AN: So depression, anxiety, and general Life Dramas (including a work-caused mental breakdown, a subsequent job change, two family weddings, and a family funeral) are not good writing partners. Plus, this chapter has been an utter asshole. But! I got it done in the end! Thank you, Death Cure movie for the final push of inspiration. So enjoy. :) And reminder that this follows book canon over movie canon. Any questions, hit me up.

(Also, I'm Australian, so if I've used the wrong American term anywhere – lounge room instead of living room, or kitchen bench instead of kitchen counter, etc, lemme know, and I'll edit.)

…

Thomas is… wary.

They've been "rescued" again, him and the other Gladers – Minho and Gally and Fry and Aris and Sonya and Harriet – as well as the rest of the Immunes who managed to escape the WICKED compound and make it through the flat trans to Paradise before everything blew up in their wake.

Only – it turned out not to be Paradise. Turned out to be just yet another mindshuck by WICKED – yet another phase in their unending experiments.

Turns out that Brenda–– no.

No, Thomas isn't going to think about Brenda. Brenda who betrayed them. Brenda who was WICKED the whole shuck time, even as she swore she wasn't; even as she allowed them to believe they'd finally escaped, that she'd escaped from WICKED's hold just as much as they had.

Really, by this point, Thomas shouldn't be surprised anymore.

Which is why he's wary now.

Because sure, this rescue feels real –– but then, so did their first rescue. So did their first escape from the Maze, and their second from the WICKED compound after the Scorch, and their third from the WICKED compound again after Denver and the Right Arm.

But every single time – every single buggin' time – it wasn't real. Not even Paradise was real – and they had all really and truly thought they'd gotten away, that time; that they were finally, finally free of WICKED.

So this time? This time with these people who claim to know Thomas, who say they've been searching for him since he disappeared three and a half years ago, who call him Stiles and claim to be his friends and his family – Thomas isn't buying it.

He's been here before – believed he was out, believed he was safe, believed he was free – and look how that turned out.

So this? This is just another element of WICKED's games. He knows it is. It has to be. Ava got whatever it was she wanted from them while they were in Paradise, thinking they were free and clear and starting humanity from scratch, and now she's thrown another Variable at them to see how they react to being rescued again – to see how they react to Brenda's betrayal; to see how they respond to being told that they're safe, that Paradise was a lie, that they never actually succeeded in getting away before, but that everything's going to be ok now – because at the end of the day they're nothing more than rats in a maze, running around in circles for the amusement of assholes in white coats.

Thomas knows it, and he tells Aris as such on the first night after their latest rescue – after they've been brought back to the Sheriff's house and shown a room that the man tells them belongs to Thomas, to Stiles; after they've seen all the photos on the walls and in the albums.

Aris seems pretty sold on the whole thing, and Frypan and Sonya don't seem too far behind him, and Thomas can't understand how after everything they've been through that any of them would believe this; that any of them would believe even for a second that this is real.

Minho, Gally and Harriet are just as distrusting of this latest development as Thomas is, at least, so that's something. None of them will walk into whatever is ahead of them with their eyes closed; they won't be caught off guard by whatever shuck variable WICKED throws at them next.

"Look on the bright side," Harriet ends up saying, brisk and practical as always. "For as long as this newest charade lasts, at least we have indoor plumbing."

And that's true. That's a definite step up.

They've learned to find joy in the small things.

So Thomas doesn't believe in this, this supposed rescue. He's sitting on the edge of his seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop – because there's always another shoe, and it always drops, and Thomas will be ready for it when it finally does.

It's not even a case of not letting himself believe in this façade, because there's no question that it's all fake – he doesn't have to remind himself to stay on guard, to not relax, because he is fully aware that this is merely a temporary reprieve. It always is.

And yet…

And yet, as much as Thomas doesn't trust this situation as far as he can throw it… he can't deny that there is something different about this time.

Thomas doesn't know what, but it's – it's like something niggling on the edge of his memory. It's like when Theresa first came up into the Maze. She'd been familiar to him, though he hadn't known why at the time. And then it turned out that he'd known her for years; had worked with her, had been so close to her. Had only forgotten her moments before he was sent up into the Maze.

