Warnings/Tags: Death Cure Spoilers. Fix-it. Fuck canon. Language. Canon divergence. Sorta but not completely. one difference. Newt Lives. Technically pre: Thomas/Newt but vibes/undertones. Teresa is waaaay complicated. Teamwork. Found Family. Depictions of psychological torture/extreme fear/high stress/anxiety. BS medical procedures. You reat the torture from the pov of someone not enduring it though.

AN: I split it into two because it got too long. The second/last part will follow soon. Its also from Teresa's perspective, which was tricky but fun to play with. And finally, I don't want to spoil anything so if anyone has concerns about reading, please feel free to message/review and ask. In short there are semi graphic descriptions of psychological torture happening to someone else. its more about the impact. Finally, I apologise for the angst.

Teresa watches them sedate Cheyenne through the glass.

She's flailing; her limbs atrophied and fragile but lashing out with a viciousness to match the awful shrieking. It's a noise that's on the cusp of inhuman; something that can't even properly express the agony and will eventually damage the chords of the voice box.

Teresa's breath rushes in her ears from the short dash and the adrenaline burst of having Minho try to choke her. She can feel the way Ava turns to look at her with a kind of sympathy, her face solemn.

"It's not your fault," she assures her. "You did everything you could."

And maybe Teresa does kind of know that, but it doesn't help. All she can feel is a swirling, pulling regret, like being tugged in the wake of a riptide. This isn't what she wanted. This isn't what she signed on for – betrayed people for. It feels like the air closes in on her.

She can't stay here.

She leaves, tears stinging behind her eyes, the pressure building in her head. There's something she hasn't thought of – there has to be. It doesn't feel like she did everything she could.

She takes the elevator away from the trials level and back up to the development labs. It's quiet there; only a few of the techs are about, most of them occupied with running tests on serum samples. At this time of day, most of the scientists with her clearance level are with the immunes. They run fearscape hallucinations for a few hours, in batches, before breaking for lunch.

Teresa only thinks of them as fearscapes. She doesn't want to think of them as anything else. Vivid nightmares – nothing more. It's false and you wake up. She tells herself the same thing every time she enters the WCKD building for the day. One day, maybe, she thinks she won't need to tell herself anymore.

She sits at her usual desk in the lab, but finds her mind won't fix on a task. It's too busy, pulsing at her temples, trying to fit puzzle pieces together when they're all blank and she can't see what picture they should create.

Her morning moves slowly.

Ava comes to see her as the clock drags on. The blonde woman watches her quietly for a few moments, in the glass doorway of the lab, without speaking. Eventually, she straightens, hands pushed into the pockets of her white lab coat.

"It's early," she says, tone gentle but firm. "We've only just begun. We can't expect things to work straight away, Teresa. Don't lose hope."

"I know," Teresa replies, but it feels automatic, like speaking through water or from far away.

She knows the older woman is right; that expecting an actual cure this early in is wishful. It doesn't make it easier to accept, but she always knew it was a distinct possibility this would be more complicated than just injecting serum. Still; she didn't make the trade she did just to fail. She shakes herself and looks up, offering Ava a worn smile.

"I know," she repeats. "I'm going to rerun some tests and look at some different ones; maybe see if I can isolate any external factors that might have contributed to a failed run."

Ava's face shifts into a smile that Teresa is inclined to think of as fond. She nods, turning back to the glass doorway.

"You're very dedicated, Teresa. I knew that if we were to succeed, we would need people like you. Don't forget to take a break."

Teresa nods, holding onto her smile until she's left blissfully alone.

.

She wasn't lying just to get Ava off her back.

She's right; it's still early days, and the only way to make progress is by refining the only possible cure they do have. They have to do that by assessing it, each and every sample, every time it's used, tracking the results and eliminating the unknowns until they can pinpoint a conclusive answer.

Teresa likes having facts; straightforward questions and solutions. That's what this should be.

But she can't work it out. The morning is slowly crawling past, each minute grating like its being dragged against its will. She runs all kinds of tests – some again and some new, as she'd said she would. All of them on the stock sample of Minho's enzyme, kept back for records not for the trials.

There's nothing wrong with it.

There's no contamination, no foreign particles, no evidence it has reacted or changed form – not that it was ever allowed into contact with a catalyst in the first place. On a molecular level it appears to function as she first saw when checking the microscope yesterday evening. It's a completely viable sample.

So why did it not work?

Or more accurately – because clearly it had worked, for some time – why did it wear off?

Minho was their strongest candidate. He produced the most quantities of the serum of all of the twenty nine subjects, and his had the strongest antibodies. Clearly that wasn't enough, somehow. But if he couldn't provide what they needed, then who-

Thomas.

Teresa's fingers twitch on the test result sheet she's holding and she has to clamp down on a breath, force herself to continue on.

She does still think of Thomas. It's by mistake, an automatic response to missing someone you've known for…for as long as you have memories. It's a difficult thing to break, but she's trying, mostly because it's difficult to think of him, too.

Thomas is a double edged sword in her memories now.

She grew up with him, watched him interact with the other boys, and then eventually watched him parted from them, one at a time. She still isn't sure how she missed all the signs he was changing sides.

