37 - And Now I Sit In Silence

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Thomas pressed the trigger again. Nothing.

There was a brief moment of panic.

Then, he did the first thing that came to his mind - he hit the gun against Newt's head, hard. 

Newt's body crumpled to the ground, and for a heart shattering second Thomas thought he'd killed him. Fresh crimson spilled from Newt's head, mixing into the previously dried blood. With shaky fingers, he reached up to check Newt's pulse.

He sighed in relief. It was faint, unsteady, but it was there.

His Newt was still alive.

He was unconscious, though, so Thomas grabbed him and tried as best as he could to half carry, half drag him to the car, trying his best to ignore the faint trickle of blood behind him.

They decided to take him to the Right Arm's base. Thomas laid Newt down in the backseat of the car, with his head on his lap. He was tired, exhausted really, but he couldn't sleep. He kept looking back at where they were, precarious on the edge of life and death, marked only by a handgun lying in a pool of blood. He combed his fingers through Newt's hair, working his way through the blood matted locks, and watched as the scenery faded from sand to concrete, from white to grey, from daylight to sunset.

As time went by, the sun faded to a blood orange through the layers of city haze. It casted a golden shadow on Newt, like the aftermath of a war, before the celebration began. It was the kind of light that held promises, secrets, akin to that of bonfires. Newt looked young, ridiculously young, but also like the boy Thomas first met in the Glade, the boy that laughed, shrouded by the gentle but blazing light of the Glade's bonfire the night Thomas learnt his name. He seemed like an angel then, but even more so now. The blood on his face, his arms, told stories of survival instead of desperation, and Thomas was willing to forget the past week for this moment. 

(A/N: The blood, the blood, the blood of the lamb
Is worth two lions but my name is [Dan].)

He blinked away tears at their memories and his hand in Newt's hair shook. He'd almost killed him, there and then, taken his life. Everything that he'd ever said, done, stored neatly away into a box in Thomas' mind labelled 'Newt'. He'd be the sole keeper of these memories, and that's all they'll ever be. A person, a wholesome person, becoming nothing more than a memory, a part of a dark past that would no doubt plague him in his dreams. 

The hand against Newt's chest tightened, and Thomas gripped onto the material, onto Newt. He stilled for a moment, just listening to Newt's breathing, however shallow, to remind him he was alive. There was still hope. There was always hope.

The car ride was silent.

...

When they finally got to the Right Arm, there were less people there than he'd seen previously. Gally was out, so was Vince, and a couple others Thomas remembered. The others told them that they'd gone to check out WICKED, or map something. Thomas didn't really care.

They brought Newt back to a room at the back of the building, where they patched him up as well as they could. Thomas sat beside him on the floor, with a death grip on Newt's hand. Nobody told him to leave, so he didn't. 

Thomas was silent while the others rested, planned, discussed. He stayed by Newt, holding his hand, always holding his hand. Newt woke up once, when the medics or whatever from the Right Arm were checking on him. He managed to gasp out Thomas' name before they knocked him out.

They used Thomas' blood, too, said it contained something that would slow down the spreading of the Flare. They said they couldn't cure him though, nothing could.

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