AN: Last part. Still more to come for the series, though :)

Thomas sits down while she carefully works the scalpel to remove the tracker in the back of his neck.

Gally watches right over her shoulder, arms crossed tight and she can feel the glare on his face as though it were a tangible weight. Frypan has been tasked with setting up some form of cot or palette for Thomas to be laid on. Newt paces in agitation before her.

Brenda shows up just as Teresa begins, and she nods quietly to them.

Teresa is too distracted to think about her now, though.

It's not a difficult thing, but it does take long minutes to carefully incise past the epithelial skin layers into the first dermis. There is where the tiny piece of technology was implanted just above the vertebrae. With the closest thing to tweezers they have, she gently extracts the antennae end, and then – making Thomas flinch – pulls it free.

All too suddenly, it's done.

Thomas turns back to her, eyes fixed on the silicone coated piece of hardware.

"Okay. Okay, let's do this."

.

Frypan and Brenda have set up a space. They've found some old broken pieces of church pews and then some dust sheets and prayer cushions and made them up into a passable bed. It's set against the wall, half hidden in shadow with just a few candles for light.

Thomas stands facing it. He doesn't make any move, but Teresa knows he's listening as she explains what needs to be done.

"Just get it over with," Thomas tells her eventually, when she's laid out the main parts.

Teresa sucks in a breath, glances back at the others, and picks up one of the syringes.

"I won't take it," Newt says.

Heads wheel to him. Teresa falters. He looks calm, entirely himself, totally in control.

"I mean it," he says. "No. I'm not going to take this when you had to be…tortured to get it, no bloody way."

"I'm doing this," Thomas says, turning. He lost the jacket before his tracker was removed, but now he doesn't pause in rolling up his sleeves. "Don't ask me to just sit here and not do anything, Newt."

"Because it's always about you?" Newt snaps. There's that feral edge to him again; anger that's his own – terror too visceral to cope with in its natural form and so altered, feeding into fury – but also that touch of malevolence that isn't Newt at all.

"No," Thomas refutes, his own voice rising to meet Newt's as he steps towards him. "It's not about me. It's about you, Newt. And I can do something, right now, while we have time, to stop what's happening to you."

"What's happening to-So you're okay with just making this decision for me, are you?"

Teresa sees the flicker in Thomas' face, the moment he breaks under the strain.

"I will never take away your decisions, Newt," he says, loud, into the blonde boy's face, the two of them almost trembling with rage. Sometimes anger is the only way to process fear. "But don't ask me to just watch you die, either."

Something washes through Newt's expression. The mad light from the Flare blinks out, and all that's left is Newt – horrified, terrified and still so, so angry.

"Then don't ask me to just stand here and let you go through this," he shouts. It's disconcerting. Newt has always been so level headed but now their voices are echoing in the acoustics of the dilapidated church and everyone else stands in ringing silence. "She's going to pour a drug into your veins to torture you with your worst nightmares and I'm not worth that!"

"You are to me!" Thomas screams at him.

Everything stops.

Newt and Thomas are breathing hard, stood between the tables, almost nose to nose, but none of the others look the least bit surprised. Gally looks ferocious, Frypan and Brenda just look unbearably sad.

Newt blinks. His shock shifts into a kind of awe, but his face is edged with sharp regret.

He can't believe that someone cares about him this much. He can't even find peace in it, be happy about it, knowing that it's that devotion which is going to put Thomas through hell any moment now.

"Newt – you dying is pretty much my worst nightmare," Thomas tells him, his voice soft again, a splintered note in it that feels just moments away from cracking. "At least this way that'll only be because of the drugs, and it'll be over. If we don't do this – do something…you're going to get worse and when we do lose you…I won't be able to wake up from it. Just don't ask me to do that, okay?"

Newt's expression closes off.

Thomas sighs, a ragged, wounded sound, and he turns away.

Teresa hesitates as he strides back to her. There's so much regret and pain in his face, and it tugs at her heart but she doesn't dare question him when he drops to the made up cot and holds out his arm. She attaches the vitals monitor to a finger, and powers on the reader.

It starts up a rhythmic bleeping sound, loud in the sudden quiet. It's his heartbeat; fast, faster than it should be but nothing worrying considering his stress. The glowing display flashes with his pulse and blood pressure in numbers. Everything is working.

She drugs him.

The paralytic goes first; slides straight into the bloodstream through the crook of his elbow. Very quickly, Thomas' weight starts to lose all ability to hold itself.

"Whoa," he murmurs, watching his control slip away.

Teresa tries to catch him, but he's bigger than her, almost all muscle despite his lean build, and she can't manoeuvre him.

Newt's closed off expression snaps into fear and alarm in an instant, and despite his bad leg, he beats Gally to the side of the cot. He catches Thomas' shoulders, helping to lower him back and Teresa can see the careful way Newt grips him despite how upset he is.

"His eyes are open," Gally observes, setting down Thomas' legs without much fuss.

"I'm fine," Thomas says, though he sounds more like he's trying to reassure them. Being unable to move must be quite a fear in itself for someone who's survived on running.

"It's to paralyse him," Teresa says. "It's not a sedative, or a painkiller. The sub- Thomas will have to be awake."

"It's sadistic," Newt says waspishly. He's already moved back again, standing a step from the cot, his thin frame strung with vibrating tension.

"He agreed," Teresa reminds him, careful but also pointed. Then she kneels down next to Thomas, trying to block out both Gally and Newt. "Thomas? I…I need to insert the drain now. It…it'll hurt, okay? But only for a moment."

He can't move anything below his neck, but he turns his head to her and nods slightly. "Just do it." Then his eyes swing to Gally. "Make sure," he says.

"You got it," Gally tells him, scowl affixed yet again to Teresa's back in a way she can feel tangibly.