This is like that. These people are like that. These people who call him Stiles, and who look at him with such joy mingled with such grief. They're familiar in a way he can't put his finger on, and it's disconcerting. He doesn't trust it. He doesn't trust it at all.

But…

But there's also the way that their newest "rescuers" interact with Thomas and the others; it's completely different to any of the other interactions they've had with anyone, for as long as any of them can remember, and Thomas… doesn't know what to make of it.

The first night, there's a woman – a nurse, Melissa – who wants to check them all over, make sure they're not injured or sick in anyway.

Minho less-than-politely informs her that if she wants to do any kind of medical check-up on them, she'll have to knock them out first – and if she wants to knock any of them out, then she needs to know that the others will all rise up in defence, and not a single one of them is going to go down quietly, so she'd better be willing to fight to the death, cause no one will pull any punches just 'cause she's a lady.

The boy with the uneven jaw (Scott, he'd introduced himself as earlier, and he'd said it with a tone of expectation, as though Thomas was meant to know who he was and would have an epiphany at the mere sound of the guy's name, or something) bristles defensively at that and takes a step forward, and Thomas' own metaphorical hackles rise and he moves forward the half step he needs to until he's standing shoulder to shoulder with Minho, both of them tense and ready and staring hard at this "Scott" guy, and Fry and the others are shifting into fighting stances behind them, because Minho was right; if anyone starts something with one of them, the rest will fly to their defence without hesitation – but Melissa catches Scott with a gently restraining hand to his chest before anything can escalate, tells him in an undertone that it's fine, then turns back to the tense Gladers in front of her.

Scott steps back without complaint. He'd gone stiff with surprise, actually, when Thomas – clearly ready to weigh in should things turn into a fight – had stepped forward to join Minho, and then the guy's shock had melted into one of those looks of such grief-filled hurt that Thomas doesn't think Scott would have made a move against them even if the nurse hadn't told him to back off.

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Melissa assures them. "But if someone does need medical attention, I just want you to know I can help, ok? I work at the hospital, and I've been patching Scott and his lot up for years now."

Patching Scott and his lot up for years now, Stiles reflects with a mental scoff and a derisive glance in Scott's direction. How much patching up would a civilian who's clearly never even seen a Crank need, is what Thomas would like to know. The guy doesn't even have any scars.

The nurse is mostly looking at Thomas while she speaks, like all of these people here have been doing since they plucked the Gladers out of Paradise, and then she takes a deep breath and her eyes grow bright with unshed tears as she smiles tremulously at him.

"We're so glad to have you home, Stiles," she says, and Thomas scowls suspiciously at her. There's a flash of deep sorrow in her eyes, then, but she visibly wrangles it down and makes herself smile at him, and then she leaves, tugging a reluctant Scott out of the room with her and leaving the Gladers in peace.

Well. Relative peace. Because there's a good bit of confused suspicion throughout the Gladers, as the Nurse and Scott leave, and they all glance at each other uneasily in the wake of the departure, even as Gally steps forward the second the two are over the threshold, slamming the door shut behind them without hesitation and clicking the lock into place. Then the Gladers all look at each other warily.

A medical professional wanted to examine them, they said no, and she accepted that and left them alone. And didn't even protest at the blatant barring of the door in her wake. The mind boggles. Thomas honestly doesn't know what to make of her. Judging by the other Gladers' expressions, he's not the only one.

The nurse isn't the only one behaving… unpredictably.

They take it in turns sleeping that first night, two on watch – one by the door and one watching out the window – and the remaining five dozing lightly in a pile on the mattress with their various weapons either in hand or immediately within reach, as they've been doing since… since Phase Two, really, now that Thomas is thinking about it. The first time they slept in a pile was in the Scorch, after Minho got struck during the lightning storm, and they've been doing it ever since whenever the opportunity allowed. They're like a shoal of fish, that way. If one fish flinches away from a threat, so do all the others. With the Gladers sleeping in a pile, if one of them wakes up to a disturbance, they all will.