Thomas is not a subtle person. If he has an opinion or an impulse, he acts on it without thought for tact or caution. That was where she and the others had helped to balance him.

But somehow he had kept his treason from her.

A year ago, in the mountains, her memories had been flooding back, even if Thomas' weren't. She hadn't known he had leaked information to the resistance until that evening. She did remember the way he'd come to her, desperately, in the recesses of the old WCKD compound that surrounded the Maze. She remembered the way he'd told her, apologetic but also unrepentant that he had to do it.

He was taken away that day.

She was told afterwards that putting him in the Maze had become vital, but not why. She only watched him for a few days – the way he seemed to so quickly reclaim the friends he loved and lost, even though they had no memories to pull from. And then she was asked to join him.

"It will be necessary, Teresa," she remembered Ava saying, the night Thomas ran into the Maze for Minho. The entire Glade stayed by the doors all night. "Thomas doesn't remember anything now, and he was always close to the others. He'll need you when this part is over."

She hadn't thought about it then. She had just nodded, agreed, and taken herself to the lab for the Swipe. But now she knows better.

Ava knew Thomas turned against them; traded her, WCKD and their mission for the lives of his friends, ones who couldn't remember him. His memories were taken as a reset, and maybe Ava hoped that in the Maze, coming to care for his friends again, she would be able to use him once more; use him through them, maybe. And if she couldn't – Teresa would sway him for her.

Only it hadn't worked out that way, had it?

Even with no memories of growing up with those boys, he'd forged something new, but just as unbreakable with them in a matter of days. Teresa's slowly returning memories or the influence she may have had over him weren't enough to matter; not against Newt, Minho and Frypan; the only ones left. He'd sided with them again, just as fully aware of what the cost was.

Teresa shakes herself again.

Her mind is spiralling too easily today.

Those memories are not why his name crossed her mind.

Somehow WCKD knew. They always said he was special, but did they even know why? Was it his uncanny ability to think in the space of a heartbeat, to not know how to quit, to inexplicably survive? Or was it something else? Something they knew about his blood – his immunity?

Teresa writes it off as entirely unlikely. The reason this is so difficult, so trying is because they don't understand enough about immunity. So that can't be it.

Thomas can't matter now, though.

He's gone. She has no idea where he is. She's sure he isn't dead, but that's about it, and based more in an ingrained belief of his impossible ability to thrive more than any real feeling or report of news.

Teresa doesn't think for an instant he's given up. He'd never leave Minho behind – in the same way he'd once risked the success of an escape just to go back for her. She always just figured it was a matter of time. If it's taking this long for any sighting of him, it's either because he can't get to them, or because he's waiting.

Mildly Teresa wonders what his life does look like right now.

Is Brenda even still alive? Without Mary there was surely no available way to get her further treatment. Teresa hates that – hates remembering it. She did this to save people and she never intended Brenda to be a casualty. But what about Jorge? Would he have left after she inevitably turned? Or would he have stayed because he had nothing else?

And what of the boys? Frypan tried to be optimistic, but he wasn't a big fighter. Newt…Newt had suffered for a long time, but Thomas gave him hope and Minho was his oldest friend. Even if it was sure to fail Newt would never leave Thomas to go after Minho alone. It came from a place of loyalty and faith, perhaps more than his disregard for his own life.

No. Wherever Thomas was, he wasn't totally alone. Not unless something had happened to force it.

Teresa is reminded of the point of all her muddled thoughts as she finally sits back down at her desk, amazed to realise its still the morning when she lays eyes on the clock.

The important thing here is that Thomas isn't an option. Not now. Not when he could be anywhere.

Which means she has to let that go and keep looking inside the WCKD building for answers.

They have twenty nine kids of varying ages who are already feeling the toll of the procedures. Minho is their strongest option but his serum failed its first clinical trial after just…she checks the clock again…eleven hours. Cheyenne was injected the evening before and Teresa had barely clocked in and escaped Minho's rage in that interview room before she was told it had worn off.

And that's when her brain completely stalls. Her fingers go still on the focus wheels of the microscope before her.

And they have her.

She is immune, too.

She was promised safety in return for bringing back the others, and she's more use to them now with her knowledge and skills in the labs. But. She is immune.

Isn't this what scratched at her mind earlier?

You did everything you could

But what if she hadn't?

And then, for the rest of the day, that's all she can think about.

She believes in this; believes in the work. She's a hypocrite for allowing these tests to happen to others when she's sitting here, everyday, her body capable of producing that same enzyme. And she's been able to not think of it, because she's valuable here, but now she can't stop.

Her focus, already on edge, shifts completely and running another test becomes a vague concept.

Right across the other side of the lab are the lock cabinets where they keep the hallucinogens, the sedatives and the paralytics. Beside them are the organised cases of tubing, cannulas, trackers and distillation vials. Right there is everything needed to put a subject into a fearscape and extract the enzyme.

And not a single person in the lab would question her if she took any out.

To Teresa's mind, it's a bit foolhardy.

