I opened the door to the homestead. About thirty pairs of eyes fell on me. I froze. My hair was a tangled mess, my cheeks were burning with anger and embarrassment, and my clothes were dirty from lying on the ground after I'd passed out. Victoria had done all she could to help me, or so she says. She basically sat me up against a tree and fanned me with a leaf for a few minutes, hoping I'd eventually come to. But then she left me all alone. Literally left me passed out: alone. I love my friends. Yet, I guess, I'd rather her help Newt than me.

I took a slow step through the door. Everyone was silent, and the floorboards creaked obnoxiously. I cringed, but kept walking. As I walked, people moved out of my way. The looks thrown at me varied from pitiful to vacant, some were even crying. But I didn't look long enough to decipher who was weeping. I didn't want to.

I grabbed onto the railing of the staircase, planning to go upstairs, but someone blocked my way.

"Move, Gally," I mumbled, not even looking up.

"No can do," He answered in his usual sarcastic tone.

"I'm not playing around: move or I'll stab you. I'm not in the mood," My voice was scratchy and dull. A perfect depiction of my mood.

"I was given specific orders, not to let you up there."

"Newt is up there and I need to see him."

"But you can't."

"Why not?!" I yelled, stomping my foot.

"Because Nick doesn't want you up there. It's not your place-"

"I'm a medjack! If Nick doesn't want me up there, then let the medjack through."

"I can't- Look, you don't want to be up there?"

"Why not?! I need to see Newt!" I pushed against Gally, trying to move him out of the way, "I can save him! I'm a medjack, he needs me."

"Wait- nobody's told you?" Gally's voice lowered to a whisper, all of the previous sarcasm gone. A grave look came over his face, "I'm so sorry."

"What?" I looked around at the teens in the room, "What the heck is going on? Somebody please explain," My voice cracked, but nobody answered.

"I don't think Newt needs Medjack's. He needs the Baggers."

I almost choked, "Let me up there, right now." I ducked underneath his arm.

"Fine, but don't blame me for any of this."

And with that I ascended up the staircase, even dizzier than I was before.

Newt was dead.

Newt was dead.

Newt was dead. I repeated that sentence over and over again, until I was numb and the words had no weight to them.

I quietly stepped into the hallway, careful not to make a sound. I held onto the walls beside me for balance. Voices echoed from one of the rooms.

"There's nothing we can do," I heard Victoria mutter, a sniffle followed this. God, tell me she isn't crying.

"So you're done?" I recognized this voice to be Alby's.

"We've done everything we can," Jeff answered. Gally wasn't lying. Newt had truly died.

"He's too far gone?" I think Nick asked.

Victoria mumbled next, but the words were lost in her sobs. The only thing I heard was something about being 'too late.'

"It's okay, Tori," Jeff soothed, "But he truly is out, Nick."

"I don't understand," Someone whispered, "This absolutely sucks."

"What happened to him?" I heard Victoria cry.

"We don't know," Alby whispered, "Found him lying on the ground, out cold, barely breathing. A bloody mess- and I mean that quite literally."

"You think he got attacked by something?" Clint asked.

"I bet it was a buggin' griever! He seemed close to the wall, so maybe he climbed trying to escape it- I don't know," Alby answered, clearly frustrated at the fact that he didn't know what happened.

"This is awful." I heard Jeff cry.

"Does Brianne know?" Someone asked. I leaned closer to the door. My ear pressed against it. Through the sliver of space between the open door and the doorframe, I could see Jeff and Victoria, arms wrapped around each other, and a serious looking Alby standing next to them.

"She knows something happened. She doesn't know what though," Victoria spoke, her face wet with tears.

"Someone has to tell her," I think this was Minho speaking. I hadn't even known he was in the room until then, "It's only a matter of time before she wakes up."

That was it; I'd heard enough.

I kept walking until I reached the medjacks room. The door was twisted shut. I leaned against it, listening for any noises. Once hearing nothing, I turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open.

I didn't know what to expect. To see Newt's lifeless body covered by a cloth, showing once and for all that he was dead? Or if I half expected him to be standing at the window, ready to admit that this was all some practical joke he played on me?

