Free (Maze Runner fanfic Newtmas Newt x Thomas)

Chapter 31

October

"So they're letting me take my exams in January." Newt said, going straight to the sofa and undoing his school tie, chucking it across the room.

"Hey, we're not the only ones who live here you know. Why do you want to take them early?"

"Because I'm excelling so much, they said I should have just gone to the year above but I'm sticking around to get the qualifications. They did offer to bump me up but I said no."

"You're taking everything in January?"

"Just about. Did you know I was fluent in French? I had no idea! Am I part French? Did WICKED teach us?"

"Probably. They may have messed with your brain and.. somehow made you fluent in another language, or your memory is brilliant, but I'd go with both. Guess that's why you got made a runner, huh?"

"Please don't remind me of that. Anyway, I'm only taking English language, maths, and all three sciences.. and French; but the rest I'm taking in the summer either because I actually don't excel that much in them, or they have coursework."

"Well that's great! It'll give you more free time to focus on the others, and maybe even study next year's stuff. Any idea on what you like most yet?"

"I've been asking around, and I keep telling myself no, but my brain is saying be a doctor but.. I'm not immune like you. I love science, not the robotic kind of physics stuff like you, but chemicals and the body and everything."

"You could go into research? You could make a new cure! Maybe not for the darkness, but something else? I don't know, there's got to be plenty of jobs out there in medicine that aren't dangerous to you."

"I mean it's either that or I go into teaching, which isn't that inviting to me; and while I've technically got experience in leading people, I'm not going to become a manager of anything."

"You were a keeper in the glade."

"I know, but that was only because I'd been there two bloody years. In the beginning everyone took over what they considered the important jobs since there was so few of us. We just became leaders by default once the numbers started growing. We played to our strengths so after the.. incident, I became a gardener."

"Do you ever miss running?"

"I don't really want to talk about it." Newt sank himself into the sofa and sighed. "We're getting off topic. I want to be a doctor, but I don't know if that's safe for me. I got the darkness twice for god's sake, and if doctors have to look after patients with it or patients that are hiding it, I don't want it again. Like cancer used to be a couple hundred years ago, it was practically a death sentence but now it's almost eradicated because we can cure it."

"Sadly for you, you won't be around in 200 years."

"Oh yeah? Try me." Thomas laughed. "C'mere."

Newt raised his arm and waved in his general direction to bring him over. Thomas put down what he was doing and came over, taking his hand on the way before he sat down. He sat down beside him and pulled Newt closer so that his hands were in his lap. "Maybe I should go into computing, all the code and stuff like you."

"You really like the technical stuff, huh?" Thomas kissed the side of his head. "Smart little thing."

"You're working with robotics and you don't even have degrees."