She betrayed people once, why wouldn't she do it again? She could have been a mole, placed here by design, feeding information back to Thomas. But she knows that's not how it went down, and WCKD – Ava – seems to as well. Instead, they have complete, total faith in her that isn't misplaced, simply because she did betray people she cared for. Maybe they assume she wouldn't have done that lightly.

And they're right.

She skips lunch.

Her stomach is roiling and the thought of eating makes her queasy. Instead she runs some more checks on Minho's serum – some repeated, because repetition establishes a mean, after all – but nothing flags up. The whole thing feels like following motions anyway. Her mind stays locked onto the cabinet.

She goes to check on Cheyenne. The girl is still heavily sedated but the poisoned black veins webbed across her face and winding up her arms like the clinging roots of a tree are angry. Whatever she regained for those few hours, it's long gone again.

From there, Teresa heads to the Extraction levels. She watches some of the fearscapes with a couple of young teen immunes. If they gave themselves names in their mazes, Teresa doesn't know them. In general, she tries not to watch these, to stay away, for reasons she won't look too closely at, but today she's here.

The recognition from the morning – you're immune, too – hasn't faded. It's festered, taken root, like a parasite in her thoughts and it won't leave.

She wants to see. Wants to know.

The end of the day is finally drawing in. Time is moving like the tide; slowly, so slowly until suddenly everything is under and you didn't notice it getting closer. She's always working late, recently, now that they have the continued funding for the trials, but even her extra hours are almost up.

Suddenly, she's running out of time.

Teresa escapes the techs and the labs and finds a quiet corner of the office levels to contemplate. She needs to think this through. She can't be rash about it.

She knows how to rig a person to the extraction equipment. She knows what the dose of hallucinogen is, the right amount of paralytic for one session in a fearscape. Both of them fade from the bloodstream within an hour. She doesn't need an intravenous agent to counteract the effects. She could do it alone.

She's seen the immunes screaming. She's witnessed their terror, their horror and agony, but they weren't prepared. She is. She knows its fake; just a drug. She'll wake up. She holds onto that.

She only has to do it once. Just enough serum to run a few tests.

The chances are that her enzyme has the same lifespan as anyone else's, and if it does work better…well… she can cross that bridge if she comes to it.

She just has to be brave enough.

And then she decides – she realises – she has to be. It's about the world; something far bigger than her. It's about being prepared to endure what she has been putting others through.

.

No one looks twice when Teresa strides to the cabinets in the lab and takes everything she needs.

She picks up a result sheet from her desk – the one laying on the top – and makes her way out, collecting one of the portable vitals monitors on the way. In the elevator to the trials floor, she hides all the equipment in the pockets of her lab coat, and any available pocket in the clothes she has on underneath. Most of them are small; the syringes and vials. The tubing is the most difficult to conceal, but she does.

She looks in on Cheyenne one last time and then nods to Ava through the glass wall before she heads down to the staffing levels. She transfers everything into the deep recesses of her bag, sheds her lab coat and pulls her jacket and scarf from the locker.

She leaves the building without even a sideways glance. The guards on duty nod at her as she passes and then she's in the open.

It's all felt a little too easy.

Now is where the uncertainty begins to stir; a swirling, uneasy kind of current low in her chest that feels like its sending electric pulses down her limbs. She walks in a daze. She's surrounded by crowds of people – most wearing masks in a futile hope to guard themselves from the Flare – but she feels distant from them. It's like walking on a seabed – what she imagines, anyway; she's never even seen the sea – resistance and yet a kind of weightlessness. The lights of the city in the newly fallen darkness glow blue overhead, the spires of buildings seeking upwards into the blackness. The Last City has never really felt claustrophobic to her until now.

The world swims in her eyes.

She can barely spare any heart for the man who's pulled to the pavement just metres from her when she stops at a crosswalk. This is happening. It's happening to everyone. She can't let herself feel for him, but it does set her resolve.

And then.

Thomas.

He's standing there. Just…standing there, the other side of the road.

He looks healthy. There's a guarded kind of ease to his expression; something that pulls at her heart but warns her at the same time. He's just…there. Somehow, inexplicably, in this City.

And Teresa knows better than to believe this was any kind of mistake.

But then a bus passes and he's gone. He's just- wait, not gone – walking away.

The dark hooded sweater, pulled up makes him anonymous in the milling people, and he slips between them easily. He's sliding away from her already.

Teresa starts moving, desperation surging through her blood like ice water.

It's been a year.

Holding to the belief he was alive is nothing compared to this – to knowing, seeing for herself. And now, even if they've still placed themselves on opposite sides of a battlefield, she just wants to know. She wants to see him.

She fights through the crowd, gets tugged into its slipstream, and when she pulls herself free, they're in the lobby of the tram station. The gleaming white floors and high ceiling feel empty and vast and for an instant she thinks her heart stops because was that it? Was this a warning? The only warning he was prepared to give her?

But then she sees him, striding away, back outside. She starts running.

And it doesn't matter that she calls for him; his steps don't even falter. He only glances back when he rounds the wall.

The rain slick street is completely deserted when she bursts onto it. It's a sheltered taxi bay, blue strobes lining the pillars, giving it a tunnelled effect. The alcoves between them for cars to pull into are unlit, cast into deep shadow that consumes everything beyond.