There had been the beginnings of an attempt by Melissa and the Sheriff to split them by gender, a little while before Melissa offered her medical services, when it first became apparent to the Sheriff that the Gladers were all fully intending to sleep in the same room, but when the boys all immediately closed ranks around the two girls and Frypan stiffly informed their newest captors that they would not, under any circumstances, be splitting up – the nurse and the Sheriff had flicked their eyes over the seven of them and…. they had yielded. Had said, "Ok then," and then that had been that.

As if that hadn't been baffling enough, the Sheriff had left then, and two of the teens that had been in their "rescue party" (the loud blonde girl and the quiet, curly-haired boy) had come up the stairs a few minutes later with what looked like all the cushions and pillows from elsewhere in the house, handing them to a suspicious and perplexed Gally before leaving them with the Nurse and Scott with a parting volley from the girl of, "Enjoy your sleepover!" that sounded somehow both genuine yet also sarcastic.

In the Gladers' collective experience to date, what WICKED want, WICKED gets. WICKED does not ask for a medical examination and get refused, and simply accept that. They don't request that the females sleep in the room next door and get told no, and then accept that. They certainly don't get told no, and then offer blankets. It's just not their style.

And yet… that's exactly what these people have done.

It's confusing Thomas, and that confusion is making him even more wary and distrustful of these people. It's making him even more suspicious.

None of them sleep very much, that night, despite the watch they set, and the fact that they've pulled the mattress down onto the ground so they can shove the bedframe over to barricade the door. The fact that the door locks from the inside is a pleasant surprise, but none of them are under any illusions about the lock's strength. Better to barricade the door with furniture, because someone might be able to kick through a door with a simple lock, but it's harder to kick through a door held in place with a bedframe so heavy it took four of them to move it. The chest of drawers gets added to the barricade as well, after a moment's consideration. Just in case.

But no, they don't sleep well that night. They've been yanked out of an oblivious sleep by WICKED too many times to actually allow themselves anything more than a doze, while they wait with baited breath and twitching fingers for the world to shift around them yet again.

Nothing shifts, however, and when the sun peaks its face over the horizon in the morning, they're all still there, all seven of them – in the same blue and grey room, with a pile of blankets and warm bodies on the floor while Aris peers narrow-eyed out the window and Harriet perches alertly on top of the chest of drawers blocking the door.

A whole night passing without someone being plucked from their midst, or without the view from outside the window changing, or without some other huge shift in reality occurring? It breaks pattern, and Thomas doesn't like it. Doesn't trust it.

And the strange, out of pattern behaviour from their new hosts doesn't stop there.

Frypan demands access to the kitchen, that first morning – first thing when they wake up the day after their "rescue," after they've untangled themselves from their pile (Thomas' ankle is cold without the weight of Minho's head resting on it, and his left arm is tingling with pins and needles after Gally stopped using it as a pillow) – mostly because he'd known that he'd be told no.

WICKED haven't let Frypan cook anything since they left the Maze the first time. He doesn't pretend to understand why, but he also doesn't pretend that it's not sending him crazy. Cooking is nothing more than a chore for a lot of people, but the Maze's resident cook didn't nickname himself Frypan for nothing. Cooking is one of the few things that Fry actually enjoys; the larger the group, the happier he is. So when they wake up that first morning, he demands access to the kitchen – partly because none of the Gladers will trust any pre-prepared food that's delivered to them, partly because he's missed cooking and genuinely wants to do it again, but mostly because he too is weirded out by the strangely accommodating attitude of their new captors, and is looking for a chink in the armour. The Gladers as a whole accompany him on his quest to demand access to the kitchen (none of them will be letting the others' out of sight as long as they can help it), but none of them expect to get anything other than a polite-but-unyielding no.

So it comes as something of a shock when the man calling himself the Sheriff – calling himself Thomas' dad – simply blinks in surprise at the demand, and then yields the kitchen to Fry with a sweep of his arms.

Frypan is surprised by and extremely suspicious of the easy acquiescence – they all are – but he moves into place by the stove with a wary glance over his shoulder at the Sheriff, who's lingering in the doorway watching the proceedings with curiosity, guarded eyes flickering to Thomas every few moments. There are others in the house too – the uneven-jawed Scott who keeps staring at Thomas with wounded eyes, and the one called Derek, who's been very quiet this whole time, but whose gaze is dark and inscrutable and rarely leaves Thomas – but they're elsewhere in the house, and it's only the Sherriff watching as Fry and the rest of the Gladers move into the kitchen, all of them taking up instinctively defensive positions through the room and guarding Fry's back as he begins to raid the cupboards.

