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“Where is he?”
Those are Thomas’ first words. He’s only just gotten out of the shack that serves as a sort of infirmary. He’s not in pain anymore, and the bandage on his stomach is mostly clean, but he’s still tender and certain movements will make waves of pain run through him.
“What…?” They’re all thrown off by his question.
“Newt,” Thomas clarifies, as he distractedly rubs at something on the inside of his left arm with the thumb of his opposite hand. “Where is he?”
“Wait, how…?” Minho’s clearly at a loss. “How do you know…?”
How does Thomas even know that Newt is alive? Is what he doesn’t fully dare ask, though they’re all wondering.
It’s not like they ever intended to keep the secret from Thomas forever. It’s just… Brenda saw how Thomas reacted when Newt was down. The shattered look in his eyes. The way he just… well, she doesn’t know what to call it exactly, or perhaps it’s that she rather not call it anything, because labeling it means acknowledging just how bad Thomas looked in that moment. Brenda will never admit to it, not to anyone, but she actually doubted Thomas would be coming back alive, that he’d come back at all, when he walked away that night. And it wasn’t that she thought the guy might choose WCKD over them, or even that bitch Teresa. No, it was just… well, to be perfectly honest, when she looked at Thomas as he walked away it felt like she was looking at a man walking to his grave… Brenda, and all of the guys, really, will never stop being grateful that Thomas survived! None of them will ever forgive that bitch, Teresa, not for all the things she did, not just to Minho, but to Aris, Sonya, the Right Arm, to everyone; and yet… she saved Thomas. Now, saving one life might not be enough for redemption, for forgiveness, but they can at least feel grateful to her for that if for nothing else.
So the point is, they never intended to keep Newt’s continued survival from Thomas in the long term. They just hadn’t been sure how to handle the matter. Because if Thomas had reacted like that, to Newt being down back in the Last City, to him possibly being dead…And the boys might not have seen what Brenda did, and yet seeing him on that rooftop was still enough to know Thomas wouldn’t be in a good place. And he’s lost Teresa too… How would he react to the blonde being alive and yet… well, they don’t actually know if he’s ever gonna get better, do they?!
Newt is unconscious, has been since they found him, on the ground, with that knife in his chest… They even thought he was dead at first, until Gally noticed his chest moving. Turns out the knife managed to miraculously miss everything important. As for the Flare… they gave him the dose of serum Brenda was carrying, but they have no way of knowing what state Newt might be in once (if) he wakes up. Did they give it to him in time? Was he already past the Gone? Is there any way to come back from that? Also, even if they manage to save him, will he have to spend the rest of his life looking as he does now, with those black veins, and his eyes…
They know Thomas went back to WCKD Tower looking for a Cure Teresa talked about, everyone in the Last City heard about that. About the Cure that supposedly could be found in Thomas’s own blood. And granted, Minho even saw the vial of blue liquid in Thomas’s pocket when they had to change the shank’s clothes, but it’s not like they’re actually sure that is the Cure. Is it even complete? What if they’d given it to Newt and it turned out they needed to do something else with it first and they ended up with no way of saving their friend?!
In the end the group leads Thomas straight to a small hut, on the opposite side of the village, from the med-shack where he woke up. The small hut is the farthest from the small village they’ve been building. One thing Thomas cannot fail to notice is that it’s the only building that has something that might be called a lock. Though he files that away for later.
Newt is inside, on a mattress laid out on the bare sand floor, beside him an upside-down crate serves as a night-table of sorts, and on it is a pitcher with water and a plastic bowl with a rag. It’s clear that someone has taken the time to clean-up Newt as much as possible in the time they’ve been there. His hair is no longer matted, his skin no longer covered in ash, dust and blood. He’s bare chested and there’s an obvious bandage on the right side of his chest, right where the knife pierced him. Though perhaps the state of cleanliness and the whiteness of the bandages serve to make the dark-veins caused by the Flare all the more obvious.