She turns, looking for him, and then suddenly, she can just feel him there.

He steps into the cold light, lowering the hood. He looks different. Older. It's to be expected, but its not just in physical appearance – he doesn't seem to be carrying around the boy from the glade anymore. This is something else; something more.

They were running before. They were just going to run and keep running until they could get somewhere safe. And then she called WCKD to them. That's when it changed.

They declared war when Minho was taken.

This Thomas isn't running, and Teresa thinks absently that even the one she knew wasn't made for that; not in that way. This one is coming for them. He traded self preservation for vengeance, and she may as well have placed it in his hands herself.

"Thomas," she says. It's both just because she wants to – she's been careful not to really talk about him since the mountain – but she also wants to gauge him; it's the barest breath of a question. This was never meant to be the two of them, and even if he chose his side, and she knows he won't be moved from it, she still doesn't want him to be hurt.

"Hey, Teresa."

His voice is soft, a rough undertone, and there's a devastating kind of sadness to it.

They both know they're talking to each other across a chasm that can't be bridged.

It breaks her heart. This will be all they get.

"You shouldn't be here," she says. "If Janson finds out you're here-"

"I'm not staying," he interrupts, his voice sliding into even more of a murmur, the words only audible in the way the taxi bay's acoustics allows them to cross space. He steps cautiously closer. "It's just, uh…I had to see you."

He stops. There's a blank but also unbearable kind of sadness in his eyes. "I had to ask you something."

Teresa doesn't know what to say. The silence presses in on her and Thomas finally speaks again.

"Do you regret it?"

Her heart constricts. The memory of that day is vivid, and she knew Thomas would never have forgotten it.

"What you did to us?"

It's suddenly hard to look at him. She blinks, tears stinging her eyes again – she's felt like this too much for one day – and has to push everything down. Deal with it later. Right now there's this.

She forces herself to lift her gaze again. Everything is still. It hangs on this, and if this is all she gets…she wants it to be honest.

"Sometimes," she confesses. She regrets what happened between them, regrets that she was the reason Thomas was ready to press down on a detonator on that mountain. She has regrets. But they're not enough. "But I did what I thought was right."

She watches him. Watches the way he seems to process her words.

"I'd do it again," she finishes, barely a murmur around the tightness in her throat. She knows she can't change his mind, and he needs to know he can't change hers.

She watches the way his expression shutters, folds, dies. It's subtle, quiet. It feels like being stabbed, the fallout brutal.

"Good," he whispers.

She isn't sure what she expected, but that wasn't it.

She frowns; Thomas' eyes flit over her shoulder, but she has no time to ask.

There's fast movement behind her, the barest rustle of footsteps. Her body is lurched off balance, she feels the rough swipe of fabric against her head and then everything is dark.

She panics, tries to turn, to reach out and – there, someone, Thomas, has her hands. But he isn't helping her. He holds her wrists, entrapping them.

"Teresa," he says to her, his voice firm and low. "If you fight us, we will tie you up. If you still fight, we will knock you out. Nod if you understand me."

Teresa swallows. She nods.

"Let's go," Thomas says, and he takes her elbow instead, leading her away. She's already lost her bearings – the bag over her head is thick, rough fabric and it doesn't let any light in. It smells sweet and musty, overpowering enough that she can't smell anything else.

She's reminded that Thomas may be impulsive, even reckless, but he isn't an idiot.

She doesn't even ask where he's taking her. She knows she won't get an answer.

.

When the bag is tugged off of her head, the first thing she registers is that Newt is the one to do it.

He looks worn, tired, his expression guarded as he walks away from her with barely a backwards glance.

That's when Teresa takes in everything else.

They're in a church. It's clearly not been in use for some time. There are no pews, no alter, the stained glass windows are dark and grotty and cobwebs are spun thick as gossamer from the once ornate carvings in the walls. There's a couple of bright spotlights and a dozen or so candles that offer enough light to make out shapes and reveal the group in front of her, but mostly everything is black and blue; shadow and moonlight.

Thomas is seated away from her, a kind of resoluteness in his expression and posture she's not seen directed at her before. It hurts, but she knows she caused it. His eyes are on Newt as the taller boy walks over to them. Frypan stands just behind, his arms folded and something rigid in his shoulders. Jorge is still there, right behind Gally –

Wait.

That really is him; perched on the table, looking taller than ever, his expression fierce. He's…alive? She watched the spear sink into his chest, watched the way he crumpled to the floor; a grainy memory of blood, shattered glass and a smoking gun. But he's here right now.

"Gally?" she asks aloud, stunned.

He is entirely unmoved by her shock.

"Here's how this is gonna go," he begins, and none of the others make a move to interrupt. "We're going to as you some questions, and you're going to tell us exactly what we need to know."

Teresa wildly looks around. This has to be some kind of…well not a joke but…she doesn't know how it's possible.

"We'll start off simple," Gally says. He stands, grabs an unoccupied chair by the back piece and starts towards her. "Where's Minho?"

Of course.

