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No one noticed him packing, slowly and secretly. No one noticed the one missing blanket or the occasional ration pack slipping away. There was too much going on for anyone to pay attention to Gally.
Well, for anyone else. But Teresa noticed, because no one was paying attention to her either.
The bustling activity of the Safe Haven was the perfect distraction for the others, just happy to be alive and throwing themself into building for the future.
But Teresa is still living in the past, constantly replaying her words and actions, everything that made the Safe Haven necessary in the first place.
“You aren’t WCKD,” Thomas had said on the berg. But she was. Or, at least, she had been. She’d worn their logo and preached their morals and furthered their cause at the expense of her friends.
They might say they’re ready to move on, some of them might even mean it, but she can’t forgive herself that easily.
It’s not as simple as leaving it in the past, because it’s not in the past. Minho still flinches if she moves too suddenly, even if he tries his best not to, and she still sees lingering looks of fear or anger or even just distrust from the other kids they’d rescued. The other kids she’d help WCKD test, or torture. That difference depends who you ask. And she deserves their judgement, all of it, because she was WCKD, and a few weeks in the Haven hasn’t erased that.
She can’t even say she didn’t believe in the cause, because she did. Deep down she still believes WCKD’s goal, their original goal anyway, was good. The methods left something to be desired but they were trying to save the world.
She knows now that it couldn’t be done, but if the cure had worked would she have kept selling out her friends? Would she have sacrificed every one she loved for the sake of the world? These questions keep her up at night. She knows the answers, she just can’t share them with anyone else.
Maybe with Gally though. He already hates her, so there’s nothing to lose.
And, maybe, he hates himself enough to tolerate her too.
~~~
After watching him for days, she sneaks to his hut late one night, her own pack held tight to her side. Everyone else is asleep but the slow flicker of candlelight can be seen through Gally’s ragged, makeshift curtain.
She knocks, and he takes long enough to answer that she almost bolts, but the door opens before she can give in to that urge.
And then he’s staring at her, trademark brows pulled down, but there’s no actual malice in his eyes. There hasn’t been for a while now.
“I want to come with you,” she stands tall, voice even. His eyes flick to the pack at her side.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t belong here either.”
It’s all the explanation he needs. He understands. This is a place of forgiveness and acceptance, a place to forget the past and build a new life together.
A life Teresa and Gally can’t be a part of, not with their histories. Maybe together they can form their own life, away from all reminders of their failures.
Gally lets her into the hut and she sees the supplies he’s gathered. Food and water and blankets and a small amount of medical supplies. Just enough for him. With her own supplies added it’ll be enough to start them both out. Whether they’ll last is another story.
“Anything you want to add?” He nods at the note left on his bed.
She was just in time then, he was almost on his way out.
A hasty scribble and a last minute check and they’re out the door. Gally shuts it quietly behind him, but with purpose.
He leads the way, up a narrow path he’s worn into the trees. He’s planned this route, he’s planned everything, except for her.
She follows along anyway.
They have to walk through the night, they need to be far enough gone by the time anyone notices them missing and finds the note.
This isn’t the home for me that it is for you all.
I’ll miss you, try not to miss me. I’ll be fine.
Don’t look for me, it’s better this way - G
I know you tried to forgive me, but I can’t forgive myself
You can and should move on.
I’ll be fine - T
They hope it’ll be enough to dissuade the others. Teresa isn’t so sure on the actual likelihood of that, but she can hope all the same.
This is the fresh start she needs, away from the memories and the guilt, and it’ll be easier for the others without her weighing them down.
She and Gally don’t have much in common. But they have this.
~~~
The trek into the hills is long. Gally seems to know the way though, or at least he pretends he does.
She wants to ask, but the silence has felt so fragile, like if she breaks it then everything will crash down around them and she’ll be forced to turn back.
So she just follows. Bag on her back and eyes ahead, the time for looking back is gone. She wanted this, she can’t doubt that decision now.
It takes them all night and all day, they only take quick rests, not wanting to stop and sleep too close to the Haven where they might be followed. The ground is hard and the wind is biting but she doesn’t regret her choices. They still don’t talk beyond cursory check-ins.
Almost 24 hours after setting off, a whole day spent walking, the sun is beginning to set behind the trees again. Teresa prepares herself for a night on the ground, hoping it’ll be a long enough break to actually sleep, when she sees it up ahead.
A small house. More of a shack with the state it’s in, some of the wood is rotting and the windows are black with grime. Only one story, half hidden in overgrown bushes.
But it’s there.
Gally must have known about this place, somehow.
He shoves open the door, wincing at the loud creak of the wood in the silent trees.
She follows, carefully, but not reluctantly.
