Silver Lining (Newtmas)

Epilogue

A/N: SO HEY I'M BACK WOOOOO IT'S BEEN LIKE A YEAR SINCE I'VE UPDATED ANYTHING

AND I'M SO SO SORRY

Okay I don't know how many of you will still read this, but well, I've gotta finish this, it's been way too long. There'll be more A/Ns at the bottom so please check it out :)

~

A thousand faces stared up at Thomas. His speech trailed to an end on a high, a promise, an assurance of a better future. An assurance of safety, of a family and a home.

He told the story of the trials. His trials. Running, fighting, failing, losing. Rebuilding, regrouping, trusting, learning. He told the story of him. Of his past, his future.

It's a tale to be passed down to the children, then their children. A story of a brave leader and his friends. A story of the leaders, the beginners of the new world. The world post-apocalypse.

But Thomas didn't know that.

He knew only what he saw, in the faces of the crowd. Grim or smiling. Eyes weary, hopeful. But Thomas was positive just as he was uncertain. A thousand hours and dangers later, and he's still wary, still fearful, deep inside, but if there was one thing he learnt it's that they deserved this. After all they'd been through, they deserved peace.

He walked off the stage to the claps of the audience. Stage was really just a stone platform, in this case, perhaps the remnants of a courtyard or a house. Newt greeted him with smiling eyes and a gentle kiss. "See? Everything's good," he said, "they like you, Tommy."

"Not as much as you do," he replied, smiling.

"Well I sure hope not."

~

Thomas had the ring in his pocket for an uncomfortably long amount of time. He swore he would find a good opportunity to give it to Newt, and that was exactly what he was doing, he told himself. With each increasingly normal day that passed, he was getting more and more agitated.

Newt started to worry about him.

"What's wrong?" he asked one night at dinner, over soup and mashed potatoes and (surprisingly good) steak. Thomas paused mid chew.

"What?" he replied, feigning nonchalance. Newt narrowed his eyes.

"You've been jittery for days," he pointed out.

"No I haven't." He put on a smile. Newt raised an eyebrow. "Okay," Thomas sighed, knowing he couldn't hide it from Newt. He knew him well. A little too well, he thought, flashbacks of the previous nights and the words, god, the words that came out of his mouth. He blushed. "Um."

"Forgive me if I'm being rude, but I'm slightly worried about you."

"I've just been feeling a little cooped up, is all. You know, the rain, and stuff." And it was true, it had been raining for days, mostly throughout the day, only stopping occasionally at night. Thomas found it strange; wasn't it common for rain to come at night? But what did he know about rain anyway. There was barely any in the Glade.

And the rain added to his anxiety, because he needed to do something special to propose, and he couldn't just drop The Big Question in the middle of dinner or something. He hid the ring, which he'd gotten from one of the munies, an antique passed down in her family, in his pocket, transferred it to every set of new clothes he wore. He didn't dare put it somewhere in the house for fear of Newt seeing it. She'd wanted him to have it because they saved her family's life. "Luck follows it wherever it goes," she'd said, and Thomas had taken it gladly. Luck was good, he thought. Very.