So this is it. The thing that Janson and Ava and even she have been spending every day in wait for – when they'll come for him. Her eyes jump to Thomas – he's the only one she can appeal to for how dangerous this will be.

"You guys don't seriously think that-"

Gally's chair slams down right in front of her, and he crashes into it, straddling the sides with his arms folding over the back. He plants himself almost directly in her eye line of Thomas.

"Don't look at him," he says. "Why're you looking at him? Look at me. He's not going to help you."

Teresa's eyes dart to him again anyway, and she feels her heart twist painfully because…he's right. Thomas' eyes lift up, and while he doesn't look happy about any of this, she can also see that same resolution in him. He's allowing this. Maybe he even arranged it himself.

And although it was Newt who took off the bag, Teresa suddenly can't escape the surety that Gally was the one to put it there.

She's never seen the two of them even mildly in synch before. It's strange. How much has she missed?

"Now, we know you have Minho in the building," Gally presses. "Where?"

His voice doesn't rise, but it doesn't have to. Maybe he went a little crazy back in the Maze, but he always did have a leader's influence.

And right now, Teresa is hedging her bets. They can't get in anyway; Minho can't get out. If she answers, she can find out more.

"He's with the others in holding," she says. "Sublevel three."

"How many others?" Newt asks.

Teresa's eyes flit to him, now sitting in a chair next to Thomas', a distance away from her.

"Twenty eight."

Gally looks right around. Heads turn after his and Teresa follows them to a table even further back, lit up with disfigured candles that have been burning for too long.

Brenda.

She's still alive.

"I can make that work," she says, turning a playing card in her fingers, eyes on the table.

"No," Teresa says, on autopilot. Heads turn back to face her and she quickly tries to swallow back her shock. Alive. Still. How? "No you guys don't understand. The whole level's restricted. Y-you can't get in without a thumbprint ID."

"That's why you're gonna come with us," Thomas says, leaning forward. His tone allows for no disagreement.

"Well I don't know," Gally interrupts. His expression is hard, challenging, the edge of false consideration quickly melting away. "We don't necessarily need her. Right?" He stands, swings the chair away and turns back for the table. "Not all of her."

Teresa hears the metallic chink and scrape of something sharp.

He turns around and the muted light that does filter down to them slides dully off of what she thinks is a piece of shrapnel, or maybe a disfigured scalpel.

"We just need her finger."

Her heart lurches.

He wouldn't, would he?

A year ago he'd been prepared to sacrifice her to grievers for safety – maybe to him, cutting off her thumb, was really nothing in comparison. And Thomas – was he really going to let him do it?

"Gally, back off."

Thomas' words cut through her and her eyes close with abject relief.

"What, you squeamish?" Gally asks him. He jabs the blade into the dead air between them. "I guarantee you she's done a lot worse to Minho."

She's never cut Minho's finger off, Teresa thinks absently, but then perhaps their concept of torture is relative rather than linear.

"That's not the plan." Thomas stands, moving forward. He takes the scalpel, and Gally lets him. "Back off."

"It won't make a difference," Teresa insists, her fears subsiding for a possibly reckless confidence for just a moment. Thomas is still going to stand between her and a knife. "Do whatever you want to me, you still won't get through the front door – the sensors will pick you up as soon as-"

"We know," Thomas overrides her.

The scalpel blade turns between his fingers. Gally rocks back against the edge of the table, a little put out, hands in the tunnel pocket of his sweater.

"We're tagged," Thomas continues. "Property of WCKD."

He crosses to her, sinks down to crouch at the side of the chair she's been pressed into. Teresa meets his eyes; she can feel a tight heaviness in the air and she worries for him, even though she knows he's beyond her reach now. Still she can't help the way her brain buzzes over Brenda.

She suddenly feels off kilter, like she's missed out on far more than just a year.

"You're going to help us with that, too," Thomas says.

He raises the scalpel between them.

.

Teresa can't stop glancing at Brenda.

She knows the boys are watching her carefully, and she's trying to hide her amazement, but she can't stop her eyes flitting to her. The other girl looks just so…healthy. Teresa's been running tests for months. Ava kept her away from most of the Crank subjects they had in containment, but she'd seen some at a distance here and there. Maybe the night before was their earliest clinical trial, but even that didn't restore this kind of vitality to Cheyenne in the hours she was herself again. Teresa doesn't know what to do with that.

Brenda and Jorge hover over by a cluster of candles further down the abandoned church, their voices low and inaudible, but they're clearly speaking closely.

How have they done it?

Mary was able to give her an injection a year ago – Teresa still has no idea how. She remembers asking Ava about it on the ride back, explaining how they were travelling with an infected girl and Mary had given her serum. Ava's face had gone very still, very difficult to read, and then she had patted Teresa on the arm.

"There's no way of knowing," she had said. "And the risk is too great; too many more factors to go wrong. This is the best way, Teresa. The only way that can really help."

And Teresa believed it.

She still does.

But that doesn't answer the how.

Mary died. Janson shot her. Has Thomas been able to find more of the serum? Is she being dosed on it? Then why does she look fine? More than fine? Are there people out there who are extracting serum somehow, using unclean tools and risky methods?