And, actually, the house – that's different too. The fact that it is actually a house, not barracks in a compound, not a jacked up apartment with boards over the windows in a city on the edge of anarchy. There's a backyard – an actual, bonefide back yard, with a slightly choppy but nonetheless maintained lawn, scattered through with dandelions – that they can see through the kitchen window. They can hear children playing on the street outside, for shucks sake, plus the occasional hum of a vehicle driving by outside.

Thomas wonders where they are, that the Flare so clearly hasn't touched here yet. That everyone is so at ease – so….. unnervingly trusting. Thomas' experiences of any life outside of the relative safety of WICKED compounds says that these people should be tense and alert, with boarded over windows and weapons within reach. Even Denver was like that, and Denver was supposedly Flare-free. They still had cafes, shopping centres, suburban streets – but the people in them were tense and ready to run, looking over their shoulders every three seconds and jumping at shadows. There were no children playing in the street, no people taking dogs for walks or washing their cars in their front yards. There wasn't this… disconcerting sense of peace.

The only explanation Thomas can think of is that they must be inside a huge compound – like the one the Maze was in – one that's completely shut off and barricaded against the outside world, only instead of being filled with giant walls of shifting stone, they've filled this one out with houses and parks and a woodland and civilians. They've done a better job on this sun than they did in the Maze compound. This one looks more like the sun from the old stories and films. Not like the real sun, which is huge and red and dying and deadly, but it's an accurate recreation of how the sun used to be – before the sunflares happened and ruined everything.

The whole setup makes the scientifically-focussed parts of his brain twitch with curiosity. He wants to know how they're pulling this off. Are all the "civilians" here immune? Doubtful, as this is clearly yet another Phase in the ongoing experiments, and you can't have an experiment without a Control group. So there are non-immunes here. Do they have the Flare already? Probably. Again: Control group. So how far along are they? Is that what will rise up to snap at the Glader's heels – will this peaceful, comfortable fake-suburbia abruptly descend into the same state of madness and desperation that Denver did? Or are the infected here more like the non-immunes who were in the Maze? Infected, yes, but still in early enough stages that it will be years before they start behaving less like people and more like Cranks?

Are they all WICKED employees who are knowingly a part of the experiment, like Brenda was, or are some of the people here genuinely just living their lives, unaware that they're even in an experiment? The Sheriff and the nurse and the rest of the "rescue party" are clearly WICKED employees, but what about everyone else? The families, the young couples, the happy children? How will these poor, unprepared people react when the Flare inevitably starts to assert itself here?

People are going to die, when that happens, and it makes Thomas itch with a need to do something – but what. What can he possibly do? If the people here don't know that they're part of an experiment, then they'll hardly believe a bunch of teenagers who've just been "rescued" from a bunch of mad scientists. And if the people here are aware that they're in an experiment, then they're obviously aware of what they're involved in and are resigned to their fate.

Aside from his curiosity over the execution of this newest Phase, though, the thing that sets Thomas on edge the most is the way that… the way that he knows his way around this house.

He's never been here before, not according to his (sure, admittedly patchy) memory, but he knows his way around as though he's lived here for years.

He may not have elected to get all his memories back at the end of Phase Three, but they've been bleeding through for a while now anyway. He remembers his mother. A woman with a kind face and warm, secure arms and eyes full of tears as she told him to go with these people, they'll look after you, you'll be safe. She'd been wrong about that, as it turned out, but she'd tried her best. His memories of his father are less defined than those of his mother, but he can recall a little about him. Hair as dark as Thomas', a face that used to bring comfort changing to one that twisted with madness as he laughed and laughed while he scratched at his arms until they bled.

(Thomas remembers a man who was definitely not the Sheriff of this supposed town – this light-haired man with a weathered face who calls himself Dad and looks at Thomas as though he's simultaneously the most wonderful and the most heartbreaking thing he's ever seen.)

