"I think she's dead."

VII ~ Newt

Disclaimer: all characters apart from Peyton and Alex belong to James Dashner.

Harriet told Alex what had been decided at the Gathering. When Newt, Alby, Harriet, and Aris had gotten to the Homestead, Alex had been having some sort of dream. Her eyes were wide and she was staring at the wall, her body completely still. It took Harriet a few minutes to shake her into full consciousness, and Alex's expression afterwards was unreadable. When Harriet asked her what happened and if she was okay, Alex muttered something Newt couldn't hear. Then he had to go get food for her, and luckily Frypan had some leftovers from dinner. Once Alex quickly ate her food, she asked what happened at the Gathering, to which she seemed to be pleased to hear.

~~~this time skip is dedicated to the last two underrated books, The Kill Order and The Fever Code~~~

The Icers, other than Aris, who'd agreed to stay at Harriet's side for the night, got settled in the hammocks they'd stayed in the night before. Newt stayed in his small room in the Homestead as always, but he didn't get the best night of sleep ever.

The image of Sonya's face kept him awake. He felt like he knew her, but he didn't know where he'd seen her before. Thoughts of her and their accents matching stopped sleep from reaching him.

In the morning, Newt realised he woke up, meaning he had fallen asleep at some point.

Harriet took over for Aris after she got food, and the poor Icer seemed really tired.

"Tired?" Newt asked as he sat down at a table with Alex and Aris.

"Mmhm," Aris mumbled as he nodded. The three sat in silence as they ate, and Newt realised that Alex seemed exhausted too.

"You tired too?" he asked her.

Her head shot up and she looked at him, trying to get rid of the tiredness in her eyes. "No. I slept fine. Better than fine, actually. I slept better than I've ever slept before."

Newt laughed. "I'm sure you did." He turned to Aris. "How's Sonya?"

"As fine as someone going through the Changing can be, I guess. Clint stayed overnight and said she'll be okay. I'm still worried, though."

"Well you don't need to. Clint and Jeff know what they're doing." Newt swallowed his food. "So, you gonna help around the Glade until Sonya wakes up?"

Alex scrunched up her nose as if disgusted. "I guess so."

Newt walked around, helping wherever help was needed like he usually did. Everything was normal - other than the fact that there were now girls in the Glade.

He occasionally visited Sonya, but he couldn't look at her for too long. Seeing her with sickly green skin, evident veins, and heavy sweating made him feel guilty, like he should've been there to protect her. But he'd only known her for a few weeks, so why did he feel so connected to her?

Newt knew something was wrong when Minho came back from the Maze early, his left arm holding Ben up. Newt ran over as fast as his limp would allow.

"What happened?" he asked.

"What d'you think?" Minho retorted. "One of those shuck Grievers stung him."

Ben was shaking uncontrollably, and it was clear that Minho was struggling to keep him upright. Then he shook so violently that he flung out of Minho's arms and fell to the ground.

Newt dropped down beside him and held him down. "Med-jacks!"

He scrunched up his eyebrows and began talking to Ben calmly. Clint came running over with the Grief Serum and injected it into Ben's arm. He stopped shaking violently, but was still shaking.

He was brought to the Homestead and stayed near Sonya's bed. His symptoms were getting better faster than Sonya was. He looked the same as she did - sickly green skin, veins more visible than they should be, practically always swimming in a pool of his own sweat.

It didn't pain Newt to see Ben as much as Sonya, which he didn't find making sense. He had known Ben for years while he'd only known Sonya for a few weeks.