It's a thought that horrifies her. They're doing it this way because, despite the downsides, despite the fears that are necessary, it's safe. As safe as they can make it.

Teresa is shaken from her thoughts when something slams down on the table in front of her. She barely registers it's a small first aid kit before her eyes are jumping up, skittering as they meet Newt's.

He looks even more tired, but there's a fierceness in his expression that Teresa has only seen pieces of before. Or maybe it's just that she's never been on this side of it.

"That's everything you need," he says.

Teresa nods.

She tries to busy her mildly shaking hands with laying out the items. She just has this one scalpel blade, and it will need to be disinfected between cutting each of the boys. It should keep her occupied, but her eyes flicker back up to Newt as he moves away.

He strides towards Thomas, fingers curling around his best friend's bicep when he steps in close enough. Thomas' attention snaps to him and then the pair of them move fluidly away, all without a word.

Teresa frowns. Something there is different. Those two always got each other, were always close, but something that she can't quite identify is just…different. Maybe it's just the fact that Minho isn't there, so how close they are seems amplified.

Gally glares over at her and she quickly returns her eyes to the supplies.

But Newt didn't lead Thomas far enough. She can just, if she tries really hard, and if Gally stops rustling his canvas pant legs, hear what he says in a soft undertone.

"What did she know about Brenda?"

Teresa has to work hard not to freeze and give away her eavesdropping. She focuses on laying out gauze.

"What do you mean?" Thomas sounds confused.

"I don't know," Newt admits. "Just that…she seems kind of amazed Brenda's even here."

There's a stagnant pause and then Thomas barely breathes, surprise colouring his tone, "Mary said – you think – then…how-?"

Teresa would like to know that, too.

A second passes. What sounds like a sharp inhalation of breath.

"Tommy!"

She hears Newt say it, louder, in some kind of warning or restraint but by the time her eyes flash up, automatic, Thomas is already dropping into the empty seat in front of her.

There's a level frankness to him and right away she knows she can't play with the truth right now. He'll know.

"You weren't expecting Brenda," he says. He's not asking.

Newt has moved behind him, a tension through his face and shoulders that Teresa doesn't recognise. He looks almost…concerned, resistant.

"After Mary…I didn't know anyone could make the serum that she needs outside of WCKD," Teresa says honestly. She leans forward, because she needs them to know she's really being truthful about this. "We're not even able to make one inside that really lasts, that really works. How have you been getting her serum?"

"What are you talking about?" Thomas asks. His brow furrows, but he's still painfully hard to read.

"I didn't think she'd still be alive," Teresa says. She had never wanted her to die, though. "When was her last treatment?"

She has so many questions – did they use Thomas again, or someone else? Where did they go for treatment, how did they do it? But right now, the 'when' is the one that comes out.

Thomas glances around. He and Newt share a loaded look that Teresa just can't decipher – but she knows she lost her right to question them a long time ago. Gally moves in, hovering the other side of the table like he's waiting to be asked who he needs to punch. Frypan rests a hand on his shoulder but his expression is as fixed as the rest.

What is going on?

Thomas turns back to her.

"Tommy," Newt says, in that same tone – half warning, half pleading.

Thomas ignores him.

"You were there," he tells her, expression now settled in some odd way. Still resolute, but there's something else now. "The Right Arm."

Teresa feels like she's gone into some kind of mental glitch.

That…doesn't work. It just…

"But that was months ago," she says, her mind at a complete standstill. Thomas just looks back at her. "Thomas, she should have turned by now."

He doesn't even touch the statement.

"You know how to get the serum, don't you?"

Teresa can feel her eyes go wide. She isn't sure why he'd ask – Brenda's fine - but maybe he's planning ahead. She has just told him that they can't make the enzyme last. But then…if that's true…Thomas' one is lasting. Sure, it'll have to wear out eventually, but it's actually holding; enough to give Brenda a full life in the interim.

A kind of swirling nausea twins with sharp realisation in her stomach. If that's the case, then Thomas has to be tested – they have to know – but…she never wanted it to be him going through this. Maybe the fact that she does know how is something she can use.

But, despite herself, her eyes shoot across to the larger table where Gally tossed her bag down.

And it's too late.

"What?" Gally scoffs in disbelief, already moving towards it. "You have some in your bag?"

"No!" Teresa jumps up, and Thomas does the same opposite, blocking her. There's something almost wild in his eyes. She freezes. He won't let her past. Something is going on here that is way bigger than Brenda or the two of them. She just doesn't know what.

Gally tips up her bag.

The contents spill across the table; a data tablet, a bottle of water, a tube of lip balm, a flashlight, a set of keys and the ringing cascade of loose change. The stapled together sheets of the test result she picked up flop down and with it the concealed equipment to run a fearscape. The cannula, syringes, tubing, the portable vitals monitor and the tiny vials of the drugs all scatter.

Everyone is silent. Teresa can feel her blood rushing in her ears, the racing pulse of her heart straining inside her ribs like a percussion beat.

"Thomas?" Gally finally asks, voice low.

With a last, deliberate stare at her, Thomas moves away, slips around Newt and goes to stand over the table. He runs his fingers over the tubes, brushes aside the cannula in its sterile packet and then picks up the hallucinogen drug.

