Newt Imagines (The Maze Runner)

Being Miss Misery

Based on a request for a Newt songfic centered around the Taylor Swift Song 'Mr. Perfectly Fine'.

If you were going to describe the one thing you looked forward to each morning, the one person who made you want to fight your whole life to escape the Maze, you would say it was Newt. How could you not? You love him, after all. Or, you loved him. There are days when you wish you could go back in time and tell yourself that you had gotten it all wrong, that some dreams were just meant to stay dreams and never become real. Then again, if you had never let yourself jump this time you'd spend the rest of your life thinking about the fall you could have had.

In the end, you suppose there was no way you could have ever chosen differently. No matter what happened, no matter what words were said, you could never quite forget how happy you were before, even when you were stuck in the Maze. That was the best thing about Newt, after all- he made you smile like no one else ever could. There's always a second side to every coin, though, and that means that he has hurt you in a way so unique to him that no one else could ever hope to mimic it. No matter how many times Janson or WICKED tried to hurt you, nothing would ever cut quite as deep as this.

With every story, there's a start. A reason why things ended up the way they did. Yours begins with the Box, the same way every other Glader remembers their first day. There is no before, not in the Maze. Just the Box, and what comes after. Everything else has been wiped from your mind, cleared away like fog from a glass. Gone, never to be found again.

You had been pulled from the metal box and stood, squinting, letting your eyes adjust to the sudden bright sunlight. You had looked around, taking in the sight of the massive stone walls surrounding you and felt your pulse start to skyrocket. Before you could really start to panic, though, a voice sounded out from behind you. It was quiet, peaceful, and you knew from that second that you would be alright.

"That's the Maze." You had turned to face a blond boy, one with a limp and a slight accent that tinged his words the same stilted gold as a piece of bronze. "The Maze?" The boy had nodded sagely. "You're in the Glade now, greenie. The Maze keeps us stuck in here." You had nodded again, and the boy apparently took pity on you, softening his tone even more, folding it up into a more peaceable sound. "I'm Newt, by the way. It's nice to meet you."

You had started for the usual greeting, the fine, thank you, and I'm- but the problem was that you couldn't remember your own name. No place, no history, no name. It's like you were a blank canvas, but one that had once held the most brilliant of landscapes if you could only remember it. Newt had clicked his tongue softly. "You won't remember it, love. It'll take a while before your name comes back to you. Don't worry, everyone forgets." You had stared at him. "Where are we? I know it's the Glade, but where is it?"

Newt had shrugged. "Nobody knows. We all just showed up here, one at a time, with no memory or anything except the shirt on our backs. You can ask all the questions you want, but we won't have any answers." He had looked at you sideways then. "Actually, don't ask all the questions. We told that to Chuck-" he points to a young boy with a mop of curly brown hair, "-and he took us too literally. Don't think we slept for a week. All we heard was questions."

You bite back a laugh. "Sounds good, Newt. I'll keep my questions in the single digits." Newt flashes you a smile that seems as bright as the sun. "I like you already. I think we're going to get along very well." If only he had known how true that would be. If only you had known, so that you could stay away.

You're not sure you can remember quite when you realized you loved him. In the end, the exact date doesn't really matter. It happened, you couldn't shake it, and it felt like the most beautiful mistake you might ever make. In the Glade, you couldn't count on anything- not the weather, not the people, not even the Maze, which changed each night. When Newt had told you how he felt one night by the campfire, you were sure that it would haunt you for the rest of your life, that it was too good to be true or too good to last.