this room."

Ada's stomach dropped as she looked around the other girls with amazement. "Holy shit," she said. "All of you made it out? How did so many of you survive?"

She thought about her own maze, about the meagre nine that had escaped with their lives out of the sixty something people that had made the glade their home, baffled that so many had lived out of the other mazes.

She tried not to be bitter about it, but the envy was hard to push down, not when she had buried so many of her friends, seen them die right in front of her.

"It was just a normal day, really," Leora shrugged, fiddling with a strand of blonde hair. "Three days ago, we were in the jungle like normal when these masked guys came in through the maze walls. No idea how they got past the Fangs, but they herded everyone into a group and got us out. We went through the maze, didn't encounter a single Fang. It was still scary, though," she shuddered, "I'd never been in the maze before that point. That was up to Nora and Vex, they're the ones that explored it."

She jerked her thumb at two girls sitting on one of the beds, wrapped up in eachothers arms, speaking in low voices she couldn't make out.

Ada blinked in disbelief. "They just... led you out."

"Yep."

Are you fucking kidding me?

Ada lifted a hand to her lips, curling her fingers around her jaw. "Mhm."

"They didn't do that for you?" One of the girls asked, bemused. She had short dark hair, piercing blue eyes, and she looked at Ada as if she were a science experiment she couldn't wait to dissect.

"No," Ada cleared her throat. "No, the masked dudes didn't come get us until we were already out, in the lab. There were fifteen of us, I think, but only nine made it out."

"Did the Fangs get your friends?" The girl closest to her asked, green eyes sympathetic, as if she carried the weight of loss herself and knew exactly what it was like. Perhaps she did.

"What exactly are these 'Fangs' things, because we didn't have those. We had Grievers."

"Grievers?" Leora asked, twisting her nose in disgust. "They sound awful. Were they half jaguar too?"

"Half jaguar?" Ada echoed incredulously. "Uh, no... they were these weird half scorpion half spider things."

The Grievers had been horrific, no doubt – they would haunt her nightmares for years to come, she was sure of it, and the memory of their fangs and legs piercing her skin would stay with her forever – but half jaguar? It was a miracle more of these girls hadn't been torn to shreds.

"Gross," Wyn turned her nose up. "We had Shades. Giant bat-like things that lived in the maze. We had to be real careful when skating, I'll tell you that."

Several alarm bells went off in Ada's head. "Hang on... skating?"

"Yeah." Wyn nodded, nonplussed, as if she were simply remarking on the weather. "Maze was made of ice. We had to skate it. Until the outer rings, that is. They were vertical, so we had to use ice picks to climb them."

Ada's hand dropped back to her lap. "What the fuck?" She was never going to complain about running the maze ever again.

"They came out during the day?" Leora asked, horrified. "That's nuts. The Fangs only came out during the night, and they never came into the hollow. The most we had to deal with were the spiders, but I suppose that's to be expected in a jungle."

Ada was pretty sure she would have passed away on the spot if spiders were something she had to get used to in her everyday life, but she kept that thought to herself.

"I heard the other maze was the same, you know." The black-haired girl leant forward. "The desert one, the one that was just boys. The Serpents, the giant snakes they had in the maze, they were out during the day too. Picked off a few of the travellers, apparently." Her icy stare turned to Ada, eager and excited in a way that she wasn't sure aptly fit the situation. "Did the Grievers come out during the day?"

"Not at first," Ada shook her head. "No, for two years they were only out at night, but the doors shut then. As long as you were in the glade you were safe. If you were unlucky enough to get stuck in the maze overnight, chances are you wouldn't make it back out again."

The memory of her own nights in the maze, of the cold and the shadows and the monsters that hunted them, had a violent shiver racing down her back.

"That changed the last week there, though, after Thomas came up. People were getting stung because the Grievers had started to come out in the day. They didn't come into the glade, though. Not until the massacre."

Her words were met with a violent silence.

"The what?"

She was saved from answering by the sound of a violent clang splitting the air, the sound of metal splitting so loud that Ada clamped her hands over her ears, heart hammering against her ribcage.

She turned quickly to where the noise had come from, wishing more than she had ever wished for anything that she had her dagger, and found that the grate on the wall had come loose and was now sitting in the middle of the walkway as if it had been blown from the wall.