And Thomas remembers his house. He remembers the house he lived in before WICKED came and fetched him, and it wasn't this one. It had old and chipped tiles through the kitchen and the bathroom, ones that had been a creamy white at first but that time had managed to stain a pale, eternally grimy yellow. His bedroom had had a window at one point, but it had been boarded over by his dad before the man had really took a turn for the worse, and Thomas' bedcover was old and faded but it was red with cars on it. The house had been cluttered and the boarded over windows meant it was always dim, and it had been old but clean once, and then as first his father and then his mother started losing themselves to the Flare, it started getting more and more unkempt – dirty carpets and dusty shelves and broken bits of furniture. The garden had been neat once, too, but by the time Thomas left it had been years since anyone had worked on it, and it was more a tangle of dried out, sickly weeds than anything else.

So Thomas remembers his house – and it wasn't this one. It wasn't this house, with all its whites and blues and greys. This house with clean carpet and a not-yellow bathroom and its two storeys and its furniture that's battered and old but that somehow just looks loved and well used, instead of mistreated and neglected. It wasn't this house with its neat front and back yards with bright green, healthy grass. It wasn't clean and clear windows that let in light and looked out into the world, and it wasn't a bedroom with blue bedcovers and posters on the blue-and-grey walls.

Thomas' memories from after WICKED picked him up are still patchy too, but slowly coming back as well, and he might not have a complete picture, but he knows that all the time he was with WICKED up until the Maze he was housed in small, white, utilitarian quarters – never at any stage was he in a house like this one he and the Gladers are in now.

So he's never been here before – and yet he knows this house.

He knows even before the Sheriff tells them that the bathroom is down the hall to the left, and that there's a second one upstairs. He knows that the window in the bedroom they've been allocated (or rather – the bedroom Thomas was allocated, and the one that the rest of them followed him into and set up camp in) has a window with a latch that's a bit sticky but that works if you twist it from an angle of just so.

His feet had instinctively skirted around a patch of floorboards that morning when he and the Gladers left their room, but no one else had – and when everyone else walked right over the top of it, it had squeaked loudly for every one of them.

And now, in the kitchen with Frypan who's muttering under his breath about mixing bowls as he fruitlessly opens drawer after drawer, Thomas takes a step away from where he's watching warily out the window above the sink that overlooks the backyard (and there are no bars on it or anything; if Cranks come at them, they are so unprepared here) and steps to a cupboard Fry hasn't tried yet, opening the door to reveal the mixing bowls.

See – that, Thomas thinks, freezing with his hand still on the cupboard handle. How the shuck did he know where the mixing bowls are. Thomas has never cooked anything in his life, much less cooked anything in this house. He was too young before WICKED to have done any cooking, and then once he got to WICKED they had a whole team of people working in the kitchens and churning out ration-like food to the whole compound, and everyone there was far too concerned with Thomas' mental development and the building of the Maze to bother teaching him how to do anything that might have involved mixing bowls.

"Eyy," Fry says happily, spotting the bowls in question and reaching over, and then he pauses with his hand around the edge of one. "Uh. How did you know where they were?"

Thomas casts a wary, heavily suspicious look at the Sheriff, who's looking at him with a surprised expression of burgeoning hopefulness.

"I don't know," he murmurs in reply, and Fry and Minho – the only ones in hearing, shoot him disconcerted looks.

…

Fry creates something out of the ingredients he appropriates from the Sheriff's kitchen, but Thomas couldn't have said afterwards what it was. He eats more to fuel his body than for the sake of enjoyment, especially since the whole time he's eating he's half expecting something to happen – a Crank to appear out of nowhere; half the kitchen to disappear as their newest handler is projected into the space to give them the details of their most recent batch of orders-veiled-as-requests; hell, if the food turned to literal ash in Thomas' hands, he wouldn't be surprised. He's not willing to put anything past these shanks.

