"Look, I don't know if this is a good idea."
Newt held the syringe in his hand, inspecting it with great suspicion. Clara hung back, her eyes on the quiet girl besides Thomas.
The girl's name was Teresa. Clara hadn't spoken to her just yet. After she and Thomas came down from the tower, they had gone straight to Alby with Newt, with Clara trailing behind out of sheer curiosity.
Teresa was letting Thomas do all the talking - which Clara didn't blame her for. The boy was both persuasive, and much less intimidated by the uneasy blonde in front of them.
Clara moved then, holding her hand out to see the syringe, and then tilting it so she could peer at it carefully. It simply just looked like a syringe; but its contents were unknown.
"We don't know why this is here, why it came up with you," Newt gestured to Teresa. "It could kill him."
"He's already dying." Thomas pointed out in exasperation.
"He's right Newt. You were talking about Banishing him, remember?"
Newt's eyes flooded with guilt, but that wasn't Clara's intention.
"Look, if this works, if this cures him, then we've found a way for people to survive Griever Stings. We won't have to Banish everyone that gets Stung."
Newt stopped then, and really considered it. When he flicked through all the people they had to Banish thanks to Griever Stings, he knew that trying the syringe on Alby was worth it.
"Alright. Do it."
Newt held the syringe out to Thomas, despite the presence of the three Med-jacks in the room. Clara - one of the three - barely knew anything medical related, but she'd still have been a better choice to do it than Thomas.
The dark haired boy advanced towards Alby nervously, clenching the syringe in his fist as he prepared to use it. Suddenly Alby - previously still and unconscious - had surged back to life with some unwarranted anger.
Alby's fingers latched on Thomas' shirt and tugged him closer threateningly. The other was immediately taken off guard, finding himself helplessly trapped.
"You're not supposed to be here! Why are you here?" He yelled at Thomas in growls, despite the boy being inches from him.
As Alby began to thrash around, still snarling and trying to grab at Thomas, the bystanders in the room were forced to intervene. Clara's hands wrapped around Thomas' arm, tugging him away and then trying to unfurl Alby's fingers from his arm.
"Get the syringe!" Thomas' desperate shout to Teresa was only just audible over the rest of the chaos.
Once Clara had freed him from the grip of the leader, she yanked him back so he was safely in her grip. Teresa stabbed the syringe into Alby's skin, and the boy instantly exhaled in relief. His eyelids dropped and then fluttered closed, and once again he was still.
Clara only just refrained from nervously laughing as everything descended into silence. Teresa raked her hands through her hair, sighing shakily. Thomas shuffled uncomfortably, and Newt's eyes were still trained on Alby.
"You keep on getting into trouble." Clara mumbled lowly to Thomas.
He shook his head, biting back an anxious smile. "Would you believe me if I said I was trying not to?" He replied at the same quiet volume.
The girl only shook her head in response, the same sort of nervous smile tugging at her lips. They seemed to have the same reaction to the awkward situation; the desire to laugh in order to play off how intense the previous events were.
"From now, someone has to be watching him, all the time. We are not leaving him alone."
Everyone agreed with Newt's demands, but no one had a chance to respond before Gally appeared from the doorway. He had a guarded expression on his face, as if suspicious of something, but Clara knew that he couldn't have known what just happened with Alby.
"Greenie, it's sundown." He said sternly, although the girl could tell he was relishing the chance to lock Thomas away. "Time to hit the Slammer."
Thomas was clearly wishing someone would object to this; but Newt and Clara both remained silent. After a moment, he moved after Gally dejectedly, glancing quickly to the blonde girl before disappearing from the hut.
"You should all get some sleep." Newt offered, sighing. "I can take watch on Alby."
"Newt, you're not a Med-jack. It's fine, I can-"
"-He's my friend, Clara."
Newt spoke firmly but gently, and the girl didn't need him to say a single thing more for her to understand how much he wanted to look after Alby. They had been best friends for years. She wasn't going to object.
"Okay." She replied softly, patting his shoulder gratefully.
Clara turned to Clint, Jeff and a cautiously looking Teresa, gesturing for them to all leave with the prospect of sleeping. Her fellow Med-jacks immediately headed off towards their hammocks, hushed whispering barely audible when they were only a few feet away, but Teresa didn't seem to know what to do.