Thomas knows he can't ask this of Newt, so instead its Gally's job to make sure she does what she's said she will. It's his job to make sure the trade goes off as planned if he's not coherent for it. Teresa can't even find insult in his caution. She proved he couldn't trust her once before.

Teresa fetches the cannula and the tubing. She holds it up as she connects the distilling filter and the collection vial, so he can see what she's doing. Then comes the hard part.

Very gently, she touches her fingers to his jaw, and tilts his head away. Right by the hairline, below the ear, behind the cord of the neck…she has to get this in the right place, but she's studied it enough. She knows what to do.

Thomas makes a strangled sound when she inserts the needle.

It's awful; a bitten back groan of sharp pain that turns to choking breaths as he fights through the sensation. His eyes blow wide out, pupils constricting, rolling up and his jaw goes from locked to completely slack. Next to him, the reader on the vitals monitor goes haywire; the bleeping becoming so rapid it's almost a buzz and the numbers scrolling up.

"What the bloody fuck did you do?"

Newt's voice is entirely unbalanced with rage. He's suddenly right there; bearing over her, like he wants to place himself between Thomas and the needle and knowing he can't is shredding him on the inside.

"He's fine!" Teresa blurts, voice thick, and it's only then she realises there are tears on her face; that she can taste the salt of them in the corners of her mouth. "He's fine. This is how it works."

"It doesn't look like he's fine," Newt snaps. His eyes are wild.

The other side of her, Gally is squeezing into his own arms so hard his hands are white. His jaw is so tight Teresa isn't sure how he isn't breaking his teeth. Frypan stands well back, hands on Brenda's shoulders over in the candlelight by the table. Brenda's eyes are large in the fluttering light, her hands pressed to her mouth.

The bleeping of the monitor flickers and slowly starts to space out again.

"The enzyme is produced in the base of the brain." Teresa sticks to this; science, honest facts. She feels like she wants to crumble; the dual attack of Thomas' agony and Newt's reaction eating away at her. She has to hold. They've come this far. "The needle has to reach that pocket in order for the fluid to drain through it. I'm sorry, Newt. But he's okay."

"You stuck it in his brain?" Gally demands. There isn't a word for how utterly repulsed, horrified and angry he looks.

"No!" Teresa blurts, shuddering. "That's too dangerous. It has to reach an area near the brain stem where the enzyme naturally collects. That's all."

Gally scoffs derisively.

There's a weak groan from beside them.

Teresa turns but before she can speak, Newt has dropped down beside her, a storm of anxiety as he curls his fingers into Thomas' shoulder.

"Tommy?"

"Shit," Thomas breathes riddled with pain, and then he sucks in a breath. "Hurry it up."

Teresa snatches the tubes she's already connected up and fixes them to the cannula. Then she moves away, just for a moment to pick up the next syringe.

"Here we go," she says. "Thomas, it'll start quickly but it'll build up as it metabolises. It'll be over, though, I promise."

"Save it," he manages through a tight jaw. "I don't think you said any of this to Minho."

Teresa squeezes her eyes shut. He's right. She never did. And then she nods, focuses on his arm again, and plunges the hallucinogen into his veins.

Thomas looks over. His eyes, already sliding out of focus, catch Newt's and Teresa goes still. She suddenly feels both like she's intruding and like she's not even here.

"I'm sorry," Thomas breathes.

Newt sucks in a breath, his grip tightening, but Thomas is already gone.

.

"Newt, you're next."

"No."

Teresa worries her fingers around the freshly cleaned scalpel blade as she watches from across the cavernous empty space. Frypan sets both his hands on Newt's shoulders and presses, gently but firmly.

"Newt," he tries again. "You heard what she said. It's going to get worse while it makes its way through. Take your turn now – you can sit with him after."

For a suspended moment, Newt doesn't react at all.

He just sits on that half broken stool close beside the cot, folded forward, elbows on his knees and watching Thomas. His face is etched with dread and pain. Thomas is still – kept that way by the drug, but his expression is twisted, his breathing harsh and now and then he makes small bitten back noises of horror at the back of his throat. The machine beeps next to him, a constant, if elevated pace, echoing in the church, but Teresa has been counting as she cleaned the surgical blade, and it's increasing.

She has tried not to look, honestly. She walked away as soon as Thomas succumbed to the hallucinations, and she didn't look back the entire time she set about cleaning the scalpel and setting out the next lot of gauze. She doesn't want to watch him suffer. Having to set it into motion herself cuts deep, though she can't pretend she's the one hurting most right now. Even just looking over at that corner feels like intruding on something private; intimate.

Gally seems to somewhat agree, as he's parked himself somewhere midway between them and her, looking like he's waiting for a fight.

But then Newt nods. It's a sharp, jerky motion, and when he stands it's the exact same.

"Fry-"

"I'm staying," Frypan confirms with no prompting. "Me and your boy gonna be right here."

He hesitates a second longer, then Newt's striding towards her, shrugging off his own jacket as he goes. He drops into the seat before Teresa.

She doesn't try talking to him. She sets her fingers to the back of his neck, ignoring the flare of hurtpainregret when he flinches, and then she raises the scalpel. The whole time her mind can't wander from the way Fry called Thomas Newt's, and how no one – even Newt himself – made a murmur to refute it.

It doesn't have to mean anything. They've all always been protective of each other, and Newt took Thomas in back on his first night in the Glade. They've always claimed each other as family against the world. This is nothing new.

But she still can't help feeling she may have missed even more in a year than she'd first thought.

.

It escalates, as she said it would.

The sharp exhalations, ragged breaths and muffled shouts start to climb in volume and mix with cut off words – things that don't fully make it from the hallucination to the physical. Thomas' face is tight, his head turning side to side with stilted, wrenching motions.