But neither was confirmed as I slid into the room, closing the door silently behind me. Newt lied on the cot motionless. He wasn't covered like I expected a dead person to be, but he wasn't writhing in pain alive either.

I took a few shaky steps forward, my head tilting to the side, as I stared at him. A couple cuts above his eyebrow were dripping blood down his face. A cut on his lip had caused swelling. His body was exposed from the waist up. His chest bruised and cut up. And he looked awful but I didn't know if he was dead.

Newt's eyes were peacefully closed and his lips were slightly parted. This was a good sign right? It scared me how peaceful he seemed. Was this what death looked like? I guess, Newt got what he wanted then: peace.

I came up closer to the bed, staring at Newt. He wasn't breathing. Or at least his chest wasn't rising up and down.

How could I not tell?

Am I dreaming?

Why can't I see if he's dead or not?

I brought my shaking fingers up to his nose, just as a final check. To come to a final verdict.

My fingers were met with nothing. No puff of air. Newt wasn't breathing.

I inhaled sharply, moving my hands down to his neck, to feel for a pulse. This couldn't be happening. I can't let this happen. Newt couldn't be dead.

I can do something. I can save him.

I placed my pointer and middle fingers on his neck, with only slight pressure. My fingers felt the soft and slow thump of blood under his skin.

I almost fainted, my vision spotted with black dots.

So Newt was alive? Newt hadn't died! Everything was okay.

But why was everyone in the other room so upset?

Wait, why is Newt's heart beating, but he isn't breathing? I laid my head on his chest, not caring if I got blood or dirt on me. His chest didn't move at first, but then very slowly I felt his chest expand under my weight. He was breathing, but not very quickly. I think in my haste, I hadn't kept my fingers under his nose long enough. Stupid rookie Medjack mistake.

He was 'out.' That's what Jeff meant: Newt must be in a coma of sorts, like I was when I first came to the Glade. His body was probably still in shock.

I've never in my whole life been so relieved. Newt was going to be okay. He didn't kill himself, although he might have tried.

How did he do this to himself, that was the question.

I didn't want to think about all of things he could have done, but I couldn't help it.

I looked at his neck, finding no distinct and obvious bruising; he couldn't have hung himself. I turned his wrists over in my hands, checking for cuts; but found nothing and was quite relieved to not even see any scarring. What did he do to himself? My heart ached at the thoughts.

But I couldn't help but be slightly happy. At least Newt was here in front of me, breathing, and not out in the maze, surely to be dead by morning. It was just the aftermath of this day that I was worried about. How would things ever return to normal? Would Newt admit to what he did, or would he keep it away and well hidden from everyone, including me? I hoped this would change things; that he would become more open with me. And understand that I really am here for him.

"Brianne?" I heard the door to the Medjack room open, "I didn't know you were up here." It was Minho, I saw as I turned around. But it wasn't just him, it was everyone else who'd been in that other room too.

"You weren't supposed to be allowed to see him," Nick said, shocked at my presence, "How'd you-"

"How long did you hope to keep me away?" I asked defensively, not leaving Newt's sleeping side.

"We were waiting for you to wake up. We just didn't want you to be up here until we knew his condition," Alby answered, putting his hand out.

"It's not a secret-" Victoria started, coming closer to me.

"Don't," I responded harshly, motioning for her not to come closer, "What do you mean his condition? Isn't he fine?"

"I don't know. He hasn't stirred or even had a change in his heartbeat or intake of breath. He's stuck in a coma, right now," Jeff replied, in a soft voice.

"What does that mean?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"He might not wake up," Nick said harshly, but quickly added, "Only time will tell," in a much nicer tone.

I remained silent, not even moving.

"We know that this is shocking and hard to hear, especially seeing how close you and Newt are-" Jeff started.

"I don't want to hear your pity."

"I understand you're angry, but we aren't hiding anything from you," Victoria said, taking a small step forward.

"I want to be alone," I mumbled, turning away from the crowd at the door.

"What?"