Several girls shrieked and backed away, falling over each other and off of beds. A face appeared in the entrance to the vents, toothy and smiling and unfamiliar. "Hey guys!"

"Jesus fuck, Aris." Leora deflated, head sinking into her hands. The other girls in the room relaxed instantly, but Ada couldn't bring herself to do the same, watching in disbelief as a gangly boy, no older than her, wrestled his way out of the narrow space.

He was thin, almost too thin, and looked as if a solid breeze would whisk him away. The grey hoodie and sweats were loose on his frame, and his brown hair was ruffled as if he had run his hands through it half a dozen times.

"Did I scare you?" He asked innocently, slotting the grate back into place before dusting himself off.

"Yes, you stick." Wyn rolled her eyes, but Ada could hear the relief in her voice as Wyn reached out a hand, tugging Aris onto the bed beside her.

"I don't know why," he said. "I do this every night."

"And you create a racket like a thousand Fangs descending on the last sugar cookie." A nearby girl rolled her eyes, but there was little malice in the gesture. The other girls in the room continued talking as if nothing were amiss, and Ada pressed a hand over her heart, willing it to slow down lest it beat straight out of her chest.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," the boy, Aris, snorted. He stared at her with a wide smile.

"I think I'd be less startled if I did, actually."

The other girls didn't look frightened, and apparently this was a nightly occurrence. She knew the other boy, Aris, had been in Wyn's maze – she watched as Wyn linked her fingers with Aris', leaning her head against his shoulder. They reminded her of her and Minho, in a way.

There was a certain look about them of two soldiers who had emerged from battle, and all they had left were each other.

She knew the feeling all too well.

"I'm going again, tomorrow night." Aris said determinedly.

Wyn sighed in exasperation, turning her face into his shoulder as she rolled her eyes. "Damnit, Aris."

"I'm right about this," he said stubbornly. His voice was hushed, so that none of the girls outside their small circle could hear. "I know I am."

Ada felt like an intruder, and awkwardly shuffled in her seat. Her tailbone ached from being in the same position for so long.

"Aris, you have to stop this." Wyn said impatiently, brushing dark hair out of her eyes. "If people hear, we don't know what they'll do to you. We don't know enough about them to take that risk."

"Something is wrong about this place, Wyn." Aris mumbled, pressing his face into her hair. "C'mon, you know it. Trust me on this, yeah?"

"No," she shook her head. "Aris, these people saved us. They took us in, brought us out of the cold, who knows where we would have ended up if they hadn't. Without Sonya and Harriet, without Ximena-"

"I don't buy it. Something's off."

"Things don't always have to be a mystery. There doesn't always need to be a conspiracy or a villain in lurk. Sometimes things are just good, Aris. Don't you think we've earned that, at least?"

"How did you get through the vents?" Ada asked, not wanting to interrupt but feeling too awkward to simply sit there and listen. She dared a glance over at them, mind spinning. "You know your way around this place?"

"Yeah," Aris nodded, an easy and almost proud smile splitting his face. "Yeah, I memorised it on our first night here. I didn't like being separated from my friends." A flicker of pain passed over his face. She stored it away in her brain, greedy for any smidgeon of information she could get about these new people.

"They run all the way through the building?"

"Pretty stupid, if you ask me." He nodded. "But I'm not about to complain. Sure makes sneaking around a lot easier."

"You think you can get me to my friends?" Ada asked, the beginnings of a plan unfurling in her brain. "Show me exactly where to go?"

Aris tilted his head. "I can certainly try."

—

Ada had assumed that after two years running the maze, trapped in what essentially amounted to a giant box with no hope of an exit in sight, that she would be immune to claustrophobia. But as she awkwardly shuffled her way through the steel and aluminium, elbows bashing against metal and knees scraping against screws, she found that wasn't the case.

"Why is it so fucking small?" She wheezed out, rearing back to avoid Aris' boot as it nearly collided with her face. "You think they'd make these things bigger for the people who want to commit nefarious shenanigans."

Aris snorted. "Oh is that what we're doing?"