Newt is strung taut like a bow the entire time it takes her to extract his tracker.

Frypan finds a prayer cushion and uses that and his hand to try to steady Thomas' head. He keeps up a constant murmur to him; too low to pick out above the frantic bleeping of the monitor and Thomas' own sounds of horror. But he talks to him. Brenda paces the church, anxious, murder glowing in her eyes as she steps between the scattered pews. Gally stands, fixed, his expression growing steadily darker.

Newt's tracker is finally removed and he doesn't even look back at her.

He crosses the distance to the corner and sinks down. Fry gives up his space, leaving Newt to help hold Thomas' head still. Gally pushes Frypan towards her.

"Your turn."

.

Thomas starts to cry out.

Any words he might have half managed before are lost now in the vice grip of nightmares. Newt hovers over his head, his face a mask of second hand pain that twists and shatters every time Thomas' does the same. He keeps a hand pressed against Thomas' neck, and the other holding the cushion to the opposite side of his head, but Thomas still fights the hold with the only mobility he has. Frypan tucked the draining equipment out of sight beneath the palette and Newt has made no move to check on them.

"You chose somewhere soundproof, right?" Brenda asks Gally. Her tone is genuinely concerned; eyes darting across to Thomas' corner, but there's an edge of black humour to her words.

Gally can't nod. Teresa has the scalpel against his skin. But she hears him huff a breath.

"It's remote," he says, still apparently keenly aware that Teresa can't know exactly where they are. "No one should hear."

Brenda considers him for a second, and then she nods briskly. Turning to the table, she snatches up a powerful looking hand gun that she lifts easily in one hand. With her free one, she pinches the slide and cocks it back until it clicks, sharp and loud, through the sound of Thomas' shouts.

"I'll check the perimeter, just in case."

With a last glance – upset, worried – at Thomas, and something like warning at Teresa, Brenda heads in the opposite direction. She strides through the fuzzy shafts of blue light from the stained windows and disappears back into shadow.

"You almost done?" Gally asks her.

"Almost," Teresa confirms. "Hold still."

Across from them, over by the dark wall, Thomas' voice is starting to turn ragged; the shouts echoing up into the vaulted ceiling. The drug must have almost run its course. It's been quick; she can only hope it's extracted enough. Newt still hovers over him, curled so far forwards he's barely on the stool and Teresa can see the way his whole frame shakes even in the gloom.

She tugs the tracker free. Gally clearly feels it and knows what it means because he's already up, out of the chair and striding away, heedless of the trickle of blood at the nape of his neck.

It's right on time, too.

Thomas screams.

It's a raw, twisted sound that feels almost like its trying to shatter his larynx as it claws into the air. The paralytic is beginning to wear down – everyone is different and it's hard to tell exactly how they'll metabolise. It leaves Thomas mostly unable to move, but with the starting signs of shakes and muscle twitches.

Newt rears back and then throws himself forwards, circling around to the side of the cot. His hands clamp around Thomas' wrists where they're fixed and tense, tendons standing out in sharp relief against his skin.

"Thomas?!" He tries, his shout swallowed by the next screaming cry of horror and grief. "Tommy?!"

Gally, Frypan and Teresa all rush over.

Frypan snatches Gally's arm, keeping him a pace back at the last second, just as Newt flies up, wheeling around and turning on Teresa.

She feels the air rush out of her lungs, pressure clamping down; her own ribcage like a vice that's turned on her so she can't draw in another breath.

Newt is shaking, trembling, more furious than Teresa has ever seen him before. It's chilling, but this time, it's an anger that's all his own, entirely wielded by him and not the virus carving into his brain.

"Wake him up!" he demands.

Thomas' screams reverberate around the walls. In the flickering candlelight Teresa can see the shining tear tracks on Newt's face; the way his eyes swim, glossy over the fury. How long has he been crying for?

"I can't," she chokes.

She's hurting too – she didn't expect this, didn't process it. She coped when it was Minho but this…it feels like someone tearing into her and cutting to bone. But that's clearly nothing compared to Newt.

"WAKE HIM UP," he shouts.

"Newt!" Gally tries.

"I can't!" Teresa yells back at him. A headache is forming behind her eyes. The sound of Thomas's horror and fear has turned warbling; his voice is starting to give out even though the drug isn't done.

"Why the bloody fuck not?!" Newt's shaking. There's a wildness in him; horror clamouring in the twist of his features.

She's suddenly reminded of the day Newt broke his leg.

Thomas set off an alarm when he saw one of his closest friends sneak out early on the monitors and realised what he was going to do. Ava insisted they couldn't interfere. It was for the good of the entire planet.

They'd been forced to sedate Thomas.

He made it through five scientists, evaded three security watchers and was racing towards the maze entrance through the maintenance tunnel before one of the medics darted him. They had to keep him under for three days – until they could be sure Newt was going to make it, too.

And now she's being faced with a parallel; only this time it's Newt who can't do anything but watch. And it's killing him.

"He's already awake." Teresa's pleading with him. She doesn't know when she started crying; just that somehow she is now. "It's working its way out. It's almost done. I promise he'll be okay."

Behind them, Thomas' voice cracks. He sucks in a rattling breath and Newt is already back at his side, crouching on the floor, a hand pressed to fevered skin right where his collarbones dip to meet at the base of his throat.

"Tommy?" Newt calls to him. "Come on. Come out of there."

He's regaining motor control; the muscle twitches are fiercer, and then suddenly, his whole hand moves; flinches, curls into a fist and swings out.

"Whoa-Hey!" Newt shouts. He ducks it, both hands leaping up to snatch Thomas' wrist.