"I want to be alone," I repeated.

"Okay, there's an empty room next door-" Nick offered.

"No, I want to be alone with Newt."

"Oh, we can't do that-"

"Why not?"

"Because we need to check on him," Clint said.

"I'm a Medjack, let me take care of him. I can do it," Everyone gave me skeptical looks, "I'm okay. Let me do my job. This has nothing to do with Newt and I. It's my shift anyway."

Alby and Nick exchanged looks, "Fine, everyone needs to sleep anyway. Victoria, bring the news to everyone who's waiting downstairs and tell them that it's time to go to bed. The rest of you can go too."

All of the gladers in the room slowly left, but Nick grabbed Jeff's arm, "Check up on her every couple hours."

Jeff nodded as he left the room with Nick. Only Alby remained. I gave him an expectant look. Why was he still here? But when I looked at him again, I realized that he wasn't even acknowledging my glare: he was staring at Newt, a deep and pensive look on his face. I'd never seen Alby this upset.

"You okay?" My voice barely whispered.

"-Almost thought we'd lost him today," Alby mumbled, wiping away a tear, "I'm sorry, I'm gonna get going now." And without another word, Alby left the room and closed the door behind him.

I waited until the noises and voices dulled downstairs, finally silence consumed the glade, along with absolute darkness. I was scared that if I moved too quickly or too suddenly my whole world would shatter. I lit a couple candles, not wanting to make the room too bright.

Now what?

I guess, I should sit. Relax a little.

So I dragged a chair across the small room; It's legs scraping loudly against the wooden floor.

I should be quieter.

I plopped down into the chair. My hand reached out to pull the thin white blanket up a little farther. Just far enough so that Newt's chest was fully covered. I pulled my arm back quickly, hoping not to wake him. This was stupid of me; Newt wasn't waking up anytime soon. But unfortunately, my elbow bumped into the back of my chair, making a small thump.

I should be more careful.

My eyes stayed focused on Newt. He seemed to shift under my gaze, even in his sleep. Or maybe that was just my imagination? Either way, he shuddered, a piece of hair falling onto his forehead. My hand stretched out again, fingers caressing the strand out of the way.

It was cold and dark and gloomy: that night. But I refused to go get a blanket. I didn't want to leave Newt alone for fear that something would happen in my absence. So, I sat shivering, eyes never straying from the hurt blonde lying in front of me.

That was it.

That was what the next five or so hours consisted of.

Newt's chest still rose up and down slowly. And he'd still yet to open his eyes. He'd tossed and turned for a couple hours, but other than that he's been trapped in this odd state of peace.

This was it.

I wanted to scream, cry, jump around. I wanted to leave. I wanted to run. I wanted to shake Newt until he woke up. I wanted to ask him questions. I wanted to get answers. I wanted to just know why.

Why?

I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes.

Exhaustion was biting away at me, desperately trying to pull me under, but I had to stay awake.

I had to.

~~~~~

~~~Third Person Pov~~~

"What the heck is this, Janson?!" Karen yelled, holding up a piece of paper, "Why did our lab get billed $40,000 last night?"

"Wait, what the heck are you talking about?" Janson spun around in his chair.

"I was woken up in the middle of the night to this notice from the chemical-factoring lab, thanking me for doing business with them," Karen lowered her eyebrows, "Why were we doing business with them?"

"I have no idea what you're saying. Give me the paper," Janson took the paper from her, and quickly read over it.

"Do you see now?" Karen tapped her foot impatiently.

"Nope."

"I didn't understand at first either, so I made some calls to the lab. They informed me that a chemical compound was being force fed into one of my subjects. A depressive mixture," Karen paused for a second, "And so I thought, 'Who would be under the influence of something like that?' But it was obvious. You're still controlling Newt."

"You're making no sense? Why would I buy emotions?" Janson shook his head at Karens ideas.

"I don't know. But you did! You promised not to control our subjects anymore and you still did! You lied, Janson, you said that all of the control would stop and now look! WICKED and the Chancellor are going to discover the changes. And we're going to be fired! Why would you control Newt! You promised to stop," Karen's bottom lip trembled and she couldn't help the knot that had formed in her stomach.