Thomas drops to his knees beside the unconscious Newt, extending a hand to the blonde automatically, touching his cheek with the tips of his fingers, the barest hint of a touch. It’s just for a moment, before he bends over, pressing his forehead to the blonde’s, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as he forces himself to calm down. He’s there now, they’re both there now, they made it…
“I’m here now Newt, and I promise you, everything will be alright,” he whispers under his breath.
Thomas takes another deep breath, letting the scent of Newt: wood, cinnamon, and something else he cannot name that is entirely Newt, fill his nostrils, before he sits up, looking for a more comfortable position on the sandy floor.
For a minute or so there it’s like no one really knows what to say. The Gladers just keep watching Thomas, as if waiting for him to do or say something. Eventually it’s Brenda who breaks the silence:
“Thomas…” Brenda whispers as she approaches him, extending her hand for a moment but in the end not daring to place it on the brunette’s shoulder. “Newt is… he’s not alright.”
“I know,” Thomas nods solemnly. “But he will be.”
He says it with such calmness, such certainty, that it’s impossible to doubt it. Then he pulls the vial of the Cure out of his pants’ pocket, and before any of the others can do anything, can even say a word, he’s pressing it against Newt’s right arm, the very same the blonde showed him on that rooftop, what feels almost like a lifetime ago, and injecting the solution into him.
“Hey!”
“Shuck!
“Slinthead!”
“What the shuck did you just do, Greenie?!”
The Gladers, and Brenda, start practically shouting over each other. It’s probably only the distance from the village that keeps anyone else from running to find out what’s going on.
“I gave him the Cure,” Thomas says simply. “It was always meant for him, after all.”
That seems to settle everyone, for the most part. And then their attention is completely absorbed when they can all actually see the black veins lightening up and eventually disappearing all-together. At least one person actually sobs, though no one comments on it. They can hear Thomas murmuring things under his breath, quiet and almost rhythmic, but none of them can hear what he’s actually saying, and most are totally focused on Newt’s healing. At least until something completely unexpected happens.
“You never did say how you even knew Newt was alive, Gree…” Gally begins, only to change his tone abruptly. “What the shuck are you doing now?!”
All eyes go straight to Thomas then who, to everyone’s absolute shock, seems to be just… cutting himself. Or no, not cutting himself, nothing as simple as that. Thomas is using a scalpel to carve symbols into the inside of his own arm.
Minho goes to do something, anything, to stop Thomas from… well, he doesn’t really know what Thomas is trying to do! It makes no sense that he’d try to kill himself precisely now, when Newt’s recovery seems more likely than ever before. It’s precisely then that Minho realizes he cannot move. There’s some kind of… power, of force, holding him immobile and Minho has no idea what even is going on!
So they’re all left watching as Thomas finishes carving three symbols down the length of the inside of his left arm. He doesn’t wince even once, like there’s no pain at all, or he’s become all too used to it by now. Then he takes Newt’s own left arm and, after dipping his finger on the blood spilling from his own, starts using it to draw the very same symbols on Newt, upside down and in the opposite order from his own, almost like a mirror image.
“My mind to yours, my heart to yours, my soul to you…” Thomas murmurs, in the same rhythmic tone he’s been using since the start.
What happens next… everyone present would doubt their own sanity if they didn’t all see it. As, right after the last word crosses Thomas’s lips there’s… something, and in the blink of an eye Newt’s arm is clean bar the lightest mark, something so light and so blended into his own skin, as if it were some kind of birthmark. Thomas’s arm is the most shocking though as, while there’s still blood dampening the sand under him, there’s no trace of it on the arm itself and the symbols he cut into it haven’t just scabbed over, they’ve scarred, as if the injuries were months old.
With slow, measured motions Thomas twists around until he’s sitting down on the sand, back against the upside-down crate and legs extended in front of him. He’s breathing deeply, and it’s clear to those looking at him that it’s taking some effort. Also, beads of sweat are forming on his forehead and his whole body just seems to… sag at some point, like someone deeply exhausted.
