Dandelion Gone (COMPLETED)

15 Years Later...

Lee watched the man intently.

"Newt was a runner then, he was good at it, too. Until, he couldn't handle it,"

"What do you mean?" Lee lifted his head.

"He had a limp in his left leg. 'How?' you ask, well, one day, he climbed up one of the walls on his route and he jumped. But a vine caught his ankle and stopped him from hitting the ground too hard. He got out of it badly injured, with a broken leg," Minho looked back to the boy.

"What did my mom do?"

"Jessica, she was the one who found him," he turned back, "Her heart was shattered, she didn't say it, but it was easy to tell. She cried for weeks, one week, she ran into the maze and didn't come back until the morning after. She became suicidal. Your mom wasn't always a mystery. Until the day she found your dad, she laughed, smiled, joked. Sometimes she would dance around the Glade, or sing so loud that it would echo off the walls," Minho's lips began to curl, "She had a beautiful voice,"

"So," Lee turned his body toward the man, "After she found dad, what happened?"

Minho frowned, "She changed. She no longer laughed, smiled, or joked. She didn't dance or sing. We no longer heard her voice. The only sounds from her were her sobs at night, which we pretended not to hear,"

"Why?"

"Because she put a brave face on. We didn't want to bring her down some more," Minho turned to him.

Lee nodded and paused, "How did they die?"

Minho's breath hitched in his throat as he remembered. The wails from his best friend, the pain in his heart as he stared at Newt's lifeless body, the failed attempts to assure Jess that it wasn't her fault.

"Your dad became a Crank and attacked your mom. Out of self defense, she put a knife in his chest, but she didn't mean to," he sighed, "As for your mom, she passed during giving birth,"

Lee's face fell and he looked away, "She died while she was having me,"

Minho nodded, "If she made it, she wouldn't have known what to do with you,"

Lee looked back up.

"Jess wasn't the mother type. It shocked everyone when we found out she was pregnant. She was puking a lot when your dad died, but we didn't know why. Turns out, her and Newt made their selves a miracle that looks exactly like them," Minho smiled.

"Hey, what are we talking about?"

The two glanced up at the voice and smiled upon seeing Aris and Thomas walk over. They had grey'd more, too, and wrinkles cut through their skin.

Stopping at the two, Aris smiled down at his nephew, "Hey, Lee,"

"Hey, Uncle A," Lee interlocked his fingers and rested them on his shins.

"We're talking about his parents," Minho glanced between the two.

Aris' face fell and Thomas patted his shoulder.

"Minho was telling me about their life in the maze, their history, their deaths," Lee looked up at them.

Aris tensed.

Thomas' eyebrows raised, "Ah, I see. Jessica was a brave woman who cared deeply for her friends, although she didn't show it often," he sat on the other side of Minho.

Aris smiled finally, "When we were kids, she found this baby bird on the sidewalk. She named her Nelly. Well, she found out that its wing was bloody and it needed help. Instead of telling our parents, she made a makeshift nest and put it in a bookshelf in her room and nursed it back to health. After a week or two, she set the bird free," he kneeled next to Lee and sat down, "One fall, the bird came back with its injured baby and left it with her, came back a week later, the baby was healthy. Nelly came back every year at the same time just to see Jess. That's the happiest I remember her ever being,"

Tears began to roll down Aris' face thinking of the memory. Lee rubbed his back until his uncle smiled at him. Lee smiled back, but began to glance around them, shifting in his seat.

Minho furrowed his eyebrows, "What's wrong, kid?"

"I just feel someone watching me,"

The three men chuckled.

"What?" Lee furrowed his eyebrows.

"That's Newt and Jessica," Thomas shot him a smile, "They're watching you,"

Lee smiled and looked around again, biting his lip and hesitated before speaking, "Mom, dad, I don't know where you two are standing exactly but, if that really is you, hi, I'm your son, Lee, nice to meet you,"

The four laughed as they heard a bird sing a sweet tune as a reply.

"Was that my parents, too?" Lee looked up at Thomas.

"That was Jess, Lee," Aris nudged him, "She says hello,"

"Alright," Minho stood, dusting off his pants, "Sun's nearly down, we should get to our tents,"

The three nodded and stood along with him, laughing as they walked away. Minho stared at the horizon a second before the sun dropped underneath it.

"I wish you two were here to see this, you guys would've loved it," he whispered.

Minho turned around and faced the name rock, smiling at the couple watching Lee walk away. The wind blew her brown hair out of her face, allowing him to see the deep blue eyes he once looked into every day. Next to her, stood the same pair of eyes Lee had, the same shaggy hair, and facial features. Their hands gripped in each others as if they were scared to let go. They turned back to their friend.

Minho smiled, "I promised you two once and I'll do it again. I won't let any bad happen to him, you have my word,"

Jessica smiled and looked up Newt, who smiled back down to her. Minho watched as they disappeared out of thin air. For once in fifteen years, tears threatened to spill. He wanted his friends to be with him. He understood that they had to leave, but he wished they didn't. A salty tear rolled down his cheek when the nostalgic breeze of the wind reminded him of the Glade as it nipped at his nose. For once, he truly felt at home.