"I didn't-"

"But you did! You did this! You planned the suicide attempt! How could you do that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Janson answered quietly. He knew what she was talking about.

"You fed those feelings to Newt yesterday. He wouldn't have committed if you hadn't sparked those thoughts. The lab told me! I knew Newt didn't want to die. I knew it wasn't that serious- You made it that serious! You had the lab mix up a chemical emotion and then electronically placed it in him. You told him to commit suicide."

Janson leaned back in his chair, not feeling like arguing anymore, "I was just fixing my mistake."

"Oh, so that's why you ultimately decided to help him? That was why you sent in Brianne, wasn't it? So you didn't have to do anything anymore?"

"I-"

"You can't deal with it, can you?"

"Can't deal with what?"

"The guilt," Karen shook her head, utterly disappointed.

Janson didn't speak. He just sat there reminiscing in his own thoughts. Wanting nothing more than to drown his sorrows in a bottle.

"It's too much for you to watch. So Brianne. You used her to cover your guilt. Look at the misery," Karen pointed to the subject on the screen. She was crying, "You caused that. Why? So you could blame someone else for your mistakes. If you didn't want to deal with Newt, then she would, right? You spent hours and hours trying to reverse what you caused."

"I didn't give Newt depression- I don't even know how to do that," Janson defended.

"You're right, you didn't give that to him. But you gave him suicidal thoughts," Karen stopped for a second, "No denying?"

"I didn't give him any emotions that weren't his own. I don't know how to make a concoction like that."

"But the lab does. What do you say about that?"

"I have nothing to say on that matter."

"Because I'm correct. You got tired of watching Newt mope around sick of life. You couldn't watch him go through the pain. So you risked my job to bring an emergency subject into the maze, to fix him. But that didn't work, did it? Or could it have?"

"It didn't work, obviously."

"It could have though. It was working, until you felt guilty and wanted to erase your mistakes. So you looked to the lab. Asked them to make Newt kill himself," Karen had tears in her eyes as she finally realized the undercover motives of her coworker.

"I didn't-" Janson's voice cracked, but he covered the falter in speech with a cough.

"But then thankfully I swooped in and saved the day, by wanting to stop Newt from hurting himself. And I was so worried about controlling him because I didn't want to cause a flux in the money we spend, but here you are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on suicidal thoughts. I can't believe it! This is your fault. You're the reason WICKED's discovering the extra subject! You're the reason we're going to be fired! This is all your fault. You're just a guilt ridden father who wanted to erase his child from existence!" Karen finished her rant with Janson's best kept secret.

"You- How- I- I never," Janson stuttered, completely breaking down.

"I figured it out myself," Karen cried, pointing at the maze screens, "Now fix your mistake!"

"What- How!?"

"You know how," Karen stated.

"But I don't," Janson barely got out, still shaken.

"Cut Brianne off. Drop her controls."

"I never meant for Newt to actually kill himself at first. I just didn't want to see him in pain anymore. I thought Brianne would fix it."

"But you really didn't trust Brianne, did you? You killed Newt and now you need to stop this."

"I didn't kill him. You snapped me to my senses just in time-"

"If you don't permanently drop our control over Brianne then we will be fired by the end of the month."

Janson thought over it, and rather quickly, entered a password on his computer to enter Brianne's files, "What if we need to control her again?"

"Oh well," Karen spoke, over Janson's shoulder.

"This will literally make her uncontrollable! Are you even thinking about the future? So many things could go wrong."

"I don't care. Drop her from our system. You'll just have to deal with the aftermath."

"What about the scorch? We may need to control her! If I do this, she'll basically become a loose canon in our system."

"Do it."

With that, Janson clicked the deactivate button, and all of WICKED's control over Brianne dropped, never to work again.

"It's done," Janson exhaled deeply, "What's going to happen now? Will Brianne and Newt's relationship end?"

"I don't know," Karen answered shortly, still furious at Janson, "We should probably go check on Brianne. We've never disconnected a subject before."