“What’s wrong with you?” Gally blurts out.
“Nothing,” Thomas blurts out. “I’m fine, just fine, totally fine.”
“That’s… way too many fines in a single sentence, dude.” Brenda deadpans.
“You asked me how I knew Newt was alive,” Thomas murmurs quietly, eyes closed, as he throws his head back, looking at nothing at all. “The short, simple answer is that it could be no other way, for I am still alive. As long as I live, as I serve my purpose, so will Newt continue to live.”
“And the long answer?” Minho asks, hesitantly.
“The long answer is… complicated,” Thomas admits. “And you probably won’t believe a word of it. I’ll try my best to explain so… bear with me.”
He knew something was wrong. He knew it, even if he could not explain what it was, or how he knew. It was really early in the morning, nothing ever really happened so early… and yet he just couldn’t settle down. So he headed to the Control Room, just for something to do. The place was completely empty (it being so early) but truth be told, he preferred it that way. Less of a chance others might start talking about Thomas’s too-strong attachment to the subjects. He’d already been punished for it, twice, he did not need yet another punishment for the same thing…
The East Door was opening as Thomas took his seat and the first thing he noticed was that there was someone standing by it already. And not just anyone but… Newt. It made Thomas wonder what was going on, why was Newt there? Granted, he was one of the Runners, and very good at it too, but it was much too early still, and why was he alone?
His bad feeling growing, Thomas used a number of cameras embedded high up on the walls to follow Newt’s progress through the Maze. Eventually those proved not to be enough, and he took control of one of the Beetle Blades, doing his best to keep it enough at a distance from Newt so that he might not notice it.
And then Newt started using the vines to climb one of the walls.
Thomas still didn’t know what was going on (he suspected, he did, but kept telling himself it wasn’t that, a part of him convinced that as long as he didn’t believe it, it could not be true). Then Newt made it as far up as he could; which wasn’t more than halfway up the wall, really. As good as the vines were, thick and strong and well rooted into the Maze walls, and as much as Thomas and the other Elites worked to make them as good as they could be, there just wasn’t enough time, or enough resources for them to ensure the vines would reach the top of the walls… also, it was suggested at one point that the subjects might try to escape the Maze by climbing up the walls, which wouldn’t help the Trials, and them making it so far up could end up being much too dangerous for them… As was proven right then, as the blonde started looking alternatively off into the distance, in the direction of the Glade, and down; and then, ever so slowly, started making small motions, pushing himself away from the wall, as if testing how far he might get if he pushed hard enough…
What followed was… to date the most stressful few minutes of Thomas’s life. He flew the Beetle Blade towards Newt, trying to use it to somehow get the blonde to stop… but it’s not like he could actually speak through it or anything. So Thomas took control of another Beetle and sent it to the closest Runner, hoping against hope that someone might be close enough, might make it there in time, that they might even realize what he was trying to do with the stupid thing…
And then Newt spoke, words that pierced Thomas straight through the heart:
“I don't know who you people are, but I hope you're happy. I hope you get a real buggin' kick out of watching us suffer. And then you can die and go to hell. This is on you.”
And then he fell.
Or no, he didn’t fall, he jumped. Only he didn’t jump far enough and one of his legs got tangled in the vines halfway down. It was enough to slow down his fall, yet not enough to halt it completely. It also resulted in his leg breaking in at least three parts. The upper part of his body still hit the ground hard enough for Thomas to flinch violently, even as he screamed.
The other Beetle had made it to the closest Runner: Minho, but he was in another section entirely, as was usual. He was just too far… And as bad as Newt’s broken leg might be, what worried Thomas most, was the blood already pooling underneath the blonde. It was all too clear that his head had hit the ground too hard. If he was still alive, he probably wouldn’t be for much longer.
Thomas… he felt like he couldn’t breathe… like someone was holding his heart in a vice.