Of course, she didn't have a room yet. She only woke up today.
"Hi." Clara greeted awkwardly, cringing at her terrible social skills.
Teresa didn't seem to see it the same way; instead she smiled thankfully at the girl's words to her, saying the same in reply. She didn't need to say she felt a little lost for Clara to realise it.
"You can take my room." She pointed over to the Homestead. "Up the stairs, first door on the right."
"You don't have to-"
"-It's fine, really. I'll sleep in a hammock." Clara reassured the girl, who gave her a sheepish but grateful smile. "And uh-"
She looked down to her feet then, trying to find the right way to word her thoughts. She wanted to know what the girl knew; but she understood that Teresa might not want to tell her.
She doesn't know her. She knows Thomas - somehow - and so he might be the only person she trusts.
"I don't know what Thomas told you about me- Not that he told you anything! There's not really anything to know-"
Clara was beginning to ramble, and Teresa couldn't help but become amused by her attempts to save herself from embarrassment. She was failing, but Teresa didn't really mind.
"-I know you're the only one he told about the visions. He trusts you."
Clara felt her stomach twist nervously then, as Teresa watched her with intrigued eyes. The blonde girl knew that Thomas considered her a friend as she did him; but until then she didn't really realise how much he considered her to be his friend.
Excluding Teresa, he trusted her and only her with information that could potentially get him Banished to the Maze (although Clara imagined if Gally got one whiff of the visions, he'd just kill Thomas himself).
"Do you remember anything?" She asked Teresa in a low voice, trying to avoid any eavesdroppers hearing.
The girl paused, looking conflicted. It was after a moment, when she told herself that Thomas trusted Clara completely, that she felt she could open up to the girl.
"All I remembered was water, and the feeling of drowning. All these people looking at me. And this woman telling me that WCKD is good."
"Just like Thomas heard." Clara confirmed to herself.
"And I had the syringes as well, I don't know why."
A few Gladers passed by then, all Slicers, and Clara stopped herself from speaking again.
"Good night, Teresa." She gave the girl a pointed stare, to say it wasn't safe to talk about it anymore, and the girl took the hint.
She bided Clara good night in return, and made her way off to the Homestead. Instead of turning to the hammocks, Clara headed over towards the Slammer with a lit torch to guide the way.
Yeah, she had got most of the information from Teresa, but there was no harm in talking to Thomas too.
Thomas' eyes flitted up to Clara as she settled down on the grass in front of him, letting her torch rest against the bars of the Slammer. He shuffled nervously, a soft pink tint falling over his cheeks.
Neither one of them spoke for a few prolonged moments, and Clara felt her cheeks heating up. She realised she'd have to break the tension somehow.
"Listen, Greenie," Clara exhaled deeply, but she had to continue before Thomas argued that he wasn't the Greenie anymore. "I've seen every epiphany, every loss, and every shucking discovery in this place."
She had his attention now. He watched her face carefully in the flickers of light the torch was casting over her. She focused her eyes on the ground, choosing not to look at him as she told him,
"But I've never seen anyone as curious as you."
It was a simple confession. Not particularly telling - it was obvious to everyone how curious Thomas was - but to him it was more than just the sentence itself. She was telling him that she noticed him more than any of the other Greenies.
"I know you can get us out of this place."
"And if I can't?"
Thomas' shoulders slumped as he considered the worst case scenario. Clara only frowned at the boy, upset by his pessimism.
"We can't think about everything that could go wrong. We just need to focus on trying to do what's right, and trying to get out of this place. I believe in you, Thomas."
She was rambling now, starting to spill every thought she had about Thomas and escaping the Maze. Inside, she was nervous she was saying too much, but on the outside, she couldn't stop herself.
"From the moment I met you, I knew you weren't like the other Greenies we had. You were different. I knew you were gonna change things, and I was right."
Thomas' lips were parted in awe as he watched her intently, clinging on to every word as though his life depended on it. In that moment, he realised he was completely gone for her.
"And I know I'm right about you getting us out of here."
"Thank you."