"I always am." She reached down to unhook her t-shirt from where it had gotten caught, praying that it hadn't torn in the struggle.

She doubted the people who ran this place would take kindly to her asking for a third one after only being there for one day. It was a miracle she hadn't run out of clothes in the glade, at the rate she seemed to find herself doing things she shouldn't.

"Not that crawling through a vent ranks in the top ten. This would be tame, almost, if it weren't for the bruised elbows and even more bruised pride, would you watch your feet? You're going to bash my nose in, and I've spent enough time getting bandaged up recently, thanks."

"Do you always talk this much?"

"When I'm nervous? Apparently so." Ada squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to think about how little room there was between her and, well, everything. "Are we almost there?"

"It's just up ahead." Aris said, voice echoing in the cramped space. They had been moving for at least ten minutes, stopping at the sounds of voices below, making little noise apart from Ada's muffled curses and Aris' amused admonishments. "You remember the way back, right?"

"Don't you?"

"Of course I do. You're the one who's gonna be coming back alone in the morning."

Ada blinked, stomach dropping. "Right. It's fine, it's fine I got it. Just a quick army crawl through hell, nothing to worry about."

She had fought off Griever's, for God's sake, had survived a night in the maze twice and walked away from it. She could handle a tiny vent system. Oh God, so tiny. Between the needles and the vents, this 'sanctuary' was turning into a living nightmare.

"We're here." Aris squeezed himself out of the narrow space and into a wider, taller pocket, right in front of two other systems.

They were larger than the one she had squeezed herself through by a considerable amount, and she wouldn't have to do anything more than crouch to pass through it. She thanked whatever deity was listening as she dragged herself out beside him. He pointed at the tunnel directly ahead, where she could just make out another hatch looming in the dark. She couldn't see anything through it, just blackness that had her dizzy simply looking at it.

"You want me to go through there?"

"That's where your friends are." Aris nodded.

"Why is their tunnel bigger than mine?"

"They all are." He shrugged. He gestured to the one behind him. "This one leads to the rest of the compound. It's just the dorms on your side that the small vent goes to."

These bastards were determined to annoy her at every turn, it seemed. "Right. 'Course they are."

"You got it from here?"

"Sure thing," she nodded. She shuffled her way awkwardly towards the grate, shooting Aris a small smile over her shoulder. "Thanks, Aris."

"Anytime." He returned her grin with a small wave, scooching towards the exit. "Nice meeting you." He was gone before she could say anything else.

It occurred to her, only then, just how late it probably was. The gladers were likely sleeping, tucked away in warm beds, resting after a gruelling fight and a sleepless night.

It was hard to believe that the massacre had been only the night before, that it was only that afternoon that they had broken free of the maze and the prison it was. It felt like so much had happened since then.

She should have felt guilty, that she was possibly interrupting a peaceful night's sleep after so many nights had been spent pained and tortured.

She didn't, and she kicked the grate free with little remorse.

The sound echoed like a gunshot in the air, and she heard several panicked screams come from the room beyond.

Please have the right room, she begged as she shoved her head through the gap, please have the right room.

There was Frypan, hiding behind his pillow, and Winston with his shoe raised in the air as a weapon. Jack had somehow lifted his mattress and was using it as a barricade. There was a thud, as if someone had fallen from their bunk, and she heard an all too familiar "ouch." Minho slowly got to his feet, rubbing his ass, eyes wide and hair mussed.

"Hey guys." She grinned innocently.

"Ada," Minho grumbled, "what the actual fuck?"

"Did I wake you?"

Frypan pressed a hand against his chest, face grey. "I think I'm having a heart attack."

Ada snickered, pulling the rest of her body through the vent, brushing the dust off her shoulders and knees as she straightened up. The cramped space had made her back ache fiercely, and every sore muscle was stiff and uncomfortable.

She longed for a bed, preferably one that was already taken by the blonde boy that was grinning at her from below where Minho had fallen.

"Where'd you learn that trick?" Newt asked as he made his way over to her. The relief in his eyes had her stomach swooping, and those damn dimples were back as he pressed a smiling kiss against her forehead.

The unease that had twisted her insides all evening dissipated almost immediately.