Gally and Frypan both dart forwards, one either side of the cot to press down on his limbs. Thomas' head twists, shaking, side to side, cracked shouts and cries escaping. The bleeping of the monitor attached to his finger is erratic; rapid, keeping pace with his heart as it thunders with terror. His blood pressure is high, too high. Teresa presses her hands to her mouth and forcibly chokes back her own cry of anguish.

Why?

Why is it so much worse for him? Maybe it's just that she feels it so much more than she did with Minho, but she doesn't think that's right. Is it because they don't have more equipment here – the harness to properly, safely restrain him? The drug techs to monitor the levels? They can't do anything but wait, but even so, Teresa feels like Thomas feels it worse.

Are his fears more than Minho's?

No. Fear is individual to a person.

Is it because he can produce more of the enzyme and therefore metabolising a dose takes more from him?

Maybe.

Thomas screams again, but this time it breaks down. It turns into cries and it sounds like he's choking, unable to draw in breath. His eyes open, completely dilated and cloudy with visions and horror. He's crying too; the tears breaking from beneath his eyelashes and rolling back into his hair. His head twists into the makeshift cot and his expression crumbles.

"No," he rasps. "No, no… no…New…"

Newt seems to splinter apart. He slips onto the floor, a haunted look etched into his face and his hands go slack over Thomas' wrist. It doesn't matter. Thomas has stopped moving.

Gally slowly takes his weight off of Thomas' legs, and Frypan releases his other arm. They hover, the three of them, wary and scared but so anxiously expectant.

"Is that it?" Gally barks at her. "Is it done?"

Teresa moves slowly, jarringly. She's so cautious about moving around Newt; can't shake the feeling that he's barely tolerating her presence. And then she reaches to lift up the extraction tubing that was tucked to the side of the palette.

There's enough candlelight, enough moonlight, to shine bright through the small glass vial.

And it's full of light, blazing blue serum; the pure enzyme that has been filtered through the distilling chamber connecting the vial to the tubes.

Gally goes stiff.

"That's it?" Frypan asks. "He went through all of this for…that?"

Teresa chances a glance at Newt.

He's staring at the serum sample hanging from her fingers. He looks distant, hollow. Resentment - deep, burning loathing – darkens his eyes. He's almost recoiled away from it, fingers still loose around Thomas limp wrist, but Newt's shoulder is curved forward, as though still trying to protect him however futile it is.

"I know it seems…" Teresa tries, but words fail her. She isn't sure what word to use. She swallows and starts again. "This is actually a lot."

"So he's going to wake up now, right?" Frypan asks. His eyes dart from her, to Thomas, and finally rest with cloudy concern on Newt.

"He is awake," Teresa repeats. Very carefully, she reaches to hold Thomas' head still and then slides free the cannula. He groans but otherwise doesn't make any acknowledgement. Newt flinches. Frypan's expression twists with distaste. "I told you; it's not sedation," she continues. "He…the hallucinations are strong. People in them…they don't register the world outside. It's just a lot for the system – the brain – to process. This is usually the end…he can probably hear you now, though."

Newt's eyes flicker.

The others are clearly waiting for him because after a second of clear dread, he pulls himself back up, kneeling beside the cot.

"Tommy? Can you hear me you dumb Shank?"

Frypan snorts in amusement. It's a sound that's broken through more because of high stress than any real humour in the situation. Gally's face twists in something that might be agreement.

"Come on you idiot," Newt continues, though his voice isn't hard anymore; it's gone soft, pressing. "Thomas?"

Teresa holds her breath.

She's never seen this procedure go wrong but it's also not been performed – to the best of her knowledge – outside of a carefully controlled and monitored lab. Watching Thomas, it sends a bolt of new, gripping fear straight through her. Was she really going to do this to herself?

The heart monitor is slowing down.

They all seem to listen to it for drawn out moments, and then it stabilizes. Newt's hand shakes where it rests in the hollow of Thomas' shoulder. Teresa eyes Thomas for lasting effects. There's cold sweat on his skin; his pulse pounding in the tense cord of his neck. Where his head has rocked side to side in an effort to escape the visions, it's aggravated the insertion point for the cannula; the skin red and a slight trickle of blood already drying around the puncture.

Finally, he sucks in a breath and his eyes snap open.

They're clear. There's nothing of the drug left. They flash wildly around, taking in the far off cobwebbed ceiling of the church, then his own position tucked into a corner, and finally the faces gathered around him.

He tries to sit up and almost collapses sideways as his muscles struggle to obey.

"Whoa, hey," Newt exhales, reaching out to steady him.

"N-Newt," Thomas' voice is a grating kind of rasp but it's thick with clear relief.

Frypan elbows Gally and nods to the side. The pair of them move without a word and for an instant, Teresa thinks they've forgotten about her, but then Gally's hand curls around her arm.

"Come on," he says.

Teresa doesn't have much of an option to hesitate. She lets herself be towed away and in her last look back, she can just see the two boys hugging tightly beneath the stained glass window.

.

There's a deathly silence over the table where Gally points her into a seat.

Frypan grabs a flask of some kind – water, Teresa suspects – and he runs it over to Thomas and Newt but doesn't stay. He rejoins them, sinking into an empty chair next to Gally, who has his boots propped on a stool. All of their thoughts are twisted up, occupied.

Finally, it's Brenda who's first to speak.

She didn't come back inside until Thomas came around, and after a fretful look over at that corner, she took a seat facing firmly away from it, between the two boys. Teresa can't quite puzzle her out. She clearly cares a great deal, but she's distant.

"So you've been having fun," she says. Her voice is hard, an edge of coldness that's razor sharp. "How many people have you done this to in the past year?"

Teresa swallows back her own sharp response. It won't help here. She swallows and carefully says, "I haven't been having fun."

Brenda scoffs.