That was the only thing Thomas could find himself to say in reply. He was mesmerised by everything she said, and the way she believed in him more than he believed in himself. He knew he had to say something else, anything else.
"I'm so lucky to have a friend like you."
Maybe saying nothing would've been better than that.
Friend, obviously.
The thing is, it wasn't the appropriate moment for Clara to be thinking about how Thomas just (accidentally) friend zoned her. But what was she thinking about?
Thomas (accidentally) friend zoning her.
A cough sounded from behind, and Clara had never felt so grateful for an interruption.
"I should go," She murmured, glancing back to see Gally watching them both from back towards the Deadheads and the many hammocks tied up to the trees for the Gladers. "Gally's death glaring me."
"That's probably a good idea, then."
There was an awkward silence. Thomas mentally scolded himself for even opening his mouth.
"Oh, um, before I go, I have a weird question."
Thomas' eyebrows furrowed in confusion at the girl's awkward words. She thought it over, deciding that he was probably nice enough to agree, but he'd still probably think she was strange.
"Since you're not using it, can I sleep in your hammock?"
Luckily for Clara, Thomas was fine with it. He was a little weirded out at first, but when she explained she let Teresa sleep in her room so she had to go somewhere else, he was happy to offer his hammock up. And he was in the Slammer, so he wasn't needing it himself.
She had a surprisingly good night's sleep. She woke up to hushed whispering and a few pairs of eyes on her, considering she wasn't sleeping in her own bed, but they weren't hard to ignore.
The first thing she remembered in the morning was that Minho and Thomas would be going out into the Maze with the cannister. She could see the Keeper of the Runners eating an apple near the entrance of the Maze, waiting for the doors to open up.
She watched him for a moment, as he finished eating the apple and chucked the core into a bush, and then disappeared herself into the Homestead to grab some food. She had no idea where Thomas was - but she knew he was overly keen to escape the Slammer.
"You two need a minute?"
Clara could hear Minho's obnoxiously loud voice from a mile away. She couldn't deny it, she was curious to find out what he was talking about, but it wasn't likely that she'd be so happy with the answer.
Thomas and Teresa were engaged in conversation, a few feet away from where Clara just emerged from the Homestead to come face to face with an impatient looking Minho. Thomas was wearing a Runner pack, his hands on his hips, looking annoyingly attractive as he said something to crack a smile on Teresa's lips.
Clara tried her best not to frown at the scene, but Minho picked up on her obvious aura of jealousy, choosing not to mention it for her benefit. And his benefit, when he really thought about it. She'd only punch him if he brought it up.
"Good luck out there." The girl said, letting herself think of that instead of Thomas and Teresa.
"Thanks." He replied, his hand gripping the cannister as though it was the thing giving them all hope. "We could find something, but don't get your hopes up; we've been disappointed before."
Clara's mind flickered back through the many times they thought they got somewhere with the Maze, only to be brutally corrected that they hadn't. She was begging that this time would be different.
"Come on Greenie, we're losing daylight!" Minho then yelled out to Thomas, giving Clara an exasperated look, to which she smiled half-heartedly.
Thomas finished up his conversation with Teresa quickly before jogging over to Minho. Clara waved them both off and allowed herself to continue with her day as normal; trying not to think about the two Runners.
It was a relatively boring day. Clara had to stitch up two Slicers and bandage up Gally after he managed to hit himself with a hammer. But apart from that, she had nothing to do.
She would be lying if she said she didn't think about what Thomas and Minho were potentially discovering. Minho telling her not to get her hopes up only made her anticipate their return even more. And when they did come back, a bit too late for comfort, Clara was lucky to say she didn't regret being hopeful.
"What the hell happened?" Newt asked, bemused.
The sound of the Maze changing was audible throughout the Glade, earlier than usual, and louder too. They gathered it wasn't something to be worried about, but then again, the Creators could easily surprise them.
"We've found something." Clara felt her heart soaring. "A new corridor, we think it could lead us out."
"Seriously?" She countered, in awe filled disbelief.
"Yep." Minho confirmed. "This door opened, led to something I haven't seen before. It has to be where the Grievers go in the day time."
Chuck fell into step with the two Runners, Newt, and Clara. His eyes were wide with panic and his expression painted with horror.
