Fast As A Bullet {Maze Runner}

e l e v e n

A hand on her elbow startles her from her thoughts. She turns to see Thomas holding out a first aid kit expectantly, then looking down at her arm. Leanne nods, and Thomas opens the kit. Without saying anything, he wraps bandages on Leanne's wrist where Gally left marks, then on her upper arm where the spear grazed her arm.

"Funny, I remember the roles switched." She says, referring to when she put the bandage on Thomas' wrist after Ben attacked him. A small smile is placed on his face, but it doesn't stay there for long. "Hey, we'll be fine." She whispers to him quietly. He tilts his head to look down in his lap, but she places her hands on his cheeks, gently pulling his head up to look at her. "We're safe now." He nods, but unconvincingly. He didn't believe her. Thomas believed that they still had a lot more coming towards them. "I'm sorry." Leanne's voice breaks Thomas from his thoughts. "I'm so sorry, Thomas."

Thomas frowns. "For what?"

"I couldn't save him." His arms were quick to pull her into a tight hug. The warmth of his body was comforting for Leanne. It was a distant memory. Without being specific, Thomas knew who she was talking about. He just hadn't known she was already blaming herself. "He didn't deserve to die."

"He didn't." Thomas sighs. "But it wasn't your fault."

"Yes it is." She protests. "If I had helped Gally, he wouldn't have been stung. If he hadn't been stung, then he would've never had the gun and he would've never fired."

"If I had never even arrived in the Maze then everyone would still be alive."

"If you hadn't arrived then we'd still all be in the Maze."

"You'd all be alive." He contradicts.

"Living in hell." Leanne pulls away from him just enough to see his face. "If you'd never come we would all still be living in that hellhole." She whispers. "We would never meet again." She gestures between the two of them, then the rest of the group. "You'd still be working to Wicked."

"But—"

"No buts!" She pulls away from him completely, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders tighter. "Everything we've been through, it's for the people who didn't make it." Her eyes wander over to Newt and Minho, then Teresa and Winston. "We're still fighting for the people that didn't make it." Finally, her eyes land on Thomas. "We're not giving up. Not now, not ever."

"Are you two done?" Newt chuckles, making the two turn to look at the others, who're all watching them now. "You're fighting like a bloody couple." He grins, almost in an evil way. Like he knows something the two didn't.

"Shut up, Newt."

As others began to add little comments, the air in the room became less thick. Leanne watched her friends —her family— laughing and smiling. No one was thinking of the future, the past, or even anyone else out of the room. They were enjoying what they had there, right now.

After having eaten plenty of food and made a mess on the table, the teens moved towards the bunks. Newt grabs one of the mattresses off a bunk and places it on the floor to sit on.

Thomas and Teresa got up to go sit with him, followed by Frypan.

Leanne got up from the bench just to go lay down on the surface of another table further back in the room. She stretched her tired limbs out, yawning. "I'm so tired." She mumbles to Minho, who's come to lay beside her on the table. Minho nods in return, then rests his head on her shoulder. Although the recent events that occurred in the Maze had split them up a bit, Leanne had always thought of Minho in a brotherly way. When she first arrived in the Maze, he had been sassy with the others but he had always been kind with her. As the years progressed he may have sassed her as well, but he was always caring.