That… that was his best friend right there! His… his… how could Thomas possibly live without him? How… when it was Thomas’s own fault Newt was in the Maze at all?! It was all his fault, everyone who was in there, everyone who had died… it was all Thomas’s fault!!!
Thomas had lost so much… his parents, his home, his own name… and now he was going to lose Newt too! Unless…
The words were spilling from his lips, slow, measured, with a rhythmic cadence that while out-of-practice, had never truly been forgotten:
“Maiden, mother, crone, I call you. Goddess help me. I will do anything to save him…”
“So you… what?” Frypan asks in the end. “Whispered some words… and that was it?”
Thomas was very careful when telling the story to keep the exact circumstances of Newt’s accident to himself. Letting Brenda and the boys believe that it had been simply that, an accident, rather than intentional. It’s pretty much what Minho and Newt themselves told everyone back then, and Thomas refuses to reveal something so personal for the blonde without his permission.
“Not quite that simple,” Thomas shrugs. “But also yes. In simple words, I made a deal.”
“With the devil?” Gally scoffs.
“No,” surprisingly enough, it’s not Thomas who retorts, but Brenda. “With the goddess.”
“Wait, that’s for real?” Frypan asks, clearly thrown by that.
“If gods are real how come they haven’t done something about… all of this?” Gally asks as he makes a wide gesture regarding the world.
“Because there are rules.” Again, Brenda surprises everyone by being the one to explain. “The most important, at least regarding what Gally just said being: that for gods to have any sort of power, they need people to believe in them. And I don’t mean for someone to just claim they believe in one or more of the gods, but for the to truly and absolutely have faith in their existence and their power. And the second one is that, even having any sort of power, gods can only interfere in the lives of mortals when they’re asked to do so, and only after the mortal in question has offered something in exchange for their aid. Considering the state of the world, I doubt there are many people left that believe in gods, much less know how to call upon them.”
“You know,” Frypan points out evenly.
“Yeah,” Brenda nods. “My mother believed in all sorts of stuff, I remember that from when I was little. As for me? I stopped believing in a higher power when George was taken from me.”
It’s not surprising really, and Brenda’s probably far from the only person to have stopped believing after personal tragedies. And then of course, there are all those who won’t believe in anything simply because the option has never been presented to them…
“My mother was pagan,” Thomas points out.
“You remember your mother?!” Frypan and Minho cry out practically in unison.
“Not really,” Thomas shakes his head. “I don’t remember her name, or even her face. I just remember her voice teaching me the right prayers to worship the goddess, and to call upon her. I also remember her warning, about the cost of asking for her aid…”
“The cost…?” Minho asks, hesitantly.
“When asking for something from a higher power, you must be willing to offer something of equal value in exchange,” Thomas clarifies. “Essentially, one thing for another.”
“A life for a life,” Brenda says very, very quietly.
There’s a sharp inhale from all the boys as their eyes bore into Thomas, as if they expect him to fall dead any second.
“Is that… is that why you look like klunk?” Frypan asks, in a tone that makes it all-too-obvious that he’s holding back tears.
“Now I know you’re lying,” Gally snaps. “If it were a life for a life you’d have died years ago!”
“Yes and no,” Thomas points out. “And no Fry. I look like this, because I’m exhausted. Because right now, most of my energy is going to Newt, to getting his body to heal…”
“What…?” That seems to throw everyone yet again.
“The term a life for a life,” Thomas explains. “It’s not quite as simple as it might sound to some. It’s not a matter of one person dying so another might live. At least not when deals with the goddess are involved. See, I did offer my life to her, for Newt’s. And no, that did not kill me, and even now it won’t. Because, simply put, what good would that do? My death is of no use, not to the goddess, and not to anyone. My life on the other hand…”
“You became her servant,” Brenda is the first to realize what it all means.
“I did,” Thomas nods.
“What was the task?” she asks, curious.
