Don't Leave Me!

"Hey Gally, ya..." Laughing, Newt turned around and closed the door behind him. "Nah, he's busy" he said to Sam, who waited outside the wash house.

"Ey, Gally. Get dressed, we got some issue" Sam held his hands to his mouth to enhance his voice, shook his head and returned to the extension of the blood house, where Gally had told them to built another well over the water hole he and Marina had dug.

Giggling, Gally and Marina got dressed, left the wash house in different directions and returned to their work. While Gally ordered the other builders around to fix the massive hole they had caused to erupt in their attempt to block off the rising water, Mari headed to the med-bay, where Henry greeted her.

"Hey, how's it goin'?" He sat onto a chair in the med-bay, a plate with potatoes, some bread and chicken before him. "Ya want some?" Offering Marina his fork, he grinned as she shook her wet head.

Strands of hair fell into her face, the water droplets flying around her. With her towel, she turned her hair into a tower, sat onto the chair beside Henry and watched him eat for a while. With nothing but silence around them, it felt calm and relaxing. After Henry had finished his dinner, and struggled with setting the plate aside, he and Mari went outside as the grinding sound of the doors closing echoed through the Glade.

In the distance the Runners returned from their day in the maze, hungry, worn out, their clothes covered in dust, darkened by their sweat. Chowing down on their dinner, right after they had done their usual routine in the map room, they chatted with the other Gladers, drank, and laughed.

At the end of the day, all Gladers gathered around the bonfire, drank Gally's home-made drink, fought for fun, and chatted. Watching as Gally bested a number of Gladers, his smile growing whenever he saw her, Marina sat beside Newt, her face scrunching as she tasted the brew Gally had made. "This is disgusting" she muttered as she forced herself to swallow it.

Chuckling, Newt grabbed it from her hands, drank some himself and shook his head."Ya get used to it, shank"

"Ya shouldn't" she imitated his voice, breaking out in laughter at his indignant expression. Her head leant against his shoulder, Mari smiled.

For that day and the following, Adam kept his distance. He could be seen with a black eye, no one knew how he got it, and he refused to tell. For a while Marina considered telling Newt about him, his threats and the stalking, but since he backed off, she delayed her plead to lock him away.

The time in the Glade passed faster than expected, and for the most part uneventful. Except for Adam threatening to expose Marina a few more times after the black eye incident, for which he landed in the slammer more often than anyone else, no one had a problem with the only girl in the Glade. Luke usually stayed close to Mari as long as she walked around the Glade, so did Henry at times, Newt of course liked her a lot since she had the same humour as him and Gally, well, given their relationship, he of course never let her out of his sight if other Gladers came close to her.

A few more surprises popped up, when Clint caught Mari clean some cloth drenched with blood and she had to explain the meaning of period to him. Backing off whenever she got moody seemed to be the Gladers' way of dealing with it, while Marina, although in pain and cranky, found it to be less of an issue. Her taste for bacon grew whenever her period came around, so she could prepare herself, and Newt, who in silence, kept track of it as well made sure Fry made more than enough bacon and biscuits, and even though Marina never said anything, she was grateful.

Since Newt as the only one in the Glade knew about Mari and Gally's relationship, he was the first to propose Mari got her own room instead of sleeping in the hammocks with the other Gladers, but Marina declined. "Just 'cause I'm a girl doesn't mean I wanna be treated any different than you shanks"