They saved Thomas with the syringe.
Unlike any of the Gladers Clara had seen before, Thomas had none of the struggle that usually came with the Changing. It's because he had the mysterious serum straight away, of course, and it was an odd change for the Gladers.
Thomas simply just slept, and no one had to worry for him. It was a strange but relaxing difference to the usual Stings.
When light broke in the Glade that next morning, no one was really sure of what would happen. Thomas was being kept in the Med-jack hut, where Clara was currently watching over him.
She assumed that Newt was busy giving some motivational speech to all the Gladers about how they could push on through and continue trying to find a way out of the Maze. She also assumed that everyone was finishing cleaning up the mess left of the Glade; which she should've been helping with, but instead, she was watching Thomas.
She was nervous.
Thomas already seemed to know more than them without the Changing, so what would he find out after going through it? She had to know as soon as possible. And considering Alby woke up fairly quickly after his dose of the Serum, it couldn't be too long for Thomas.
Her sense of peace was quickly interrupted by the last person she expected to see. Gally.
He was accompanied by two Builders, both of whom looked rather intimidating and serious. For a moment, Clara was nervous something bad had happened, but then she recognised the look in Gally's eyes. He looked amused.
"Can I help you?" She asked patiently, suspiciously watching the boy.
Gally looked to either one of the Builders, nodding stiffly, not responding to the girl. She got up from her seat, her heart picking up in pace as the two boys approached the bedside.
Gally moved to block her from the others' way, and she failed in trying to push past him to reach Thomas. She was receiving no answers, and no words at all in reply.
"Gally what are you doing?"
Clara's fury only increased when Gally continued to not answer her, instead only ensured his Builders picked Thomas up from the bed and began to carry him out of the room. It took the girl punching him in the shoulder to finally get a response.
"What the shuck are you doing?"
For a brief moment, Gally looked quite terrified by her. And then, his expression hardened, and the usual wall he put up as a defence was back.
"I'm taking control."
His look was serious, but Clara found it laughable. She chuckled lightly, but when Gally's expression didn't crack, she stopped immediately.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Thomas is ruining this place. I'm gonna get it back to normal, I'm the only one who can do that!"
Gally is delusional.
"Alby's gone, so Newt is our leader now." Clara said firmly, but Gally only scoffed.
"Newt can't handle it."
With that, Gally marched from the room, and Clara remembered that his Builders had taken Thomas with them. She followed quickly, scanning the Glade and spotting a still unconscious Thomas being locked in the Slammer.
"Why are you locking him up?" She asked in pure frustration.
"I can't trust Thomas not to go out there again. It's a precaution." Gally glanced to her quickly, gauging her anger. "I'll put you in there too if I have to."
Clara then focused her glare on Gally. He shifted uncomfortably, but stared off across the Glade, pretending not to notice her fury.
"You know I'm more helpful to you out here rather than in the Slammer."
And Gally couldn't reply: because he simply knew it was true.
It was only a matter of hours later when Thomas had woken up. He and Teresa were locked up in the Slammer - with everyone else being told that they had to obey Gally or face the same fate.
Clara, Newt, Minho, and Chuck all decided it would be easier to save them if they were on the outside.
The girl was barely listening as her friends chatted amongst themselves. Teresa was also remaining relatively quiet, sitting close to where Thomas was sleeping soundly. Minho and Newt were discussing Gally and how insane he had become, with Teresa contributing to their mindless chatter a few times and Chuck throwing in his funny - yet slightly childish - insults ever so often.
And then Thomas shifted in his sleep.
Their conversation immediately subsided and attention drew to the stirring boy as his eyes fluttered open for the first time in almost a day. The time in which he was passed out had never felt so long of a duration.
"Why the shuck would you Sting yourself?"
She didn't mean to speak so quickly and so harshly; it just slipped out. Less than a moment Thomas had been awake and Clara was already grilling him.
He sat up from his lying position, stretching to better wake himself up, and glancing guiltily to the girl. He shrugged lightly, but his eyes told her the same answer he said before he did it: 'I had to know.'