"I'm a woman of many talents," she shrugged. Thomas scoffed, and when she turned to him she grinned at the water that clung to his face and hair, soaking his neckline. "Didn't you already shower today?"

"You scared the hell out of me."

"Now would I do that?"

Thomas's eyes grew serious, and he looked behind her at the grate nervously, as if he were expecting someone else to appear. "Where's Teresa?"

Ada's own happy mood soured a little. "I don't know," she said quietly. "She wasn't in the room." When she spotted the worried look on Thomas's face, Ada smiled at him encouragingly. "Don't worry, Thomas. Leora mentioned that there was another room with just girls, she's probably in there. She'll be at breakfast tomorrow anyway, you'll see her then."

"Yeah," Thomas nodded, but he didn't look placated. Worry creased his brow. "Yeah, I guess."

Winston sank back against his pillow, pulling the duvet up and over his face. "Ada, do you have any idea how late it is?"

"No," she shook her head. "And neither do you. There aren't any clocks in here."

He grumbled something she couldn't hear, tossing his shoe in her general direction. It missed, and thudded against Newt's shin. "Let me sleep."

"You sure know how to make a girl feel welcome." Ada followed Newt back over to his bunk, allowing herself to take in the room for the first time.

The only light came from the one that flickered feebly over the sinks, opposite the cubicles in the far corner of the room. The place looked identical to the one she had just left – stone walls, stone floor, bunk beds, steel door locked tight – just considerably emptier.

In fact, only the six boys occupied the space. The rest of the beds remained empty, waiting like ghosts.

"If I were more awake," Frypan grumbled, "I'd do something drastic."

"Like what, smother me with your pillow?"

"I'd at least think about it."

Frypan didn't have a mean bone in his body, and they both knew it.

She shot him a teasing smile, looking away as they settled back into their bunks, turning their faces towards the wall. "I feel bad," she whispered to Newt, trying to keep her voice down so that they could at least try to get back to sleep.

"Don't", he snickered. "That was the funniest thing I've seen in ages."

"Speak for yourself," Minho grumbled as he made his way back up the ladder, peering down at them with narrowed eyes. His hair was in several stages of disarray, and Ada pursed her lips to hide her smile. "My poor ass is gonna be bruised for weeks."

"You'll live." Newt rolled his eyes.

Ada toed her shoes off and crawled onto the mattress at the foot of the bed, sighing at the plush material as it shifted under her weight. The hammocks in the glade were nowhere near this comfortable, and she wasn't even lying down yet.

She looked up at Newt, surprised to see him hovering at the edge of the bed, shifting his weight back and forth as if he didn't know what to do with himself.

"You can have the bed," he smiled softly. "I'll go nab one of the other bunks. Might piss off Tommy and take the one right under him."

"Oh," Ada frowned, trying to bite back the disappointment that was rising hard and fast inside her. "I, uh, actually I was hoping that..." her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. Why the hell was she so anxious all of a sudden?

This was Newt, for God's sake, Newt who she never had to be anxious with.

"You don't have to move. I can take a different bed. I just didn't..." she trailed off.

Newt's eyes softened as he moved forward slightly, slowly, as if giving her the chance to reconsider. He lowered himself down until he was sat cross legged opposite her, and she caught the wince that he tried to bite back.

She shifted so that her back was pressed against the wall, giving him room to fully extend his bad leg. He smiled at her gratefully, the soft material of his sweatpants brushing against her hands as he adjusted.

"I didn't want to be alone either." His voice was quiet, his eyes soft and vulnerable as they took her in. He lifted his hand, letting his slender fingers run through the copper curls that fell over her shoulder. A small smile toyed with the corners of his lips. "Will you, uh..." his throat bobbed. "Will you stay? With me?"

"I'll stay." Ada nodded.

"Oh my God," Minho groaned from above them. Ada looked up right as the mattress shifted and Minho's head appeared over the edge, glaring at them. "Just when I thought I'd gotten a break from you two being all gross and adorable. I thought it was bad when he was being a broody shank, but no, this is so much worse."

"Might I remind you that you encouraged this?" Ada asked, hoping that the dark of the room would hide her blush.

"Yeah, you ungrateful slinthead." Newt nodded. "What was it you said to me? That I needed to 'grow a pair' and 'ask her out'?"

