To The Shucking End

Chapter 18

"What's she doing?" Newt asked as he sat next to Minho under another concrete structure half buried in sand that they found. The ex-Runner simply passed Newt a water bottle as they both looked up to where Tanya was sitting on a sand dune, her head lolling forwards every once in a while, before she shook herself out of it and the cycle repeated itself.

"She keeps nodding off then waking herself up again. Whatever that nightmare was this morning, I think it spooked her pretty bad," Minho answered. "And I think we both know what it's about."

"Mate, it's not your fault. She knows that. Give her some time, it's only been a few days and she's barely been conscious for it," Newt advised as he handed back the water bottle.

"Could you go check on her? I would but -"

"Sure," he agreed as he stood and made his way over to her. "Want some company?"

Her smile was lazy.

"If it's yours, always."

He sat on the sand dune with her, a leg on either side.

"Do you want to tell me what your nightmare was about this morning?"

She sighed, her hands playing with the sand in front of her.

"I take it you're not going to be as patient this time?"

He shrugged as he joined her, his hand grabbing a fistful.

"Can you blame me for being worried about my friend who tried to fight me in her sleep?"

Her smile was pained this time as she stared down at her hands, beginning to draw patterns that the wind swept away.

"It was Gally," she admitted finally. "That first night WICKED separated me from you guys, was probably the worst night I've had since I woke up in the fucking Box."

One of the many reasons Tanya loved Newt was because of how good of a listener he was, letting her go on until she was ready for his input.

"Seeing it happen was bad enough, I just - I can't do it every time I go to sleep. The only good thing WICKED actually did when they sedated me was take away my nightmares. Sometimes I'll try to exhaust myself so that when I sleep, I'm too tired to dream, but it's not always a foolproof solution. And - and my brain has some very twisted ways of making it all worse. Every time I watch it happen, I think I can save him, but I never can."

Her eyes lifted to look off into the distance.

"I know you guys never understood why I loved him, but he was different with me. He knew how to make me smile, how to make me laugh, how to make me feel safe. I could give you so many reasons and no reasons at all why I loved him. But the least I could've done," she said as her voice broke and her tears soaked into the sand as they dripped off her chin. "Was close his eyes before I left him there. The least I could've done was let him rest in peace. He deserved that much after all he'd done to protect us for so long."

"I know he did," Newt agreed, genuinely meaning it. "He was my friend too. And even though he killed Chuck, he was stung, he didn't mean to."

She supposed that her tears were the first water to hit the sand in a very long time. She was rather surprised that they survived the harsh hot wind that whipped through the Scorch.

"I miss Chuck, I do, and what happened to him wasn't fair, but Gally -"

"But Gally killed him in cold blood. Bottom line," came a new voice and Tanya turned to see Thomas standing near them.

"Thomas -"

"No, Newt," he cut off. "Gally killed Chuck and he wouldn't have thought twice about putting bullets in all of us! You can't possibly believe otherwise."