Questions // Mazerunner

32- In which we jump

Breathing deeply, Maddy closed her eyes. "It's-" Newts voice broke and though Maddy couldn't see him, she knew he was crying. "It's gonna be okay. We're gonna get out." She could only hope he was right and finish what she had started. Opening her eyes, she began to climb.

The ivy was thick and coarse between her fingers, and her feet slipped several times. As she ascended the wall, she kept looking at her hands. Up and up and up. She felt disconnected, like they weren't part of her, like they didn't belong to her. Like they didn't belong here.

Eventually she reached the top, and Newt started to climb. As he climbed, she looked up from her feet for a minute to take in the maze. The monster that kept them trapped. The monster they were going to escape. They were going to escape.

Walls criss-crossed together and apart from each other in a complex dance that made Maddy feel both dizzy and awed. And free. She felt strangely free as she stood, wind whipping her hair around her face. The brown, knotted strands hit her in the cheek, the mouth, the eye. It hurt. Not just her face, but everywhere, but she couldn't feel it, not anymore. Not standing up there on top of the wall, king of the world. Because they were going to get out.

She was going to remember and they were going to get out.

Slowly, Newt hauled himself over the edge and walked to where Maddy was. His path strayed a bit as he walked, from the height or the terror. Or both. "Okay?" His voice sounded small and impossibly childlike against the wild howl of the wind. "You'll be fine. It'll work." Maddy nodded.

It was going to work. It had to work. There was nothing that could go wrong in Maddy's head now. She could feel no pain, and though the wind should have been batting her from side to side, instead she stood resplendent, ready to get out of this hell-pit.

"Are you sure?" She nodded again as a single tear slipped down her cheek, quickly brushed away. "Why are you crying?" She knew that Newt already knew the answer, but he was so wrapped up in his hope to get out, in his misery at being there, that he couldn't see anything but an exit. Whatever that exit may be.

Slowly, she stepped towards the edge. Looking down, her feet seemed massive compared to the tiny floor below her. From up there it only looked like a little jump. One tiny step and she'd be home and dry. But against her better judgement, she turned back round to face Newt.

"I'm sorry but," she started, tears coming faster, harder now, "I'm sorry but I just want to say thank you." Her voice was congested with snot and tears and lack of air from height and it was the most beautiful thing Newt had ever heard.

"Thank you for being there for me when I wasn't there for you, for sticking with me when I was scared and ignored you, for being the best friend I could possibly imagine and," her face was contorted into absolute misery, but her eyes showed only hope and kindness.

"Sorry. Sorry for the things I never said or did, and sorry a thousand times more for all the horrible things I did do. And I know this might not work-" Newt stepped forward towards her, shaking his head. She needed only to look at him to silence him.

"I know this might not work, but if it does then thank you for being here, even if I don't say it later and there's always 'to be continued' right. And if it doesn't work then learn from my mistakes. Don't push away the ones you love the most. And please Newt, please. Get out of here, for me."

So with tears streaming down her sallow cheeks, she took one long look at Newt, offered a weak smile, and before she could even think about it, she took the last quivering step over the edge, and fell.

And she remembered. Just snapshots, blurred by her tears, but memories. Running through the maze, a needle in her arm, a hand in her ears and a voice over and over again, News voice, saying 'It's going to be alright, It's going to be okay."

And then she hit the ground. She could hear Newt's voice , far off in the distance, shouting "Maddy? Maddy, look at me." But she couldn't. It hurt to turn her head or to move or to anything and then suddenly he was there next to her, holding her, shaking her.

"Maddy, don't leave me. Maddy, I need you." He was shaking with effort, with tears, with the sheer weight of it all. But when the last breath left her body, he couldn't hold back the tears. He wept until his body was parched and there was nothing left to give.

Because just like in his nightmares, Maddy had one eye red and one eye black. Just like in his nightmares.

With a shaky voice and a tear stricken face he uttered the last words he would ever say to her. "It's okay, I'm here. We're going to get out." And then after some hesitation, "I love you."

Then he looked away and stood up and began to climb. Because there was no way in hell he was giving up on her or their 'to be continued.'

A/N I'm so sorry. I nearly cried writing this. I feel actually physically sick. Jesus Christ I'm sorry. 2 chapters left. Thank you.
-Katie ):