He looks back at her. "What is this stuff?"

She tells him. Because this is important; finding a cure, no matter how much she doesn't want to see Thomas endure any more. If he is their answer … The world has to come first. They have to test him. And Thomas won't help unless he knows everything.

"It's how we're extracting the serum," she says. She doesn't move to him. Newt is rigid where Thomas passed him and she's sure, without knowing exactly how, that he won't let her do the same. "We use a paralytic and the hallucinogen to put them into a state where they can't hurt themselves, while their brains process fears specific to them. It's what triggers the secretion of the enzyme. The rest is there to properly drain it."

"Mary saved Brenda with my blood," Thomas says, turning the vial between his fingers, anger steadily growing in his voice. "You're putting all those kids – Minho – through, what – hours of complete terror when you could be doing this another way?!"

Teresa can feel her heart cracking because she doesn't know.

"We don't know another way, Thomas. Not one that's safe. This way is tested; we know the subjects-" Gally makes a derisive kind of growl and Teresa quickly amends- "We know they're okay, when they come out of it. For all we know the way Mary did it was luck. It could have been contaminated; it could have killed Brenda instead."

"Oh yeah, they're fine," Frypan says, deeply sarcastic, and Teresa startles because he's not spoken to her once and also because she didn't expect it from him. He looks as angry as she's ever seen him. "Fine except for the fact that you're psychologically torturing them all every day. You may not be cutting them up but you really think this doesn't do anything to them?"

She takes a step, and both Newt and Fry block her. Sinking back to her spot beside the chair she instead gestures to the table. "Look. At the papers. Look at them."

Gally picks them up. "What is this?"

"They're lab results." And she knows which ones were on the top of her desk – which ones she collected before leaving. "They're Minho's."

Thomas sets down the vial on the table and takes the sheets. Newt and Frypan both look over, waiting. It's like observing a wolf pack, almost. The way they're all in tune, all working together, all feral to any hint of a threat.

"Thomas?" Frypan asks.

"Just test results," Thomas says, a wave of disappointment in his voice. "I can't – I feel like I know some of this but it just doesn't…"

"I saw him today," Teresa interrupts.

All of their heads snap back to her.

"What?" Gally barks.

She swallows. She's started this, on an impulse, but now…she has to go through with it. She could lie. No. She casts that thought aside. What they're talking about doing is madness- even suicidal. If she can give them this, maybe it can sway them. Maybe.

"I saw him," she repeats. "I-…It was his serum that started clinical trials last night. I wanted to see him – to tell him that he could really save someone. That was before I knew it was already wearing off. He…he didn't want to talk to me."

"Are you surprised?" Gally scoffs at her, voice hard.

She shakes her head. "But he did. Before I left. He…" and this is where she remembers.

Of course she knew it at the time; that the spike in her hair was missing after that, but she hadn't told anyone. She blamed herself; she got too close, let it get personal, given him the opening. She hadn't wanted to admit that. But when she also realised it wasn't in the room after going back later, she knew where it must be. A guard would have reported it.

Minho had it.

Security was too tight. He was kept sedated too much – there was so little he could do with just one hair stick. So she kept quiet. She wanted him to have that; some form of hope, however false.

It's only now that it occurs to her that maybe he didn't steal it intending to break out. A guard could stop him escaping, but would they be quick enough to stop him using it on himself?

It makes her chest constrict and horror flood through her bloodstream. This isn't what she wanted. How did things become this way?

She shakes herself. Impatience buzzes in the room with her silence so she resumes as hastily as she can.

"He spoke to me. Called me a traitor. He attacked me. The guards had to pull him off."

"That's Minho," Frypan says. He sounds almost proud.

Teresa shoots him a look, eyes darting around to catch them all – where has Brenda even gone? – "No, don't you get it?" she asks. "He's still in there. He's still Minho. We're doing this to save the world. It's so much bigger than us. But we're not trying to destroy anyone to do it."

"No, I don't think you get it," Thomas says suddenly, fury flickering through his face. He turns back to the table, drops the lab sheets and then picks up the vial again.

Newt goes, if it's even possible, even tenser. "Tommy."

This time, Thomas looks at him. There's something apologetic in his face, but also something resolute. If Teresa can see that, she knows Newt does.

"There's no time," Newt says.

"Yeah there is," Thomas murmurs. He looks over at her. "This isn't much."

It's not really a question. He would have known about this before his Swipe but because all that is still gone, he probably doesn't know how he knows.

Is he…going to do this? Is he going to let her test him; going to put the world first?

Teresa fills in the blank, hope swelling in her chest.

"That dose will metabolise in less than an hour. Serum secretion ranges, but Minho has been one of the best. With the same amount, there was enough to treat a girl in the Trials."

"Yeah, enough," Newt snaps, and there's something uncharacteristically sharp and malevolent in his voice. His eyes are burning, hands shaking at his sides as he curls his fingers in. His attention swings from her to Thomas. "But it didn't last, did it? Don't be a bloody idiot, Thomas. We don't have time for this."

