"No. Just leave her."

"We're taking Teresa tonight. There's no time for all this shit."

"Leave her."

"What is even is it that she's doing?"

Gally shrugs. "I don't know. Let her be."

They continue watching Joan wander around. She looks under the couch and tables, in the fridge and in dressers, behind things— everywhere.

"Are you looking for something?" Asks Vince.

"Something like it," she murmurs, and continues. "I just hope that I never find it."

"Then why bother looking?"

"To make sure it's not here."

Brenda's head tilts to the side. "What is?"

Finally, the girl looks up, forehead sweaty, strands of hair sticking to it, just like Gally always mentions. "Cranks," she explains, and then goes back to looking.

"Joan, Cranks won't sneak into this building and they especially won't crawl under the couch."

"They might."

Vince rubs his eyelids with a thumb and index finger, sighing. "We promise that if there would be Cranks, we'd tell you."

Her mouth opens to speak, but then she closes it again, eyes not daring to go Newt, whom she had heard yelling to Thomas yesterday. It's obvious.

She hates it. She hates her stupid fear of these stupid creatures. She hates the stupid virus. She doesn't hate Newt— she can't, even with the way he has been acting lately. She does hate that he has the stupid virus. And mostly, she hates that she might be afraid of him, her past friend, in the future. Frightened, even.

"But it makes sense, right?" A pause, in which she stops moving. "I feel like I did that as a kid. If something frightened me, I looked in my closet, under my bed, and basically everywhere in my room before I went to sleep."

"True. You did that," Vince confirms, but no one else confirms that they did it. Must be because they don't remember.

After a few more minutes, she finishes looking. Still unsatisfied, as if things could be watching her any moment, she sits down on the couch.

"I wanna talk," Thomas then says. "In private. To Joan."

Surprised, she looks up. "We can talk here, too."

"Not with Gally giving me death glares all the time."

With a shrug, she follows him into the room he got assigned. It's no different from Gally's, though he has a few things on his desk. A wooden figure, a few papers, messy sheets from obvious twisting and turning (or maybe fun he had with Newt), and clothes all over the floor.

"Sorry for the mess," he apologizes. "Never really had time to settle in completely and didn't bother to clean up."

Awkwardly, she stays rooted to the floor. "It's alright. What's that?" Her finger moves to the wooden figure. "I recognize it."

"Oh. That's Chuck's." Thomas picks the thing up. Once he holds it up, she nods; the figure is a mini Chuck, very well made. "He gave me this before he headed to the Safe Haven with the others."

"The others," she breathes. "Are Joe and Alfred alive?"

It's been so long since she has seen those two. Her Tool-Makers.

"Yeah," he says. "Everyone who came with us to the Maze is alive. Well— almost everyone."

She looks down, nodding again.

"You can sit, by the way." He scoots to the side.

With a third nod, she sits down. At first just on the edge of his bed. Once she gets a little more comfortable, she leans against the wall.

"Tell me you didn't get freaky with Newt on this thing. I don't want to sit on that."

"I didn't get freaky with Newt on this thing. Or on any thing."

"You should," she says, half-grinning. "Perhaps blow a wall up. Ask him to help checking it out, then boom, kiss. A tip, most people check things out three times to make sure it's okay."

He hums. "I'll keep that in mind."

Her grin grows. He did just confirm he likes Newt.

"So... what'd you want to talk about?" She then wonders. "The fact that we're cousins? The fact that I know something about you that no one else does? The fact that you've been kind of acting like a dick?"

"Uhm— all three of those?"

In silence, she waits, trying not be too triumphant. Is it selfish that she finds herself deserving an apology?

"So... I'm sorry," he starts. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, or seeming heartless when it came to you. It's just... I found it very nice to have a friend in the Glade. I mean, I had Chuck and Newt was pretty nice, but I also really enjoyed spending time with you. And I was worried when you were suddenly unconscious, but then Alby remembered and said what you had done, and I felt... betrayed, obviously.

"I had a hard time understanding why you wouldn't want to leave the place. So it took a lot to understand that. Maybe it was the way they treated me, or maybe that sort of farm life isn't for me, or I just really felt the need to prove myself by finding a way out, but I just couldn't understand the people who didn't want to escape."