Gally shoots the darker girl a sideways look. He might be a touch…concerned. It's an almost strange expression on him, but he also seems to agree with her.

"You think this has been fun?" Teresa asks, and she can hear her own voice going thin. "I turned in people I care about because I believe that this is bigger than all of us. I didn't do that lightly; I never have. I'm not having fun – I'm trying to find a cure. The entire popul-"

"Don't," Frypan says. He's weary, bone tired, but he sounds firm. "Just don't, Teresa."

She can feel her heart cracking again.

She knew she'd never sway Thomas, or even Newt. She hadn't expected Gally at all and thought Brenda would be out of the picture. But Frypan…she'd just assumed he wouldn't pick a fight. He'd not been much for one before, not that she remembered and now she feels narrow minded for making the assumption. He was, after all, the person to cut her free of Gally's post back in the Glade. He has more conviction in him than she gave him credit for.

She lost all of them.

Brenda flips over her wrist and checks the watch face on the inside, strapped over her fingerless glove.

"How are we doing?" Gally asks her.

"We've got time," she says. She glances back behind her seat to Thomas and quickly sits forward again, her eyes troubled. "Not much, but we're okay."

Teresa watches her, watches the way her fingers pick at the table, the line of tension in her shoulders, clear through the threadbare grey sweater.

"I don't get it," she says quietly. Heads snap up to her and Brenda's is slowest, a calculated movement. Teresa swallows and follows through. "He saved you. You of all people should-"

"Should what?" Brenda practically hisses at her, rocking forwards in her chair with the kind of purpose Teresa likens to a snake readying a strike. Her pulse spikes. "Should what? Because if you think for a second I'm okay with any of this, you don't know how wrong you are."

"What he's done – it'll give Newt a year, at least," Teresa argues. She tries to control her heart rate, keep her voice down, very aware of their little bubble of tension in the pool of candlelight. "And he could give others that, too. How can you not see that?"

Brenda looks furious.

"Are you heari- Is she hearing herself?" Brenda seems to be appealing to the boys, both of whom just sit rigidly quiet. Brenda wheels back on her. "Thomas saved my life, and he did it without needing to scream his voice out. And yeah; maybe it'll give Newt a year – that's why he did this. That's the only reason. But have you stopped for a second to think what this has actually done right now? We've been listening to him scream for half an hour. Did you even look at Newt once? You hurt way more than just Thomas. And you're seriously sitting here saying you want to put him through this again?"

"I don't want to put him through this again," Teresa argues. She doesn't want to, it's the truth but she can't touch the mention of Newt. Of course she's looked at him. She looked until it hurt too much to keep looking.

Brenda shakes her head. She looks almost pitying, but there's still that distinct coldness to her pretty features. "But you still care about the world more," she says, and Teresa can't argue it.

Don't they see that this is bigger than them? They're just a handful of people against billions that the Flare is destroying.

A glance either side tells her she's the only one. Frypan's expression is fixed, his jaw tight, something unmoveable and warning in his eyes. Gally's attention has slid sideways to Brenda, and his arms are still folded, his jaw still tight but his eyes are blazing. Teresa isn't sure what's going on there, but she's pretty sure she's never seen Gally look at anyone quite that way; respect and surprise that burn together into something that might be the kindling of loyalty.

How long has Gally been with them anyway? When did he fall back into their lives? How is he even alive himself? Questions Teresa knows won't get any answers.

"I don't care if Thomas can save the world," Brenda says clearly. "I don't care. He saved my life, but I wouldn't have wanted him to if this was the cost, and if you think I'll just stand aside and let you do this to him again…"

Her voice tails off, but Teresa doesn't need more.

Brenda didn't interfere with this choice because it was Thomas' right to make it. And she may have not been in the church for the worst of it, but Teresa has realised that didn't mean she couldn't hear the screams or that she doesn't care. Brenda cares too much. Thomas had saved her life – twice now – and that's reflected in this steadfast loyalty and fierce protectiveness. It's not romantic. There was a time back in the Scorch when Teresa had wondered at that, but now she can see that it isn't. If the way she's acutely aware of and unconcerned by Newt's importance to Thomas didn't give that away, then her expressions and words alone would have been enough. She simply loves him in a way that's fire forged, burned in with sand and struggle. She's prepared to stand between him and WCKD if it comes to it.

Teresa never got a chance to know that kind of family.

She traded it away. And she's trying so hard, sitting in this hard backed chair, surrounded with people who would all die for each other, to hold fast to her beliefs. She did the right thing. The world is bigger. But when she's looking at them; people she used to feel like she knew who survived so much and are still coming back for one they lost…the world starts to feel smaller.

Her eyes flit past the table to the shadows behind. It's the first time she's really allowed herself to.

Thomas has regained his mobility. He's sitting up under his own power, boots back on the ground and Newt sits next to him, folded forwards, hands on his knees. They're speaking far too quietly to hear.

Teresa wonders what Thomas saw in his fearscape. He told them his worst fear was Newt dying, but was it really? Sometimes the subconscious can deliver even worse terrors. She's curious, from a clinical standpoint. What did he see? Why did his body process the drugs faster even than she'd thought? Could the fact that he voluntarily did any of it affect the result pattern? Would his brain yield that much of the enzyme if they put him under by force?

Something inside of Teresa recoils violently at the thought.

No. She could never do this to him if she knew he was resisting.

She tries not to think of Minho. Something she's kept herself entirely distant from for the past several months suddenly feels a whole lot more personal. She can't afford that. The world has to come first.

But it's even harder to tell herself that when she's watching Thomas.

"What are you looking at?"

Teresa startles, her eyes jumping to Gally's defensive glare.

"Nothing," she says.

Gally raises an eyebrow at her, but otherwise doesn't speak.