"Why are we in here?" He countered, not argumentatively but simply with curiosity.
The others may have been confused as to why he didn't answer Clara's question, but the girl could read his eyes easily enough. And he was far too preoccupied with the fact he ended up somewhere entirely different to where he passed out.
"Gally's in charge now. Chucked you both here: gave us a choice to stick with him, or get Banished with you."
"No one's going against that?" Thomas asked dumbfounded.
Clara shrugged sadly. She knew for a fact a large number of the boys weren't in agreement with Gally, but they simply weren't in a position where they could go against him and his intimidating Builders.
"Gally's a lot more convincing when you're not there to argue with him."
Teresa nodded at her sad words, adding that, "He's making everyone believe you're the reason this has all happened."
Thomas shifted in his place, a dark look in his eyes that no one could understand. "Well he's been right about it so far."
Clara felt her heart drop at the implications of his words, and then confusion swelled up inside her. How could he have caused any of this?
"What do you mean?" Minho asked, a little frustrated.
"The Glade, the Maze, everything, it's an experiment. When we were younger, we'd get these challenges to complete. They were doing tests on us."
"Who's they?" Clara asked quietly, finding herself struggling in processing everything already.
"The Creators. WCKD."
Clara could feel a lump forming in her throat. All of it was hitting her too hard and too quickly. The anticipation had only increased more and more over time. Now everything was being revealed, she felt overwhelmed.
"And then a bunch of people went missing. It was hazy, I don't know why, but you guys, you were gone." Thomas explained, focusing his eyes on Newt, then Minho, then Clara. "And one person disappeared every month afterwards."
"Putting us in the Maze." Newt mumbled, leaning forwards on the Slammer bars subconsciously as he thought it over.
"Not everyone."
Thomas' dark expression had become a lot more clear. The troubled look clouding his eyes was beginning to swarm the rest of his face, and his mouth set in a firm line.
"I was one of them: the Creators. Every day, I watched you for years. This whole time; I was right on the other side of things."
Clara could feel the lump in her throat tightening. She stopped herself from blocking out his voice, only imagining how much harder it would be for him going through it.
"You too."
Thomas was blinking at Teresa now, who was staring back at him dumbfounded. It was fairly obvious she was listening to the conversation closely, and the suddenly pale complexion was an indicator that she knew exactly what Thomas said.
"Me?"
He nodded to confirm. "Teresa, this is our fault. We put them here."
"How can that be true?"
"I-I don't know, but I saw it." He replied firmly, and the tears on Teresa's cheeks only dropped faster and more frequently.
"Then why are we here?" Teresa shot back: she was asking all of the questions Clara wanted to know. "If we were working for them, why would they send us here?"
"I don't know."
There were a few long beats of silence, and the only thing audible was the sound of the trees brushing each other in the wind. Thomas was watching Clara thoughtfully, a question bubbling up in his mind over and over, threatening to spill out.
"Do you hate me?"
Clara felt a little startled by the question targeted directly at her, but she instantly shook her head furiously. She could feel everyone else's eyes boring into her, but couldn't bring herself to care.
"No. I could never hate you." She admitted, meeting his soft brown eyes at last, and feeling her heart wrench at his worried expression.
"Alright," Teresa said breezily. "What do we do about Gally?"
It took them a little while to iron out the details of their plan to evade Gally, but they eventually got the gist of what was needed to be done. Gally's Builders were coming to collect Thomas and Teresa shortly, and it was important that those visiting weren't there when they did.
They needed to be ready for their part of the plan.
Newt spotted Clara's pointed look to Thomas from a mile away, suddenly getting up from the floor and stumbling over an excuse to leave. He somehow managed to drag Chuck and Minho with him and neither Thomas nor Clara mentioned how obvious he was about it.
Teresa had curled up against the wall, quickly falling asleep. If they did manage to fulfil their plan, it was a good idea to get some rest beforehand. This is why Clara found herself slightly jealous of the sleeping girl.
But she more so wanted to talk to Thomas alone.
