Tired of Running

18|| comforting embrace

    [ home
/hōm/ (noun)
the place where one lives permanently ]

Harper held Newt's arm tightly, helping him sit ungracefully on the log.  He sighed as he set his makeshift crutches beside him. 
"You okay?"  Newt looked at her, nodding.
Harper frowned and rested her head on his shoulder.  Slowly, she wrapped her arms around his stomach.  He stared at his leg, and the braces on it, then the crutch. "I should have died..." The boy shook his head,
"There's no way I should have made it..."
Harper just ignored his comment and kissed his cheek. She had pushed that day and that incident out of her mind as well as she could; though she would never be able to forget it. Newt just smiled and pulled her closer.

Harper didn't want to remember the details of what happened; she didn't want to be reminded of how she almost lost Newt a month ago. She preferred to focus on the positive— there had been enough negative to last the rest of her life. Newt was here, in the glade, safe, in her arms. Remembering the feelings that crashed over her on that day, she wrapped her arms tightly around Newt and hugged him. Hugs help forget. Hugs comfort.
Newt returned the action, nestling his face in her shoulder. Home. That was something the gladers never really had. Not if the definition of home was a family, a roof over your head and a happy, harmonious life. Newt had learned, here, in the maze, that home had many different meanings. Home to some was this glade; they had adapted to it and accepted it, it was a comfort to them now. Home could be Winston's hammock, or Frypan's cooking, or Minho's map room. Home was where you felt safe, what was familiar, what you knew, trusted— home was where you loved. To Newt, home was a person. To Newt, Harper was home.