Still, her eyes dart over once more, without her consent. The moon has shifted and the corner is just touched with a blue glow, dust motes caught in the bleak beam. Thomas reaches down and picks up the vial of serum that's fallen to the cot beside him. She watches the way he turns it between his fingers, head tilting as he speaks to Newt. She can just make out the leftover shake in Newt's hands as he listens.

She turns away again.

The year she missed seems to stretch out in her memories; vast and unknown, something that resembles the long desert and salt flats of the Scorch. They're different now. Maybe it is Minho's absence, but she doesn't remember them quite like this. What did she really miss?

She's opened her mouth to ask before she can properly process it, not even time to consider if it's smart.

"Are they…together?"

Gally's attention snaps straight to her and his face is set in challenge. "What's it to you if they are?"

She asked, she wondered, but she can still feel shock rush down her veins like seawater.

They're-

"Gally."

Frypan's voice is chastising, but with no real weight behind it. Brenda almost looks like she'd be smiling if this were any other time.

Gally shrugs, unrepentant. "Still say it's none of her business."

Frypan doesn't refute that.

Teresa quickly shakes her head, managing a whisper around the lump that's formed in her throat. "No. No, you're right."

This is what she traded away. Or not. No – perhaps it was never even hers to begin with.

Gally hasn't confirmed or denied anything, all she has to go on is what she's seen for herself, what she's always seen. Even growing up it was Thomas and Newt, the two of them. She thought that things would change; they were growing up, being boys, but eventually Newt would be in the Maze and it would be her and Thomas.

But then he'd gone and betrayed them, and suddenly he was in the Maze as well. It started there all over again, in the Glade; the way Newt couldn't help believing in Thomas, couldn't help aligning with him and how Thomas had sought his approval, even if he didn't know it at the time. But it had made sense. Thomas was their way out, and Newt, for all intents and purposes, was the one in charge. Minho had been with them back then, and all through the Scorch; they'd been a team and Teresa's never seen these two without their missing piece.

She wants to attribute it to that, but she's finding it harder and harder. Newt's fury over the suggestion of Thomas undergoing this, the way Thomas had shouted at him – you are to me – is that just because they lost Minho? Or is it something that's been there, between them, the whole time?

She thinks she'd hoped, or maybe she just hadn't wanted to see but now there was no looking around it. Even if he and Newt weren't…something, whatever she was to Thomas once, it was long gone.

.

Thomas only sways once, briefly, as he stands up, and then he seems to completely ground himself just a second later. Newt gives him a questioning look, hand on his shoulder, that's answered with a nod and then they're both striding towards the table.

Teresa's back goes stiff.

Thomas leans over Brenda's shoulder, in the space between her and Gally to set the vial of serum down.

"How much is needed for a dose?" he asks. His voice is still rough, but it's strong, it's returned quicker than Teresa had expected. "Tell me."

"And if you lie I'll take your thumb off," Gally adds, sounding somewhere between deadly serious and a little hopeful.

Thomas doesn't say a word.

"She's not going to lie," Brenda says. Her voice is touched with something sinister. "If you think she is, just give Newt the whole thing."

Teresa's heart lurches and she hates herself for it. Hates that this is what it's come to – that they assume she'll lie – and also that she just can't risk not keeping some of that serum for her tests. Even after everything she's seen and heard tonight, she still can't let go of this.

"I won't lie," she hurries to say, speaking directly to Thomas. Please believe me. Please. "But it's not simple. The Clinical Trials have only just started; we're still trying to work out what is needed and different sub- and everyone produces different amounts."

Newt, stood just behind Gally's chair, twitches at her aborted mention of subjects. Thomas doesn't spare a thought for it. He snatches one of the still packaged syringes from the spill of her belongings on the table, and tosses it to her.

"When Mary did this it didn't take much. You can keep half."

It's more than she'd expected. Teresa nods and tears into the packet.

Brenda flips her wrist again.

"How are we doing?" Newt asks her.

"Almost time. Let's move this along. You boys need to change."

"I'm not going anywhere," Thomas says.

Brenda doesn't miss a beat as she slides out of her chair and stretches. "Saw that coming. Gally?"

"Yeah," he says, and swings his boots down before striding cleanly away.

Fry gets up, too. "I'll start packing up."

Brenda nudges Thomas' arm. "Hey," she tells him, nodding across to Newt, who's already listening. "I was out of it, but I remember feeling the injection. It's a bit of a shock to your system. Made me fuzzy for a few minutes. Just be prepared, right?"

Newt nods. Thomas gives her a weary but deeply thankful smile. "Thanks, Brenda."

She taps his arm with the side of her closed fist; a soft, supportive thing, and then she's leaving, too.

Teresa knows better than to try to talk right now.

She focuses on syringing out half of the serum, and then an additional measure – the only token of apology and good will she can give. Then it's Thomas' turn to look anxious as she turns to them, candlelight glinting off of the needle. Newt doesn't seem thrilled, but he shrugs off his jacket and pulls back his sleeve.

This is the first time Teresa has laid eyes on Newt's infection.

It's an angry, pulsing spread of poisoned black veins, webbing up his forearm and starting to branch across the inside of his wrist. His skin looks pale and almost translucent around the swollen vessels. He curls his fingers into a fist as a tremor shudders up through his arm. They've been under a lot of stress – the past hour won't have helped – and its acting fast.

Teresa can feel her heart constrict, and her eyes lift up to his, but Newt's expression is closed off. There's a warning there. He doesn't want her to comment on it, doesn't want a diagnosis or an opinion, or an apology.

She heeds it.

She doesn't even speak to warn him it'll sting. She takes his wrist, holds his arm at the right angle, and then positions the syringe.

Newt sucks in a sharp breath as the serum bolts into his bloodstream. Almost instantly his balance rocks and he keels sideways, eyes fluttering closed.