Nothing happens, though, and the seven Gladers eat with military-like speed and effectiveness, all still standing up and in their various guard positions – Minho and Thomas watching at different angles out the window overlooking the backyard; Aris and Sonya on guard at the door the Sheriff is still leaning against, one watching him with suspicious eyes and the other peering into the hallway beyond; and Gally and Harriet at the door that leads into the living room. Between the six of them, they have all possible entry points to the room doubly covered. Only Fry isn't actively on watch, and even then he's still on guard, leaning up against the counter and holding the bowl of food in one hand, shovelling it into his mouth with the other hand and eyes flickering from door to door to window as he eats, the large knife he'd been using to prep the food sitting on the counter beside him within easy reach.

("You know, you – you can sit at the table, if you like," the Sheriff had tried, when it became apparent that they were all planning on eating standing up.

Gally and Sonya had snorted derisively at the suggestion, and Thomas had glanced at the man briefly before dismissing him and turning his attention back to the yard, watching for anything out of the ordinary while he ate. Watching for any movement, any change.

Sit at the table? Yeah, not likely. As if they're gonna sit down and have a leisurely meal at a table, when they all know that's the exact moment something will strike. It may only take half a second to leap up and away from a table, but half a second can mean life or death with WICKED.)

When Thomas finishes his food, the back yard looks as still and peaceful as it had when he first glanced out at it. He sets his bowl down into the sink infront of him with a clang, and turns around, trusting Minho to keep watch out the window.

"So what's the plan?" he asks, voice biting, and everyone looks at him, startled.

"Uhh," Minho says, with a conspicuous glance around. Fair. The middle of the kitchen is hardly the best place to talk strategy away from the ears of their captors. But that's not what Thomas is doing.

"Well?" he asks, twisting to look at the Sheriff, who has been silently watching them all from the doorway since they arrived in the kitchen. At Thomas' question, he looks startled.

"Me?" the man says, halting. "I'm… sorry – what? What's my plan?"

"Yeah," Thomas says, setting a hip against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest so he can eyeball the guy properly. "This has gotta be, what…. Phase Five? Is that where we're up to?"

"Five, yeah," Sonya answers, not moving from her place by the living room door, but twisting so she's looking flatly at the Sheriff too, and her expression is as blankly aggressive as Thomas' probably is.

"You got all the data you needed from Paradise, and now you need to know how we react in a civilian setting?" she continues, and she's clearly just as fed up with waiting for something to happen as Thomas is. "Hm? What's the game play here?"

The Sheriff looks from one to the other, a bewildered expression on his face.

"I don't – there is no plan," he says after a moment, and Thomas snorts.

"Sure," he says, derisive. "I guess there was no plan back when you turned us loose into the Scorch, either. No plan except make it to the other side, but that wasn't the case, was it? Or there was no plan for Paradise either, only there was, because you made sure you had Brenda in there to poke things in the right direction. Or when we got out of the Maze, you didn't have a plan then either I guess, only you did, because you had it all set up before we even got past the Grievers. Don't give me this there is no plan klunk. There's always a plan, you people always have something in motion, some plot lined up, and if you think we're just gonna wait around for it to come snapping up and bite us in the–"

"I don't have a plan!" the Sheriff interrupts with a yell, and Thomas falls silent, glaring mistrustfully, but waits to hear what bull-klunk the man will say.

"I don't," the Sheriff repeats, and then shrugs, looking helpless. "I – my plan for so long was to find you. It didn't extend any further than that. And then it was years, and I was still looking, even though I'd practically given up. It never occurred to me that I would find you one day and you wouldn't know who I was. Who you are."

Thomas is silent, watching warily, and the Sheriff heaves a sigh.

"I didn't plan beyond finding you because. Because I thought either we'd find you and everything would be fine, or… or – once Lydia found the College link and we started looking into the kinds of sciences that were being performed under the table, I worried that I'd find where you had been, and that there'd… that there'd only be a file with a Deceased stamp over a photo of you, and. And I couldn't think about that. I couldn't let myself think about that.

"It never occurred to me that we'd find you and that you'd… that you would have absolutely no memory of anything from before. We had no idea that memory manipulation was something science had worked out how to do. Even with Lydia neck deep in dodgy files after we worked out the Ava Paige connection – "

"Ava Paige?" Thomas says sharply. "What Ava Paige connection?"

The other Gladers are all listening raptly, and only Minho, Gally and Harriet are still keeping watch. Sonya, Fry and Aris have all their attention focussed on the Sheriff, and Thomas would berate them, but his attention is completely on the weathered man as well.