"Yah, you're right. I'll send in a camera," Janson was now on his best behavior, hoping Karen would forget that he had his child in the maze experiment.

"Good that," Karen nodded, knowing that Janson was trying to stray as far away from the topic of Newt, in hopes that she'd move on. But she couldn't move on. Janson tried to kill his own son. Stuff like that isn't easy to forget.

The holographic protector crackled until it finally showed a crystal clear picture of the girl sitting in a chair at the side of the bed that Subject A-5 lied sleeping. Nothing was unusual about the situation. It was dark in the room, other than the couple of candles that Brianne must have lit, before she fell asleep. Or at least she seemed to be asleep.

"Nothing happened?" Karen asked forgetting her anger, "She isn't going to change. How could she not have felt anything when we disconnected her?"

"I don't know. We'll have to wait until she wakes up to know for sure," Janson mumbled, sitting on the edge of his seat.

"What if she wakes up and doesn't even remember Newt's name? What if she hates him?"

"It'll all have been for nothing."

"I think- wait she just moved!" The two focused their attention on the projection, both forgetting their previous problems.

The dark haired girl sat up quickly, seeming to drift in and out of sleep. The camera zoomed in to get a closer look.

A tear rolled down her cheek, as she put her hand on Newt's arm, "I'm so sorry," She barely whispered.

"So she remembers him!" Karen shouted, excitedly.

Newts hands clenched and unclenched, his eyes moving swiftly back and forth behind his eyelids.

"He's dreaming?"

"Record it!" Karen commanded, and Janson pressed a couple buttons.

"I-" Brianne's words were cut off, as if she forgot what she was going to say. She shook her head slowly, trying to remember.

"Oh no, she's forgetting!"

"I'm afraid she can't say things of emotion," Janson muttered sadly.

"What am I doing?" The girl sighed, running her hands over her face. She pulled her arm away from Newt and laid her head down on the edge of the bed, arms underneath her for support. She remained motionless. Asleep.

"It's over, she doesn't remember," Karen cried, shaking.

"She doesn't love him," Janson huffed more to himself than out loud. He turned around in his chair, not willing himself to watch anymore.

"But I guess, I shouldn't be surprised. It was all just one big game of house anyway, I shouldn't be sad either, I will see you tomorrow, Janson," Karen said, beginning to walk away.

But Brianne spoke again surprising both lab workers, "I don't know what happened to you out there, but," She sighed her voice so soft it was almost unheard, "I love you."

Janson spun in his chair, absolutely dumbfounded, "Karen, did you hear that?!"

"I did!" She shouted, running back to her previous spot, "Brianne loves him! And we didn't use any controls! This is amazing!"

"I can't believe it!" Janson jumped out of his chair, "It wasn't all a waste of time!" The two workers hugged, which shocked both of them more than they had already been. They quickly composed themselves, now awkwardly standing a few inches apart, "We shouldn't celebrate too soon, we have a subject that we can no longer control, in an experiment that will make or break the future of the human race."

"Yah, the troubles are not even close to being over. And this said girl is deeply in love."

"An unpredictable, uncontrollable, 16 year old girl whose madly in love now basically runs WICKED. The battle's just begun."

"Alright, well I need to go back to sleep, so if you'll excuse me, that'll all have to wait until the morning," Karen dismissed, leaving the room. And she knew Janson was completely correct. An uncontrollable subject could alter the whole experiment if not watched closely.

~~~~~

~~~Author's Notes~~~

I feel like this chapter is confusing and I'm so sorry for that, I'm not a professional writer, obviously haha! So in brief summary: WICKED can't control Brianne anymore, but she truly loves Newt; Janson is Newt's father *yes I am completely aware that that isn't in TMR series, but it's my fanfic and I can write what I want*; and that Newt's suicide attempt was planned.

SO YAH, HAPPY MONDAY! ILY ALL AND I'LL TALK TO YOU IN THE NEXT UPDATE! BYEEE!

Ps: HAPPY 159K TO "TO LOVE"! Every read is greatly appreciated!!!