In the dim light of the room she can make out furniture. This used to be the kitchen, a dining table pressed against one wall, an old stove and rusty sink in the corner. She follows Gally through the open door to their left, finding a larger room. A small bathroom, or what passes as one, through another door on one side. A bed, dusty blankets and flattened pillows, stands in one corner. An old sofa against the far wall.
There’s photos on the wall, but she can’t make out the people in them, too faded by time.
People lived here, once. Before WCKD and the flare and the sun scorching the Earth.
Her thoughts on the matter are interrupted by Gally’s bag dropping on the hardwood floor.
“One of the older people at the Haven told me about it. They said they scouted as far as they could when they first arrived and found a few of these old shacks in the woods. Been a long while since anyone lived here, though.”
“So they know where we could have gone?”
Gally shrugs. “Like I said. A few of them are around, and if they care at all they’ll stick to what we said.”
He lowers himself onto the sofa, slowly, and grimaces as the springs creak and groan beneath him.
“Long while,” he huffs.
When she doesn’t move, doesn’t reply, he nods to bed. “Take it.”
She could argue. She could demand the sofa, since this was his plan, she could even take the floor in protest. But she’s tired, and it might be old and dusty, but it’s a bed.
A full day of walking behind her, she sleeps almost immediately.
~~~
When she wakes it’s still dim, curtains pulled closed over a window she hadn’t noticed last night. It takes a moment to remember where she is. For its age, the bed was comfortable. The sheets were warmer than the small blanket she’d carried and the mattress far softer than the dirt they'd rested on previously.
When she emerges, following the sound of clanging out to the kitchen area, she finds Gally. There's pans on the table and buckets on the floor and his sleeves are rolled up.
“What can I do?”
He doesn’t jump, he’d heard her coming, even if he hadn’t looked up.
“Windows?”
So she cleans the windows. Scrubs them with some old rags Gally had dug out of the drawers and water from the well behind the house. It takes hours, years of dust and grime have built up, tinting all the light that comes through, but eventually she makes progress. Eventually, with fingers raw and arms aching, actual sunlight starts to shine through the clean glass again.
While she’s been doing that, Gally has tinkered with the old stove.
How he knows what to do, Teresa doesn’t know, but she is learning not to doubt him.
In her rhythm now, Teresa takes her rags around the house. Scrubbing at the floors and the photos and the pans and the sinks. Removing the years of neglect and making this a place liveable for humans again.
Gally tinkers and curses and clangs away with the pipes in the bathroom. He must have taken some of the tools from the Haven, far more prepared than she’d known, but he starts to figure it out and the shouting grows quiet.
By the days end, the house is clean. They light candles and eat rice Gally heated up and drink fresh water from the well and she’s exhausted but she thinks she might actually be happy.
Through her limited time in the Glade, through the trek in the scorch, and her time at WCKD, she has never felt as useful as she had today.
She can’t hurt anyone here. She doesn’t have to dwell on her choices.
Gally takes the sofa again, no words exchanged, just a nod and an attempt at a smile.
She can barely make him out in the dark, with the candles out and the curtains shutting out what little light comes from the moon. But she can see that he’s still, breathing even, already asleep.
He seems calm, at peace, and it’s weird but she is too. So far removed from everyone and everything they know, but this is where they can relax.
Very weird. Considering he never trusted her, and there that whole “cut off her thumb” thing.
But this shack, this place that she will make her home, it’s new. She’s not afraid of him. And he trusts her enough for this.
~~~
The days continue on much like that. They work to make the house - because day by day it is becoming more house than shack - strong. It’s tough work with what little they have, but progress is being made. They repair broken doors and tinker with pipes and cut away at the weeds and branches that have overgrown.
They find an old shed hidden in some bushes, with more tools they can fix. Teresa takes to walking, never too far, but she finds a stream nearby. Gally manages to catch fish and find berries and they eat by candlelight.
With a rusty axe Gally manages to cut some logs and they build a small fire pit near the well, where they sit under stars and the talk starts to come easier.
Gally - to her surprise - starts it. One night, the fire they’ve lit warming them against the deepening chill of winter as it approaches, he just starts to talk. He tells her about the first bonfire in the Glade, when they were all so young and so scared, and it’s the first time either of them mention it. But it makes sense to her then.
Of course Gally could survive out here. He spent years in the maze, a place basically designed to test his survival skills.
Designed by her. But that doesn’t matter, not here.
In return she tells him stories of her first memories at WCKD, even younger and even more scared but just as determined to survive.
With each story the weight of it gets easier, it finally starts to feel like a thing of the past. Some long gone version of themselves that did what they had to do, and now it’s over.
It becomes routine, night by night, stories shared and burdens lifted. Laughter comes easier and then, slowly, so do the touches.