“Believe it or not, pretty much what I ended up doing,” Thomas shrugs. “What I do believe I’d have done even without her command. Saving as many of her children as possible.”
“Her children…?” Gally asks, confused yet again.
“The immunes,” Frypan realizes.
“Us,” Minho says at the same time.
Thomas shrugs. He doesn’t actually know if they’re her children because the goddess is somehow responsible for their immunity, or if she simply chose to lay claim to them when giving Thomas the task of saving them, or perhaps even before that. One of her manifestations is the Mother, after all, and all children will always need one of those. He supposes it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. (He does wonder if she’s the reason his blood ended up being the Cure… but supposes that’s of little importance anyway.
Eventually the guys leave. Though they do promise to get him some lunch later that day, as they have no doubt that if they were to try to get him to go with them he’d refuse to leave Newt’s side. Brenda returns shortly afterward though, with a bottle of water. Thomas takes it, drinking almost half of it in one go gratefully; only noticing as he’s closing it again that Brenda’s still there.
“Did you need something?” he asks quietly,
“You know, I know what those symbols mean,” she says, almost conversationally. “I also know they have nothing to do with any call to the goddess.”
Thomas says nothing, very carefully not turning to look at the symbols scarred into his arm.
“Mind, heart, soul,” Brenda presses. “They’re components to most binding ceremonies… and to most marriage ones too.”
“Marriage ceremonies need reciprocation,” Thomas says with a shrug, not bothering to comment on the other kind of ceremony.
“It’s dangerous, you know?” Brenda crouches in front of him. “Binding yourself to another like that.”
“I know.” Thomas shrugs, trying to make it seem like a careless motion.
“And yet you did it.” Brenda keeps pressing; she knows she’s missing something, something important, though she knows not why.
“I did, and I do not regret it.”
She didn’t think he did. Especially if, like she suspected, the binding was the only reason Newt was alive, had made it to the Safe Haven at all.
“Will you ever tell him?” she asks him then.
“He doesn’t need to know.” Thomas replies.
“I think Newt deserves to know someone cares that much,” Brenda retorts. “That you care… that you love him…”
Thomas inhales sharply at her choice of words but doesn’t even try to deny it, which Brenda thinks is telling enough. And then comes the last question she could have ever expected:
“How long would you say it’s been since Newt was infected?” he asks her.
“I… don’t know,” she admits, only then stopping to consider it. “A few days? Maybe a week or two? Before the fall of the Last City I mean…” She thinks of something else right then. “Was he bitten while at the abandoned checkpoint?”
Thomas knows what she’s truly asking: were Jorge and I too late? It’s a logical assumption to make. Another would be that, with the virus going airborne, it could happen at any moment once they made it to the Last City. The truth is… something else entirely.
“Newt’s been infected since the Scorch,” Thomas informs her quietly. “Possibly even before that.”
The Scorch was the obvious answer, especially considering the number of times they came across Cranks; and what happened to Winston. And yet… who says that those bastards at Janson’s facility, the ones that supposedly were injecting them with a cocktail of vitamins… who says that’s really what they were doing? It wouldn’t surprise Thomas at all to find out that WCKD planned on getting Newt (and possibly all the other non-immunes) infected from the start.
“I knew it after Winston died,” Thomas reveals quietly. “The goddess came to me in my dreams to warn me. See, while her interference might have helped keep Newt alive before, it wouldn’t work forever. And something like the Flare… it wasn’t enough.”
“So you bound yourself to him,” Brenda nods in understanding. “And that kept the Flare at bay…”
“For months, until it was no longer enough,” Thomas murmurs, turning to look at Newt with so much feeling in his eyes that Brenda has to look away.
“He’s alright now,” she reminds Thomas. “And he will get better. You both will.”
That is Thomas’ hope.
“I still think you should tell him,” Brenda comments after an extended silence. “He deserves to know.”
