hold me close, but not too close~newtmas

Chapter 13: Shifts and Sobriety

PRESENT

The Safe Haven

Thomas

Two days passed, and Teresa and her crew hadn't returned.

Forty-eight hours; that's what Vince had given them, and the search party were ready to dispatch.

Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty minutes spent anxious and stressed, two thousand, four hundred of those by Newt's side, helpless as his mind worked its way to consciousness and flinching each time his body jerked, pits forming in stomachs as he shed a tear.

And now, Thomas stood at the end of the gravel path, scanning for the unmissable army trucks rolling into view.

He had been reluctant to leave Newt only to stand watch when he could trust someone else to do this job – Vince or Jorge, even Aveline or Terry.

Vince kept asking, "do you want to send out the search party?" and Thomas kept replying, "give them five more minutes. They'll be here." Because he knew they would come back – late or not, they'd come back. They had to.

"Do you really think they're coming?" Aveline asked in a small voice.

"I know it," Thomas said, his bleary eyes trained on the horizon.

Aveline said nothing else, more to avoid upsetting herself than Thomas. She believed him, and he knew she did, but Thomas couldn't help but wonder if he believed himself. Was he being too optimistic? Was it too much to ask for one good thing to happen amidst the chaos? Amidst the complications and conflicting emotions?

The answer: Possibly.

Maybe Thomas should wish for something else, something easier to command – like the weather. Could it rain so there wouldn't be a shortage of shower water?

Thomas was pulled from his thoughts by a holler. Vince was pointing in the direction that Thomas was staring, but, somehow, he had become too distracted to notice the army trucks speeding down the gravel path.

He would have smiled – laughed, even – if shotguns weren't sounding from the back of the trucks. They came to a hard stop, ignitions turning off immediately and Teresa hopping out of the passenger seat followed by Bianca from the driver's seat.

"We got most of them," Teresa shouted as she aimed her gun, "but the rest of the pack followed us. They're fast."

As two dozen Cranks hurtled down the path, Thomas went into autopilot.

"Draw your weapons," he instructed the bystanders. "Don't let them into the Safe Haven."

Bullets were fired like rain hailing down, the loud banging noises ringing in Thomas' ears. His aim moved from Crank to Crank, taking them down in no more than two shots. They were closing in, and those with weapons (sixteen, if Thomas counted correctly) were being pushed back.

Gally and Minho appeared by Thomas' side with their weapons, followed by Harriet, Sonya and Aris. Gally chucked his spear rather impressively as it pierced its way through two Cranks, stopping them long enough for Harriet to shoot them.

"Nice aim," she said.

From the corner of his eye, Thomas saw Minho biting back a smirk, likely preventing himself from making a somewhat inappropriate comment.

"How's Newt?" Teresa asked as she lowered her gun, the last of the Cranks going down by somebody else's hand.

"He's alive," Thomas said, his statement coming off as deadpan. "He's been trying to wake up, I think."