I was going to kill Thomas. What the hell did he think he was doing? Stabbing himself with a stinger like that. After the stunt he'd pulled, we quickly got him into the Med-Bay and injected him with the serum. At the moment, I was sitting in a chair next to his bed, my foot tapping impatiently against the floor. It had been this way for most of the night, I refused to leave Thomas' side. During some point in the night, I'd fallen asleep. Now the sun was up casting rays of sunlight into the room.

I had known, in the far back of my mind, that Thomas would do this. But with how I'd been changing things, I didn't think Thomas would have actually done it. At least he won't die on me, not that I'd let him. The other Gladers occasionally came in to check on Thomas. Last night, when we'd gotten Thomas injected, Teresa wanted to stay, but I'd insisted that she left. It didn't stop her from coming in every half hour to see if he'd woken up.

A groan broke my train of thought. He's awake. Thomas' eyes blinked open groggily when his sight cleared he focused his gaze on me. And my scowl. I breathed in to prepare myself for the biggest scolding Thomas had ever gotten when he croaked "I remember."

I faltered, my words escaping my lips. Pushing past my anger at Thomas for the moment, I reached out and placed my hand on top of his, "Remember what, Thomas?"

"I-I'm one of them. One of the people wh-who brought us here. Ellie, I helped build this place, I'm a part of WICKED. Gally's right, I shouldn't be trusted.." I never wanted to see such a torn look in Thomas' eyes again. In that moment, he seemed younger, like a lost little kid that couldn't find their parents. It then hit me that we were all just kids. Kids who had been swept up into the plans of adults. We were just pawns in their games.

I squeezed Thomas' hand "Hey, I trust you. I trust you with my life, Thomas. You're not a bad person, I know you're not. I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason as to why you were helping WICKED. I've seen you risk your life for everyone here. Heck, you're in the Med-Bay right now because you stabbed yourself to try and figure out why we're all here. Right now, you're one of us, what you did in the past doesn't matter."

"Thanks, El. I really needed that." A new look of determination was clear in Thomas' eyes. He squeezed my hand back.

Pushing back the chair, I stood on my feet, "I'll go tell the others you're awake."

Before I could back out, I leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to Thomas' forehead. And like any other normal person would do, I left the room in a hurry, hiding the blush that now covered my face. In my haste to leave, I missed Thomas blush and his lips pull into a lopsided grin.

Being the coward I was, I didn't return to the Medical Bay. Once I'd picked up some food for Thomas, I'd all but shoved the plate into Newts hands, telling him that Thomas was awake.

"Why can't you give this to him?" Newt asked, looking down at the plate of food.

The blush I had managed to get rid of forced its way back onto my cheeks "N-no reason. It- It's just that someone needs to inform Thomas of the plan and so I hereby nominate you. Congratulations."

I clapped Newt on the back and without another word, I left Newt, practically scampering off in the opposite direction. Last night, a plan had been formed. Once Thomas was up and running, we'd head off into the Maze. The whole Glade was preparing for later. Each Glader was to be armed with a weapon. A spear, a sword. Anything sharp, basically. Minho had gone over the Maze map, showing the other Gladers where they would be going.

I could barely believe that this was happening. Only a few days ago I had arrived here with Thomas, dazed and confused. Now, we were planning our great escape. Only this time I had convinced the entire Glade to go together. We were no longer divided thanks to Gally, who decided that it was best to go along with the plan. With all the influential Gladers onboard for this escape plan, there were few who protested and even fewer who were adamant on staying behind.

And whilst Gally was a part of it now, he still had his doubts. After lunch, the tall Glader had taken to following me around the Glade, listing off every single worrying thought that had entered his mind.

"- and what if some of the guys died? W-we can't do this. It has to be cancelled, Ellie, we-"

I whirled around to face him, "Gally! If we stay here, we're sitting ducks, waiting for the Grievers to pick us off one by one. Now I don't know about you, but I'd rather die out there fighting than in here just accepting that I'm going to die. Do you have any other worries?"

"Yes, actually, I-"

With an agitated groan, I spun on my heels and stormed away, grudgingly listening to what Gally had to say. Unfortunately, friends had to do that kind of thing.

Thomas was up and out of bed before he should have been, and I was not happy. When one of the Gladers had informed me that Thomas was not resting in the Med-Bay, I went on a manhunt. Gally was still with me at the time, so he inevitably ended up helping me search for Thomas too.

It didn't take long for us to find him, and I didn't hesitate to begin lecturing him.

"Thomas!" I shouted, startling the teen, "Why are you out of bed? You need to be resting."

Thomas ran a hand through his head, "I know, El, it's just that I can't be stuck in bed, doing nothing when I could be out here helping everyone get ready to escape."

"I understand that, but when we get out of here, we need you at your full strength. You're our best shot at getting out of here. If you pass out in the middle of our escape, then we're in big trouble. We need you, Thomas.."

He came up to me, placing his hands on my shoulder, "Hey, don't worry about me, I'm fine. I'm going to get you out of here, I promise, Ellie. We won't be prisoners here anymore."

I closed my eyes, taking a deep, calm breath. Thomas made me feel safe like no one could ever harm me whilst I was in his presence. But I wasn't naive. He couldn't keep me safe, not really. I couldn't rely on Thomas to keep me safe all the time, even if he was the hero of this story. I was reminded again of how I needed to keep a distance from Thomas. I couldn't get distracted.

I needed to save the others. I needed to save myself. It would be difficult, I knew. Thomas and the other Gladers were destined for this fate. Most of them had the strength to make it out of the Maze, to survive in the outside. My fate wasn't so known. I didn't know if I would even make it through everything that was going to happen alive.

I had to stop worrying about how I felt about Thomas and more about keeping myself alive. After all, I was trapped in a world where everyone's main concern was survival.

Whatever moment Thomas and I were having was broken when a voice behind me drawled, "If you two love birds would stop being all lovey-dovey with one another, then that would be great."

It seems that I hadn't been the only one to forget that Gally had been with us. Thomas let his hands release my shoulders. Thomas glared at the other boy, then glanced down at me, "I gotta go find Alby. I need to speak with him. I'll see you later."

I sighed. Would Thomas and Gally ever get along?

Three hours later, I stood outside the Maze, surrounded by my fellow Gladers.

This was it.

We were finally going to escape the Maze.

I only hoped that my meddling wouldn't bring everything I held dear crashing down around me.

To those who were worried, I haven't abandoned this story! I just suffered an extremely long writer's block that I finally have overcome. I honestly cannot put it into words how much difficulty I had with this chapter. It came to the point where it would put off trying to write it up because of how completely and utterly stuck I was. But never fear! Because I am back and ready to move on with this story. I think the main reason for my writer's block is because I'd gotten an idea for a Harry Potter marauder's era story and the idea wouldn't leave me alone, now I've written a lot of chapters for it and now that I've gotten the hype of it out of my system, I was able to pull myself together and figure out how to move along in this story.

I have seriously missed this story. I miss Thomas and Gally and all my other precious Gladers.

And we're finally getting Ellie and the others out of the Maze! She managed to get everyone working together and now no one will be left behind. I can't wait to move onto the Scorch Trials. I was looking through my old notes and I got excited at what I have planned out for you guy!

Hopefully, this newfound motivation to carry on with this story will last long enough for me to finish it. I'll get there, eventually.

Have a nice day!

~ SparkleMuffinz