"Yeah, we do." Thomas says again. He strides towards them. Gally looks a mix of uncertain, wary and completely in agreement. Thomas stops right in front of Newt, and for a second he doesn't say anything. He just stands there and looks the taller boy in the eyes, fearless and steadfast in the face of his anger.

There's a shift.

A tiny one. That fever in Newt's expression flickers. He blinks, glancing around to the others, the crackling malice twisting with horror and anxiety but he doesn't back down. Apology softens the corners of his mouth, but his eyes hold fast as they fix back on Thomas.

Alarm flares up Teresa's spine like being electrocuted.

Newt has always had more sway over Thomas than the rest of them. If he can get through to him, Thomas might change his mind about this – and they need him.

"Maybe Minho's stopped working. And soon we'll tease him for that," Thomas says. He's still talking directly to Newt, his voice is steady. "But mine didn't."

Thomas has turned to her, and he raises the vial in his fingers between them.

"Thomas-" she tries, feeling like she's talking around a rock in her throat. She wants to thank him, but isn't too sure how, or if he'll want to hear it. Despite herself she still dreads the moment she'll actually have to drug him.

"Don't," Thomas tells her, and there's a coldness to it that makes her freeze. He slips past Newt again, this time a hand brushing across his arm somewhere between reassuring and restraining, and then he stands in front of her.

"I'm not doing this for you," he tells her solidly.

It feels like her heart stops.

"You're going to take out the tracker," Thomas tells her. "And then you're going to put me under while you take out theirs."

Newt looks furious.

"Are you insane, you dumb Shank?" he demands, suddenly firing off again. "You're going to let her shoot you up with this stuff? You don't even know if she's telling the truth!"

"He's not wrong, Thomas," Frypan points out, though he's glancing uneasily at Newt. "Come on, Man. Weren't we just saying its not just as simple as a nightmare? This'll do stuff to you."

Thomas won't be swayed. Teresa can see that. She still doesn't quite know why.

If he's not doing it for her, or because it's right, or even for the world, then…

"Minho's being forced through this," Thomas says darkly. "I'm not."

Gally swallows hard behind Thomas, his arms folding tight across his chest. Frypan looks between her and them, complete uncertainty glazing his eyes.

"And she's telling the truth," Thomas continues. Now he's looking at her. Reckless, impulsive, rash maybe; but he wasn't stupid. He knows why she has those things with her. "She planned on using it on herself."

That seems to shake Newt loose again. The kindling of rage in him sputters out as he wheels to look at her. Gally and Frypan both turn astonished looks her way, too. Teresa keeps her eyes on Thomas.

"A young girl today regressed back to the Gone," she says, barely a whisper, horrified at the memory but needing to tell them. She needs Thomas to know the difference he could make. "I just wanted to know that I'd done everything I could."

"But you don't know if your…serum," Thomas uses the word haltingly, like he wishes he wasn't, "is any good. Right now you know mine can last a year."

She nods, stiffly. Tension clutches the room with ragged fingers.

"You're going to put me under," he says, again.

Gally throws up his hands behind him and turns, agitated before rubbing his forehead and somehow resuming his fixed stance. Frypan is shaking his head. Newt looks hollowed out, exhausted and terrified.

"Why are you doing this?" Teresa manages to whisper. She wants to know. He's never done anything without the proper motivation, and it pains her, how distant they've grown, how long it's been, that she can't read him anymore.

"This is a trade," Thomas tells her clearly. "You want some of my brain to test? You can have it – and I don't care what you do with it. But first, you're going to get a dose and you're going to give it to Newt."

.

It feels like puzzle pieces, clicking together all at once, and the picture on them cracking into focus.

This is it – the one piece she couldn't quite see, couldn't quite work out. Newt is sick. He has the Flare.

Ava, always wary of her experience with her infected mother, had ensured Teresa didn't have too much exposure to the Cranks themselves. Her job was predominantly in the labs, with the serum.

Perhaps that was why Cheyenne touched her so hard; she was one of the few Teresa saw on a regular basis and only because she was still in an early enough stage to be able to hold most of her sanity. The moments she wasn't fully there, Teresa had never been present for, only informed of, until that morning.

With those thoughts filtering through the complete shock muffling her brain, she can forgive herself a little for not realising sooner. She's never really seen Newt this…volatile. There's never been this kind of rage burning under his skin, he's never been so easy to raise his voice. But she hasn't seen them for a year, and she's also never known a Newt who had Minho taken from him, or one about to watch their best friend enter a fearscape. She figured that explained it.

But it doesn't.

He's infected. There's no physical sign she can see – not yet – but if the mood swings have already begun, surely it won't be long, and if they're really staging some kind of rescue tonight…it could bring it on all the faster.

Teresa turns her eyes to Thomas.

He's waiting for her. Waiting to see what she'll say, but Teresa already knows she has no other option. She needs Thomas' enzyme. That's what she did all this for. She traded her friends for the world and it can't be for nothing. But Thomas won't help her if she won't save Newt.

He meant it.

He isn't doing it for her. He isn't putting the world first. He wants to save Newt.

She nods at him and it feels like the entire church crackles with static energy. "Okay."

AN: Part two will be up soon. Feedback always appreciated :)