"Whoa, okay, I got you."

Thomas catches him, just, and helps bear them both down to the floor, laying Newt back where his head can rest on one of their bags. There's no panic in his face, and Teresa's thankful to Brenda for her warning.

"You're good," Thomas tells Newt quietly.

He stands up, turns to face Teresa. For a moment, she thinks he might say something to her, but she watches his face as he seems to reconsider, and then he's turning away.

She speaks before she's thought it through yet again. This might be her only chance, without any of the others to intercept.

"What did you see?"

Thomas goes still.

Across the church, Frypan is kicking apart the palette Thomas used, scooping up anything that's theirs as he checks around. Gally is shrugging into black camouflage fatigues that Teresa recognises from the WCKD guards she walks past every day. They really have planned this – planned something. Newt lays still, his breathing deep and even, eyes roving fast beneath the closed lids.

Thomas turns to her, slowly, slightly. "What does it matter?"

It doesn't. But she can't make herself say it. She's not even sure she asked because the scientist in her wants to know. Another part of her threw that question into the void space between them; a girl she used to be, who'd grown up with the boy he once was. She wants to know because once she might have guessed what his worst nightmares were and now she can't.

For a moment, she thinks he won't answer. And then, when he does, she almost wishes she'd never asked. Not because of the horrific details, but because of the dead, distant way he says it, and everything that he doesn't say.

"Grievers, Deadheads, Chuck, Ava, Janson…" There's a pause, his eyes focus again. "You." She sucks in a breath, heart twisting like its being crushed – she's there, on that list – but he's continuing already. "Minho, Brenda, the building, Mary, the train, the tunnel, the maze…Newt."

And he stops.

She doesn't know if it was in order or not. She doesn't know what some of them are – what train? What tunnel? - and they are things she won't, can't ask him. But she thinks that even if everything else was jumbled up, Newt being the last is probably true.

"Thomas-" Teresa breathes.

His eyes dart to her, forcibly shutting away the horrors behind a semblance of calm.

He's waiting for her to continue, but she isn't sure what to say. Finally he nods at the vial in her hands – the small amount that remains; her half of their agreement.

"We both got what we wanted here," he says, and he sounds tired, just so world worn.

"And if it works?" she asks through the tremors in her voice. "If you can cure-"

Thomas interrupts her.

"He made me promise to never go through this again."

Everything she wants to say, to ask, to press on him dries up at the back of her throat. Newt made him promise.

"And you agreed," she says, hollow. "What happens when he needs more? When Brenda does?"

Thomas' expression folds, deep pain in his face as his eyes drop, cross to where Newt's still laid on the ground.

That's when she knows for sure, the realisation hitting solidly. Newt would rather risk dying than ever watch that again. And Thomas…he only agreed because…

"I know there's another way," he says in confirmation. "Maybe you don't think its safe, but I've seen it work."

"Thomas, it isn't safe. You really think we'd be doing this if-"

His face twists with a kind of repulsed derision and it sinks through her, cold and brutal like a knife. Her heart hurts; she can feel tears stinging her eyes again, the chill as they roll down her cheeks. Thomas turns away and she steps in his wake like being pulled. It's like watching every fond memory she has of him, of them, fall through her fingers and shatter on the floor. How did they get so broken?

But of course she knows the answer.

"You don't believe me?" she calls to him, desperately. Even if they are on a battlefield, this is something she wants him to know. She doesn't like what's happened; she never wanted anyone to suffer.

But it triggers something. Thomas wheels back on her, his eyes blazing and defiant anger etched into his features.

"You really expect me to?!" he demands and her throat closes up again. Everything that was suddenly a whirling storm about him quiets down. There's sad but stoic bluntness to him as he says, "You made your choice."

Teresa sees movement over Thomas' shoulder, and then Gally is stepping up beside him, still fiercely challenging. "Everything okay over here?"

He asks it almost like he wants to hear a no.

"Yeah," Thomas says. He keeps his eyes on her and Teresa knows he wants her to understand him. "Yeah we're done."

This time, when he turns his back on her, she doesn't feel her heart tug to follow. She feels it drop like a stone in her chest.

.

Newt comes around shortly after.

He blinks and sits up, rubs at his forehead, ruffling his fast growing out blonde hair and then leans just slightly on Thomas as he gets back to his feet. He pulls his sleeve back down over the spider web of veins in his arm.

"Took time for me, too," Brenda says to him with a gentle smile. It takes Teresa aback; gentle isn't a word she's ever associated with the girl Thomas found in the Scorch, but she wears it well. "Had a nasty sucker of a bite mark for a while. But it healed."

Newt smiles wearily at her, giving a thankful nod. The words aren't important here, nor is the tone, apparently. In fact, if she didn't see it for herself, Teresa would be at a loss as to how this statement is of any help. But it clearly takes a weight from Newt's shoulders. It's another unsettling reminder of what she's missed.

The truth of it is that Thomas knows these people better than anything he knows of her. He never got his memories back. Everything he knows is from the past year and few weeks of his life, from the day he woke up in the Box beneath the Glade. And they're the ones who have been there with him.

"You're feeling okay, though?" Thomas checks.

Newt considers it, studies his own hands as he flexes his fingers and rolls his tongue between his teeth. Then he nods. "Yeah. Yeah. My head…it's been kind of…fogged up for a while but…I feel fine. Better."

Gally lets out a long breath and Frypan drops down onto a chair. The tight, dry tension seems to crack and shatter apart around them all. Thomas actually smiles, his hand pressing into Newt's back.

"Alright then," Brenda says. "Then let's get going. We have seven minutes."

Frypan has all their things collected, Brenda sits with him, an eye on her watch as Thomas and Newt quickly pull on their own stolen guard uniforms. Gally hands them over helmets as they all assemble at the table.

