forgiveness and fate ☾ the maze runner

chapter 3 {resolving the awkward}

WHEN HE AWOKE, SHE DID TOO. He told her about the letter he read the evening before. As expected, Thomas started to tear up slightly, recalling what he read from the letter. She comforted him, sat beside him, and she put her shorter arm around him, not entirely tucking him into her arms, but it was good enough.

Thomas felt like it would be an invasion of Newt's privacy, if he showed Teresa the actual letter, which is why he only wanted to talk about it. But she completely understood.

Him and her sit on the dry sand, watching the waves. Unknowingly, Teresa's removed her arm from Thomas. They're mesmerised, and know they'll (and everyone else) never get sick of the waves. It's comforting. Particularly to him. They remind him that fire can't take over the place, like they did when they were on top of that building. It reminds him that Teresa is still here, beside him - not dead. It reminds him of freedom.

But then it reminds him of the time he was getting every memory removed from his brain.

It reminds him of pain. The suffering.

It reminds him of WICKED.

It reminds him of the past, and its horrors. It reminds him of the stung Gally at the time, and how he tried to kill him. It reminds him of how Chuck got killed instead, saving him.

Then he see's all the bodies himself and Aris found in the WICKED facility they were put in, after the Maze. Then he can remember the anxiety and the paranoia, he felt the whole time they were there.

Then he see's the infected Winston, dying, begging to die there and then. He remembers how shocking it was, seeing someone everyone knew properly, slowly dying from the disease. . .someone they knew actually got infected. He remembers how confused he was, how they all felt - they were all supposed to be Immune.

Then, Thomas is reminded of Newt.

"Thomas?" her gentle and concerned voice filters through his thoughts.

He snaps out of it. "Yeah?"
"I-I was just checking to see if you were still here" she states, clearly shocked that she managed to get him out of the trance he was seemingly in.
"Oh. Well, I am" he smiles a little.

She nods, and chuckles a little bit. "Good to know"

Teresa can hear more and more people getting up, and moving about. She turns her back slightly, to see Minho and the others stood up. She quickly turns back to face the ocean.

The guilt burns her like molten metal, every time she see's him. She feels so guilty. She wasn't in charge - Ava Paige was - yet she helped in the betrayal that resulted in Minho getting captured, along with the others.

Teresa did what she thought was right. And then, she was guaranteed everyone's safety, particularly Group A's, if they surrendered. But the fact that they turned against her (and she doesn't blame them) WICKED would no longer keep them safe.

She thinks she was kidding herself at the time - she was in a vulnerable state, having more and more memories coming back. Why would've you thought that WICKED would've kept them all safe? They were always lying, she thinks.

That's always going to be something that she'll never know how to feel about. She doesn't know if  she can forgive herself. Yes, she  did it to keep them all safe and away from Cranks. She died it to help find a cure, to stop everyone dying. She did it for her mother. She did it for the millions of others. She did it for the other little girls' who could be in the same position as she was when she was much younger.