"I didn't think you'd actually do it." Minho said sulkily. "Now shut the hell up, and let me sleep."

Just as his face was starting to grow an alarming shade of red from being upside down for too long, he vanished from sight, and the mattress squeaked as he settled himself above them.

"He's in a delightful mood," Ada murmured, crawling up the bed to sit beside Newt, trying to ignore the way the boy's eyes widened as she did so.

"No one messes with Minho's sleep and gets away with it."

"Shall I be expecting revenge, then?"

"Most definitely." He nodded gravely, and the wicked glint in his eye took her breath away.

"I'll have to hide behind Leora all day, then. He seems to be reduced to a blushing mess whenever she's around." She thought back to the first conversation she had ever had with Minho, back when he had first come up in the box and had sought her out later that night, trying to win her over with his charm and witty comments. "All that charisma reduced to ashes."

"He's not that charismatic." Newt grumbled.

Newt had been acting strangely that night, she could recall, all brooding intensity and disapproving stares. Ada smiled as she shook her head, tugging at the duvet.

Newt got the message immediately, lifting himself so that she could free the cover, allowing her to slide into the warmth and shelter it provided. She hummed contently as the plush fabric enveloped her, and settled her head on the pillow.

The wall was cold against her back, but she didn't complain as she pushed herself close to it, encouraging Newt to settle in as well.

He hesitated only a moment before complying, and when they had stopped shuffling and were facing each other, heads resting on the pillow, her nose brushing his, Ada felt the closest to peace that she could remember feeling since they had left the glade.

She couldn't see much of him in the dark, not with his face turned away from the light and the bulk of his shoulders blocking the glow of the lamps, but she had committed his features to memory long ago. Every crease between his eyebrows, every small cut and scar that lingered on his skin – she lifted her fingers, brushing them over the gash under his eye, over the line of his cheek, the cut of his jaw.

"I'm glad you're here." His words were nothing more than a tentative whisper as he let her touch him. She ran her hand through the soft strands of hair that stuck up in every direction, keeping her touch soft, barely more than a brush of her fingers. "I was worried, when they split us up."

"I know," she said just as quietly.

"I don't like being away from you." Newt tilted his head forward, his nose brushing against hers. "It's selfish, I know it is, but I need you. It doesn't feel right when you're not next to me."

She knew exactly what he meant. "So that's where I'll stay," she nodded. "I feel the same way, you know. What you said, in the glade, about me being your home... it goes both ways. You keep me grounded when everything seems to be uprooting around me. After everything that happened, after Gally and Avin and... Alby. I need you."

The red shoelace around his wrist brushed against her neck as he cupped her jaw, thumb smoothing over the skin. He pressed his lips to the bridge of her nose, eyes slipping shut, as if he were savouring the words, tucking them close to his heart.

It was all so new, whatever this was between them. They may have been tumbling helplessly towards each other from the moment he came up in the box, with every harsh word and argument turned to longing gazes and whispered promises against skin, but to be able to touch him and stay there, to say what she had tucked away in her heart without fear of him turning her away... it was all so new, so precious, and she didn't quite know how to navigate it.

When they were in the glade, not knowing if they were going to live to see the next sunrise, each touch had been greedy and desperate and unreserved. It was allowed to be, shadowed by the fear that things would come crashing down around them as the clock drew closer to nightfall.

Now, when they were safe, free, each touch was longing, searching, in a way that it never had been before.

She revelled in it.

Newt pressed his forehead against hers, looping one arm tentatively around her waist, drawing her closer so that her chest was flush with his. His breaths were evening out slowly, tiredness taking its toll, and Ada let herself bask in the warmth of him, in the safety that she felt tucked between him and the wall. She couldn't stop the smile that spread over her face as she shuffled and tucked her face into his neck, closing her eyes at last, taking in that distinct smell of soil, citrus and soap.

She would have to leave soon, when dawn crept over the hill and woke the members of the fortress. When the guards would come knocking and drag them to the mess hall. When their lives would rudely puncture the bubble they had created right there in that bed.

Tomorrow, she thought, allowing herself to drift off. It was a problem for tomorrow.