Having already said Teresa's name to try and gauge a reaction from her - they realised she was out like a light switch - Clara was confident no one was listening in. It's not like there was anything particularly secret about it all, but she felt strange about anyone else hearing what they discussed.
"So you remembered it all then, huh?"
Thomas shrugged as he watched Clara slump against the Slammer bars. Her back was to him, but her head was tilted to the side so she could see him mirroring her position on the other side.
"I guess." He responded, a little guarded.
"You don't need to feel guilty, Thomas."
He shifted in his seat then, eyes flickering away from her from the sheer sense of being exposed. Feeling his cheeks reddening, he shrugged exaggeratedly.
"Why shouldn't I?"
"You may remember working for WCKD but you don't know why. You don't know what happened out there, or what they may have said to convince you, or what they promised you. But what I know, is that you're a good person."
Thomas' cheeks reddened again, and this time, a small smile slipped onto his lips. He was forced to look away and to his hands to try and calm the butterflies her soft smile caused in his stomach.
"I know that you worked for WCKD because you truly thought they were good people. There's no other possible reason. And you tried to help us. All of this, it's not on your shoulders."
Thomas was still avoiding Clara's face as she finished speaking. The boy was instead nodding thoughtfully at the ground as she traced patterns into one of the Slammer's bars.
"So don't feel guilty, okay? We all must've been different before this place, but you clearly cared for people before the Glade as well as right now."
He was quiet for a few long moments. It was clear he was debating whether to argue back with something self deprecating, but eventually he decided against it. Instead, he decided to say,
"Okay. I won't." He looked at her in awe for a second. "Thank you."
She shrugged nonchalantly, letting herself brush off Thomas' clearly present gratefulness.
"Is there anything else you remembered?"
Thomas thought this over for a while. Clara couldn't help but feel a little jealous: she had been there two years and was yet to remember a thing. Thomas showed up, and what felt like two days later he had a handful of memories back.
She wanted to ask more specifically about herself, if he knew why she was in the Maze, or anything about her background at all. But if Thomas found out anything, he would've mentioned it already.
"I did remember something." He said then, with an uncertain glance towards her.
"What is it?"
"It's a little-" Thomas broke off, turning red and cringing. Clara was impatient, nudging the boy through the bars to spur him on. "It's a little awkward."
He finally met eye contact with her, and she felt her stomach drop to the ground. He meant awkward for her, didn't he?
"What is it?" She asked again apprehensively, her throat suddenly feeling dry.
"Well I saw you, when I was watching you guys in the Maze." He cleared his throat, trailing his eyes along the grass outside the Slammer. "And you were with this boy. You guys, you kissed."
As Clara began to burn red with embarrassment - and regret that Thomas saw it - the boy chose to not mention how he felt about it. He recalled feeling more heartbroken than he knew a person could feel when he saw it for the first time, and when he remembered it from the Changing, he felt a surprising amount of jealousy.
"That- uh- that was Nick." The atmosphere had suddenly grown very awkward, and Clara rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly as she tried to figure out a way to explain things to Thomas. "He meant a lot to me. He was a great friend-"
"-Friend?"
Although a playful smile played on Thomas' lips as he repeated the word in a question, his voice sounded more sour than he most likely intended. Clara only shook her head with an oblivious smile.
"He was a friend. Nothing- nothing more happened between us. Just friends, that's all."
And that was true. No matter how Clara thought she felt about Nick - she never really figured it out in the end - nothing did happen between them other than a kiss.
A kiss that was never brought up again. A kiss that neither felt they needed or wanted to bring up again. A kiss that was more friendly than romantic, despite being a kiss.
Clara searched Thomas' expression, but he was impossible to read. He was staring blankly at the Maze wall in the distance, biting his lip thoughtfully.
"You okay?" She asked, a hint of nervous amusement in her voice.
Briefly, she had forgotten about kissing him, and his lack of response to it, and how it didn't add up with his odd reaction now. She hoped he didn't think anything of her kiss with Nick.
Turning to her with a relieving smile, "Of course." he convinced her that he didn't.
But he did.