Hope for Us (NEWT) [COMPLETED]

Ch 25 - Maybes

~A/N:

Brace yourselves, people. I've got a warning for ya:

SAD NEWT

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Later in the night, Newt had fallen asleep while sitting on a chair beside Sara's med-bed. His head rested on the empty spot of the bed between her shoulder and head as his hand was loosely clutching hers.

The sound of footsteps in the hut jerked him awake, and his eyes cleared up to see Clint and Jeff approaching the bed with somber looks on their faces.

"Well?" Newt asked groggily.

"For now, she's stable. She's in a coma, so we don't know how long it'll be until she wakes up. If she does," Clint answered.

"If? Bloody if?" The poor boy's chest rose and fell in a quick pace, his panic increasing. His eyes shined with a certain fear, unknown to anyone who was used to his usually collected state of mind.

Jeff tried to calm him, but it was difficult. "Newt, it's hardly even believable she was found alive. She's got a broken rib, and at least three more are cracked. She got a concussion, she was stabbed in the stomach, and her skin was slit in multiple places. And all the bruising—she was nearly beat up to death, man."

At each mention of a new injury, Newt's chest tightened, and he gripped his hair with both hands. He stood up and started pacing back and forth as Jeff continued talking.

"She's lucky. One more centimeter in her abdomen and an organ would've been pierced," he said, and Newt's head snapped to look at Sara's still form. "And we don't have the training or the supplies to treat severe internal bleeding. It's a miracle she survived," said Jeff, shaking his head.

Newt let out a quivering sigh. "This is all my fault. If only I would've checked up on her in the kitchen earlier..."

Clint patted Newt's shoulder. "It's not your fault. And trust me, I know you both grew really close, but that doesn't mean that whatever happens to her immediately casts the blame on you," he assured the blond boy.

"I don't care," he said, shaking Clint's hand off his shoulder. "I couldn't even protect her from being attacked in the Glade—a completely enclosed place, with a bunch of teenage slintheads as suspects," he growled. "She was basically left to die slowly, and I didn't even notice until Frypan mentioned she went missing!"

❀❀❀

After tending to the comatose girl—now bandaged up to the core—the Med-jacks left the room to let Newt stay with her.

He sat back in his chair and started stroking her hair. Some of it was matted together in solid clumps from the blood that had dried.

Although the girl couldn't see him, his gaze was almost pleading, as if he could emit energy that would stimulate her senses and let her open her eyes to meet his. To make her smile at him as her cheeks turned a rosy color. To move her hand up to dry his tears and caress his face. To open her mouth to tell him that she was going to be okay. To make her respond to the kiss that he gingerly placed on her lips.

But no.

Her eyes remained shut, and her face was molded into an idle, deathlike expression. The natural color of her skin was nonexistent. A ghastly figure lying before him, that he barely even recognized from all the cuts and bruises. And her hands, unable to return the firm grip of his own hands.

His face felt empty, longing for her soothing touch. His recurrent tears, unable to be stopped by her hand and instead, were stopped by the fabric of her shirt as they fell from his face. Her mouth, unmoving, silent, with no words of reassurance for the boy who'd been broken one too many times. The kiss, unresponsive, only left a trace of metallic taste on his mouth from her blood.

"Sara," he whispered softly as he maintained his hold on her limp hand. "Love, I... I know you can't hear me." He struggled with his words as his lips trembled.

He tried to calm himself before continuing. "But... I wanted to say that I love you. I love you, and I'm terrified. Just earlier today, that's exactly what I wanted to tell you... and I was like, 'I'll tell her later,' since we didn't have much time. And the 'later' came to this."

He took a long pause as he furrowed his eyebrows, leaning closer to her face.

"It's incredible how bloody unpredictable things are, you know, Sara? One day, we're all well, and the next, who knows?" His gaze traveled across her lying figure, a blanket covering her body right up to her midsection.

"I don't care how long it takes; I'll wait for you. I know you're still with me. You're the strongest person I've ever known, and I know you'll be alright. We all will, when you wake up," he said, his grip on her hand tightening as the anger rose in his chest.

"And even though there are shanks out there who don't see it that way, it doesn't matter. Because you have a few others that do care. And that's enough. I know Minho won't crack another joke until you wake up. He's a really good friend of yours," he managed to laugh a little bit. Laughter that was only filled with pure sadness.

"Alby, although his bitter self tries to hide it, he cares about you too. Zart, he's always a supportive shank. Clint and Jeff too. They're doing whatever they can to save your life. And Chuck..." he shook his head as another tear fell, "...that poor boy's been worried sick about you. He came earlier to see you... you should've seen the look on his face."

Newt struggled to open his heart out despite knowing she wasn't even listening. "And then there's me. I care about you more than I have ever cared about anything else. I never even bloody cared about myself. But now... I need you. And I love you. So please... don't leave me," he sobbed, his whole frame shaking with each heartbreaking cry. He rested his head over her hands, clutching them and repeatedly kissing them.

Nothing could settle the fear and anguish battling for dominance in his body. And he would never allow anyone to see him so defeated. 

The following day, he would take his seat on one of the chairs at the Gathering and begin investigating to find whoever was responsible. Even with this newfound determination, Newt was tired. Tired of everything going wrong in his life.

Life was always unfair. Was there even a limit?

After enduring his own period of brokenness, where he hated everything and everyone, where he hated the person he was forced to become, now this.

When all he wanted to do was end the suffering, no hope lurking in any corner of the paths of life—the one thing that brought back that lost hope, gave him a new purpose to live for, promised a better life than the one he was living, was now being stripped away from him. Torn from his fierce and desperate grip to keep her with him.

Why would life grant him such a precious treasure, only to have it ruthlessly taken from him? He would give anything to take her place.

Newt silently promised to himself that if she didn't survive, he wouldn't either. If she died, he would go with her.

But if she lived... then hope would take a whole other meaning to him. Maybe there was more to this story. Maybe the end would be better.

Maybe...

For now, however, all that was left to do was wait.