“Maybe,” Thomas concedes. “But… you don’t know Newt like I do Brenda… or well, maybe you do. If he found out about what I did, what I’m still doing… he’d feel indebted to me. He’d feel like he owes me something for the choices I made. Might even get it into his head that the only way for us to be even is for him to reciprocate the bond and that… it would kill me, for him to bind himself to me out of a perceived obligation. I…”
“… you love him.” she finishes for him.
“With all my mind, heart and soul…” Thomas confirms.
She says nothing else, and really, what else can be said after that?
xXx
Newt wakes up two days later, and the first thing he sees is Thomas sitting on the sand beside his mattress, humming under his breath and playing with Newt’s own fingers.
“T… Tommy…?” is the first word to come out of his lips.
The moment his lips shape a smile… that’s when Thomas knows that it was all worth it.
Then Newt kisses Thomas and that… well, that’s totally beyond the brunette’s wildest dreams…
It doesn’t take long for Newt to find out about Thomas’ deal with the goddess, because the boys are, each and every one of them, incapable of keeping their mouths shut. Brenda at least respects Thomas and his own choices enough not to mention the binding.
When, years down the line, Newt surprises his boyfriend with a proposal, following the wedding the two of them retire to their hut, where the blonde surprises his brand new husband yet again as he pulls out a pocket knife (the only blade he carries anymore) and then starts to cut into the inside of his right arm. Three runic symbols Thomas would know in his sleep…
“Newt…?” the brunette mumbles, voice cracking just a bit, not really know what to ask, or how.
“I know Tommy,” Newt whispers, standing so close to the brunette, lips are practically touching his ear. “This is my choice. Now you get to make yours.”
With that said, Newt offers Thomas the knife, hilt first. The brunette doesn’t even doubt as he takes the blade and carves the same symbols into his left arm. He knows them so well, he doesn’t even need to look at them as he does.
The two of them are then left standing, in front of each other, each with the inside of one arm bleeding.
“My mind to yours, my heart to yours, my soul to you…” Newt pronounces, slowly but purposefully as he extends his bleeding arm towards Thomas in offering.
Thomas responds automatically, extending his own right arm and clasping it to Newt’s. There’s a flash and Thomas knows even without looking, that Newt’s cuts will have scarred and the symbols will have transferred to his own arm.
“My mind to yours, my heart to yours, my soul to you…” Thomas does his own part of the ceremony with their left arm.
And so the two of them end up standing, in the middle of their small bedroom, arms crossed in front of them. There’s no more blood, but the two of them can feel something almost like a buzz in the air, the half-formed bond between them.
“Mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul.” The two enunciate the next part of the ceremony in unison. “I am yours and you are mine. So mote it be.”
Private ceremony over, it’s the most natural things for the newly married men to help each other out of their clothes and fall into bed together; where they spend the rest of the night coming together time and time again, until the rising sun finds them sleeping in a tangle of limbs such that it’s impossible to tell for certain where each of them ends and the other begins…
A late brunch is delivered by their friends and left in a basket just outside their door. The two take their time, feeding each other and exchanging kisses, naked in bed.
“I’m curious,” Thomas murmurs at one point.
“You always are,” Newt chuckles. “But tell me, what are you curious about, this time?”
“How did you know?” Thomas finally blurts out the question.
He doesn’t even need to clarify what he’s talking about. They both know.
“Tommy,” Newt murmurs, reaching for Thomas’s left arm and touching the scarred symbols with the tips of his fingers. “I know every inch of your body. You think I could have ever missed this?”
Thomas blushes at the thought of all the nights (and days) the two of them had spent getting lost in each other and in their own pleasure. All the time they’d spent mapping each other’s bodies with hands and tongues until they knew each other to the last detail, every scar and mole…
All things considered, it probably should be no surprise that Newt had found out about it all.
“I love you,” Newt whispers bending down and pressing kisses to each of the symbols on his husband’s inner arm. “Mind, heart and soul.”
And what can Thomas do but return the sentiment wholeheartedly?