Slowly, she nods. The kids who went through the Changing were the ones who refused to leave for sure, and no matter what you'd say about the outside world, the ones who didn't get stung wouldn't understand how bad it is. And that's fine. In some way, she might be better off like this after all. If they beat WCKD, at least.

"And then everything went on. I kind of started forgiving you, but the letter also came, and I again felt betrayed. Something told me that you might've not been speaking the truth, and that you left us behind to just... I don't know, cause trouble. But then you did end up speaking the truth. And then Teresa betrayed us, and all the memories of you came back to me, and—"

"Don't compare our betrayals. They were way different. I understand little of her choices, but our betrayals are different. If I would've known WCKD was bad, I would've never misled you."

He gives her a nod. "Okay, alright. I understand. Moving on— we heard about a killer later on. And I kind of hate murdering. So—"

"You try to save everyone from danger, and while you do that, you also save the danger from taking its life. Somehow good, somehow bad. Because the danger can always come back if you do it like that, Thomas."

The brunette lets go of a breath. "Yeah, I know. So I was shocked to hear it was you, but also not. And then started wondering who exactly you killed. We worked met Jasper somewhere during our journey. We promised to provide him of food and everything as long as he kept track of you. And he did."

A painful sting takes place in her chest, but she ignores it.

"When we kidnapped you, you acted all drunk. You might've been, I don't know, but it was funny and annoying at once. I believed you didn't take things seriously. As if you didn't care about who you killed. All the blood on your hands. And you know, thought lead to thought, and that kind of became my mindset. But I've never hated you. Just a lot of misunderstanding, or not understanding at all."

For a long time, she silent. She takes a few breaths, nodding now and then, as the information gets through her brain.

"I've never killed an innocent, you know?" Joan eventually says. "I made sure the ones I assaulted weren't minors and I made sure that I was sure they're bad people. Either they work for me and become better, or I kill them. Some of them already had the Flare, so it didn't really matter if I killed them once they didn't cooperate. They'd go crazy anyways."

Thomas's lips purse together so hard that she knows certain words are burning on his tongue.

So she says, "And to make it clear, I don't know what I will do if Newt fully turns into a Crank. I've kind of grown to be scared of them, so don't expect me to... to be around him a lot these days. Sorry, though. I really like Newt, and I know that he doesn't mean all those snappy replies. And I hate that I'll be scared of him."

"It's okay," Thomas assures. Carefully, he lies a hand on hers. "I understand. Newt will understand. It's not nothing, after all. What you went through, I mean."

She shrugs. "Yeah. I hope I'm not being dramatic about it. Y'all have had Cranks attacking you the whole time. Maybe not with needles, but you know."

"Exactly. Sometimes, I do dream about the Cranks, and wake up panting, but they only chase us and tried to kill us. That's different than having people you know turn crazy, and threaten you, and try to murder you after somewhat taking half the blood in your body with unsanitary needles."

He has a point. So she gives him a small smile and a nod, grateful.

"So." His eyebrows raise. "We good now?"

Hers raise, too. "You're one of the two family members I have left and I'd like to keep a good relationship with those, so yeah, we're good."

Thomas scoffs. "Does that mean that if I hadn't been your cousin, you wouldn't forgive me?"

She elbows him in the side. "It means I have the right to be an asshole back to you, like siblings."

"Okay, so we're going from the hate-like bond to the sibling bond?"

"No. Camil is my unrelated brother already."

"But you just said— whatever. Sometimes, I don't understand girls."

Harder, she smashes her elbow in his side, and he groans.

"Okay, sorry. I'll never mention anything that could be considered remotely sexist again."

"You better not."

They look at each other for a second, then chuckle. Once that has faded, she moves on to the next question.

"I need your blood," she decides. "Right now. We can cure Newt even before we go into the city."

His eyes wide. "My blood—"

"—cures the virus, yeah."

"What? How? How do you know that?"

"In the past, I tried curing myself with my own blood, but it only worked temporarily. It's weird that my blood could even cure a little bit even though I was infected. Then, as cousins, I took some of your blood, and that did work. So you're the cure, Thomas."

"Don't say that like it's nothing. I just got a heart attack."

"Don't. If you die, everyone dies."

"Well, that for sure will help me sleep at night."

"You're welcome." She slides off the bed. "Now come on. We have to hurry. I feel like if we waste time, things won't end well. Oh, and you have to contact Teresa in a few hours, so even more hurrying."