"So you've found the Grievers' home. And you want us to go inside it?"
The girl found herself chuckling at the younger boy. Thomas' amusement was also present on his face as he replied, "Their way in here, is our way out."
"Or, there could be a bunch of Grievers on the other side." Gally said, in that annoying tone he always used to argue with Thomas. "The reality is, Thomas doesn't have a clue what he's done, as always!"
Instead of brushing off the boy's remarks, Thomas whirled back to reply. Clara instantly saw the potential danger in the encounter; the two boys yelling at each other, worked up over escaping the Maze like usual.
Just as she was about to cut in, Clara found herself distracted by something in the corner of her eye. It was the Med-jack hut, and she could just see Jeff and Clint leaning over Alby's bed as if something had happened. As if Alby was awake.
Then she saw it. The figure on the bed, flinching away from Jeff's outstretched hand. Alby moved into a sitting position, hunched over and facing away from the bright outside of the Glade.
Alby's awake.
"Guys," She said quietly, turning back to the scene that had escalated considerably.
No one noticed her speaking.
Thomas and Gally were on the verge of screaming in each other's faces, whilst everyone watched on intently. Clara rolled her eyes, fed up with it all, and tried to gain their attention again.
Failing for the second time, the girl came to the conclusion that she'd have to be quite loud to be heard over the two idiots arguing back and forth in front of them all.
"HEY!"
Clara was almost dumbfounded with how loud her voice came out. Gally jumped from surprise, making the ghost of a smirk pass her lips.
Everyone was watching her then, expectantly awaiting some sort of announcement. She almost forgot why she spoke in the first place.
"I think Alby's awake."
Only a few minutes later did Clara find herself in front of the boy along with Thomas, Newt, Minho and the Med-jacks. Teresa also accompanied them there, having shown interest in joining them in their job for her role in the Glade.
"He hasn't spoken yet?" Clara asked Clint and Jeff gently, eyeing Alby.
When the two boys both shook their heads to confirm, she turned back to look at him. He was turned away from them all, hanging his head and focusing his eyes on the floor. Creeping closer to him, around the side of the bed, Clara could see his eyes were void of any emotion.
"Are you okay Alby?" She asked softly, hesitating to approach him but eventually deciding to sit on the bed beside him.
He flinched, but then looked up to instead look at her. She didn't say anything else, only searched his expression, and Thomas found his way beside her to tell Alby of their discovery.
"We may have found a way out of this place. We could escape the Maze, go outside."
Before the Changing, this would've invoked celebration in their leader. But now, there was nothing. In fact, he looked upset.
With trembling lips, Alby turned to face Thomas. The fear was present in his face as he began to speak for the first time since waking up, a small tear escaping his eye.
"We can't leave this place. You don't understand. They're not going to let us go."
Clara couldn't quite comprehend what Alby was telling them. He was obviously talking about the Creators, but why, that's what she couldn't understand.
Why would they do any of this?
"What do you mean?"
"I can remember," Alby broke off, more tears slipping down his cheeks, choked up on his words.
"What? What can you remember?"
Clara rested her hand on Thomas' arm in an attempt to stop him badgering Alby. It was clear the boy was traumatised and exhausted, and the other's constant questions were not helping this.
"Thomas, please." She muttered to him quietly.
Alby didn't respond for a few long moments, but when he did, Clara could feel her heart falling to the floor.
"You."
It was becoming increasingly more obvious that Thomas had some part to play in it all, and Alby was only confirming it. Thomas shifted uncomfortably, avoiding everyone's stare on him, and only watching the other boy in return.
"Why are you here? You were always their favourite. Why would you do this?"
Alby begun to cry, hugging his knees to his chest and rocking himself back and forth. There was something wrong with him; something the Serum from Teresa's pocket clearly did.
It may have cured him from the Griever Sting, but it had some sort of psychological effect on Alby. One that worried Clara about Thomas. Because it all seemed to lead back to him.
The one thing she couldn't figure out was: why him? Why is Thomas so important?
Unfortunately, Alby's ominous words weren't the most worrying thing to have happened that day. You see, only mere minutes later, the Gladers realised that the Maze doors hadn't closed for the night.