It starts small, just fingers lingering when passing pots. His hands are callused and scarred from the years of working in the Glade, a stark contrast to hers. She has some fine lines, faint scars from the shattered glass as a building collapsed around her, but otherwise her hands are still smooth. Soft.
When he doesn't flinch from her glancing touches, starts to return then even, she gets bolder. She doesn't realise quite how much she'd missed this, missed touch, and how she was beginning to yearn for it. For a hand on her arm and shoulders bumper together, something that tells her she isn't alone.
They begin sitting closer when they’re by the fire, leaning into each other's space. Hands rest on hands and knees bump together. She's not alone and she's not scared and with each passing day here the burden of her past gets lighter. One night, stars bright above them and the fire dying out, she lets her head drop onto his shoulder. He's firm and warm and he doesn't shrug her off. No, he sinks into the touch with a sigh. He lets her fall against him and shifts his arm so it's firmly behind her. They sit that way for a time, still mumbling out stories and filling the night with their presence until the fire fully dies out. Trudging back into the house they almost separate. Teresa to her bed and Gally to his sofa, but she darts her hand out to grab his arm. She dares to take this moment and to push it as far as she can.
Nodding to the bed, so slightly, just a hint, she smiles. "It's cold."
And he doesn't pull from her grip, he doesn't scoff at her like he might once have. Instead he slides into the bed beside her, his body is warm and solid beside her and the loneliness is gone. Sleep comes easier than it has this whole time.
That then becomes their routine, every night they bundle down against the winter that is settling around them. They listen to the wind howl against the windows and they hold the blankets tighter and every night they shuffle just that little bit closer together. They talk into the dark and fill it with laughter rather than the nightmares it once held. She's not sure how or when but she starts to trace the lines of his face while he sleeps. All of the tension leaves him at night, the frown falling from his face and the lines of weariness easing. He looks young again, at peace, and it's so easy to reach out and trace the crooked nose - from an old fight with Minho he’d told her about once - up to the almost permanent line between his brows, and to brush gently against the growing hair falling over his forehead. It's a private moment she's stealing, when it's too dark for her to feel ashamed of it, and she contents herself with the fact that he won't know.
Until he reaches up, eyes still shut, and takes her hand. Until he presses it closer to his face and holds it there. Until he sighs in relief at the gentleness of her touch.
It makes her bold, and she sinks her hand into his hair, leaning closer in the dark to press her lips, so faint, against his cheek. She feels more than sees his smile and her heart lifts at the act.
When she wakes, it's with his arm firmly around her, and they don't talk about it. But they don't have to. This is their place, their home, removed from the outside world and all of its expectations.
She can just enjoy the feel of his hand, broad and sure, on her back as he moves around her in their kitchen. She can revel at the glimpses of skin, pale from the cold winter but oh so enticing, when he changes before her. She can push herself into his space, thread her hands through his hair, and she can kiss him. Quick at first, a brave step forward in whatever this is, but longer next when he pulls her to him.
Day by day, their routine stays much the same. They cook what they can, clean what they can. They make improvements to their house and stock up on wood when it’s dry and they discuss plans for the spring. They lay tangled together on the sofa, words mixing between kisses as he traces the lilt of her laugh down her throat and she presses her hand against the rumble of his in his chest.
They could never have had this, not back in the Haven under watching eyes and the pressure of their past. Not in a place where everyone knew them and the burdens of their past kept them shackled in their roles.
Here it's free to grow. Here she can push her cold hands under his shirt, laughing when he hisses at the touch, smiling when he holds her there.
She can gasp when his teeth graze her neck, such a vulnerable state but she never fears it. It's okay when he leaves his mark, because there's only the two of them to see it.
It's okay when they strip, slowly, watching with hungry eyes and touching with fervent hands. Callused hands pressing against where she's softest, pulling moans out of her that only the trees can hear, his words mumbled low just for her, just for them in this moment.
She's learned over their time here that Gally is gentle. He's strong and his exterior is tough because it had to be but here, for her, he's soft and pliant and takes only what she gives, and she gives it all so freely.
She wraps her legs around him, she pulls him deeper and closer and lets their bodies and words and breaths and moans cascade together because this is living and it's beautiful and she's so happy she could cry.
And she does, when it's over and the air finally returns to her lungs, she cries freely. Tears flowing and small hiccups but she's smiling all the same. And he kisses the tears from her cheeks.
He doesn't say the words, not yet, but he doesn't have to. Not here.
They're joined in this. When she set out to join him she thought she'd find some peace, the two of them understanding each other in their shared loneliness, in the feeling that they didn't belong.
She never expected to find that belonging.
~~~
The wind can keep howling and the days can go on as they always have. They can have their routine and they can have each other like they never could before. They can have peace.