"Okay," Thomas says. Looks are traded all around the table. "Let's do this."

"See you at the finish line," Frypan says. Brenda gives them a flick of a salute with two fingers. The two of them pick up their belongings and leave. There won't be any trace that they were ever here.

Gally shakes hands with Thomas and then Newt. It's less of a business handshake and something more like comrades in arms – which is what this is, Teresa is well aware. Thomas and Gally grasp each other's arms tight; hold a second, and then release, thick understanding passing between them. When Gally does the same for Newt, his grip is gentle, fingers just barely closing over Newt's right arm, but he doesn't even flinch.

He really is healing. Already.

The leftover serum in Teresa's pocket burns and she thinks of the lab. She wants to know how. And they're going to escort her right back to the building.

Thomas turns to Newt and they lock hands. There's a brief hug between the two of them, something bracing and fuelled with the starting embers of adrenaline, and then both Gally and Newt are heading off. Thomas turns to her.

Teresa keeps her eyes locked on him, hoping he knows she's sorry for so much, right up until he drops the bag back over her head.

.

Teresa isn't sure how, but they almost pull it off.

They're in, the guards are down, and the kids are out, but Minho isn't with them. She manages to slip Thomas and Newt in the hallways and she manages to avoid Janson's anger, too, but the boys are exposed. She aims for the lab.

She sets to work on the sample of Thomas' enzyme. There are tests that must be run to check the viability of the sample – she can't just shake off that even if she's seen the change in Newt already. While she works, monitors showing the testing bays on the floors below show her the carnage.

They've found Minho. Or maybe he found them. The boys are back together.

One moment it's the three of them in the hallway, gunfire all around, and then they're gone. Janson is on the warpath.

The next thing Teresa knows is the explosions that rumble through the glass walls from across the city.

They're blowing it up, burning it down.

The tests are done, the world is on fire, and she knows the truth.

Ava tries to get her to leave but this – this is what she sacrificed everything for, what she gave up her home for, traded away her friends for. This. Thomas' serum doesn't just contain the virus – its destroying it.

So she heads to the security floors, reaches the tannoy system and sends out a plea hoping Thomas is still there to hear it.

"Thomas? Can you hear me? I need you to listen to me. I know you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to come back."

This is a moment promising him Newt's life would have helped, but she's already made that trade too. And now what she says has to somehow break through the promise he made to someone else.

"Thomas, there's a reason Brenda isn't sick anymore. There's a reason Newt won't ever get sick again. It's you. Do you understand?"

The tannoy is cold under her fingers and the monitors cover the city but she can't see them anywhere. Maybe they're already gone.

"They aren't sick because you healed them. They don't have to be the only ones. All you have to do is come back and this will all finally be over. Please. Just come back to me. I know you'll do the right th-"

The power goes.

Ava leaves. She's going to wait for him at the front doors. All they can do now is hope.

The next time Teresa sees Thomas, he's unconscious. He's bound to one of the medical stretchers from the trial lab, and Janson struts in front of it, a twisted, cruel kind of smirk set into his features and a mad light in his eyes. When he suggests she accompany him to the lab, she knows it's not optional. He agreed, Janson tells her. He came back to save the world. His voice is nothing but mockery.

It's a lie.

It makes sense, in the end, that he was infected. She just doesn't know how long – how much of the man she worked with was Janson's own ulterior motives and how much was the Flare.

When she gets the chance, she smashes a glass beaker over his head.

It doesn't knock him out. Thomas is free but Janson smashes her head into metal and she blacks out. Its not for long, but everything is cloudy, a throb starting up in her brain in the moments it takes her to stand. There's glass shattering, explosions rocking the foundations, fire spilling through the halls. There's a bullet aimed at her but Thomas is the one to take it. He's bleeding out when he finds the strength to unleash the Cranks on Janson to save her life.

Teresa thinks they're going to die on that roof.

The past year feels like a cruel joke. Her life feels like a malicious lie.

She wanted to save the planet, but that was never going to happen. Ava kept the truth from her; that there was never going to be enough for everyone. Janson just wanted to play God.

She gave everything for a cure, in the memory of the mother who was destroyed by the virus. And she loved her mother, but she's been blinkered, guided by Ava and WCKD and promises. Her mother is gone. Minho, the twenty eight other immunes, even Sonya and Aris…they're still here.

Thomas is still here. For now; in this moment; her brain fogged with concussion, heat searing into her back and the roof under them trembling as the walls start to give, he's still alive. And he's dying.

She loves him. She has for as long as she remembers, but though Ava may have tried to steer her that way, she's never been in love with him. That wasn't the kind of love they had, even once, when things were okay. And if he can find that somewhere else; in someone else, that's all she wants for him. She doesn't want him to die up here. She wants him to live.

And that's when the powerful sound of rotor blades drowns out everything else.

Thomas can barely walk, and the Berg can't land. Between the two of them lies a drop of fifty, sixty storeys and a sea of fire will claim them before the ground does, tongues of flame licking up towards them. If there's one thing she has left to accomplish in this world, it's that Thomas makes it off of this roof. And he does. The moments of focus have cost her, and the world swims with burning light and the beautiful destruction, the pulse in her head blissfully quiet.

She feels the building fall away beneath her feet.

It feels like flying, not falling, for a moment.

She keeps her eyes open, makes sure the last thing she'll see is this; them surviving, escaping. Thomas is still bleeding out, but he's surrounded – Brenda, Gally, Minho, Vince, Sonya, Harriet, Newt. She knows, even as she drops through the smoke, feels the thick acrid taste flood her airways and press, scalding into her skin, that she won't be seeing him soon.

Good.

He spent his whole life being used. Now he gets to live.