"The man who kidnapped you, years ago – Gerard," the Sheriff explains. "Gerard Argent. He went to College with Paige. They were good buddies – had the same kind of moral compass. Or, lack of one, rather. The connection was well buried, but Lydia found it in the end. Turns out they never lost contact. We're not sure how many of you all were brought to Ava by Gerard, but we know it was a lot of you. He'd get paid for every teenager he'd deliver. It was a secondary income for him, well hidden in his accounts. I'm just sorry it took us so long to find the connection."

"And what happened to Gerard," Thomas asks, curious to see how detailed this tale is. He doesn't believe a word of it, of course – he wasn't kidnapped by WICKED; his mother gave him to WICKED. She'd thought she was keeping him safe. And who knows, maybe he was safer with WICKED for a while than he would have been had he stayed at home, with her. She'd been showing advanced symptoms of the Flare, by then, and her moments of lucidity had been growing further and farther between. Who knows what might have happened to Thomas had he stayed. WICKED may have put him through hell recently, but he was relatively safe with them for a few years, at least, while everyone in his hometown lost their minds and turned on each other. But whatever. The point is, there was no man named Gerard. Thomas' mother handed him over to WICKED personally, and whether it was the right thing to do or not Thomas will never be able to answer. So he doesn't believe this tale, but he'd like to know how far it goes. How much thought they've put into this fake backstory.

"He died," the Sheriff says, and he looks mad about it. Interesting reaction to a dead bloke, Thomas thinks, but then the Sheriff goes on and his anger is explained.

"He had cancer," the man says shortly. "And he was willing to try anything he could to get rid of it. He kidnapped you at a lacrosse game – there was a power surge and all the lights blew out, and by the time we got everything sorted, you were gone. Near as we can piece together, he knocked you out and called Paige's associates to come and get you. And then after you were gone, and his payment for it had been transferred, he… tried an experimental drug. He thought it would get rid of the cancer. It uh. Didn't take. He… had an allergic reaction. By the time we worked out that he was the one who'd taken you, by the time we went to find him, he was already dead. Which meant we couldn't question him on what he'd done with you."

"Hm," Thomas says, narrowing his eyes a little. There's something about the tale that doesn't sound right. The pauses – the occasional hesitation. This tale should have been well rehearsed, so why the pauses while the Sheriff tried to work out how to word it? It's like the man was editing on the fly; leaving bits out he doesn't want Thomas to know. But why edit an already false story? Why not just come up with a whole story that they can tell Thomas, rather than one with bits they have to edit? Surely they know that hesitations like that – obvious on-the-fly editing – is only going to deepen Thomas' suspicion. Aren't they supposed to be convincing him to trust them? Giving him a patchy, obviously edited story doesn't make sense.

"Paige is in custody now," the Sheriff continues, oblivious to Thomas' thoughts. "She's lawyered up, of course, but there's enough evidence to see her go away for life."

Thomas frowns.

"Ava's dead," he says. What is this shank talking about, Ava being in custody.

The sheriff gives him a quizzical look.

"No," he says. "No – she's. She's in custody. She's been arrested."

"No," Thomas says. "She was in the building when the Right Arm blew it up. No one left behind in there survived." They can't have. Thomas saw the quantity of explosives that were being placed. Anyone still in that building who survived the explosions would have been killed by the collapsing building, just like– no, nope, not thinking about Theresa. Not going there.

Ava. They're talking about Ava. About how there's no way Ava survived.

"The second site, Thomas," Minho says, interjecting for the first time. Thomas turns to face him, and the other boy's expression is serious and set. "They were running Paradise out of a second site – what if she wasn't still in the Compound when it blew? What if she left the note for you and left, went to the second site?"

Thomas stares at Minho.

The note. The note that gave Thomas a map of the Compound and told him to get everyone to the Flat Trans. The Flat Trans that would take them to Paradise. Paradise, that was a complete fabrication by WICKED. Paradise that was nothing more than Phase Four.

"Shuck," Thomas swears after a moment. Because Minho is right. Ava left the note for Thomas, telling him to get to Paradise, where – unbeknown to everyone bar Brenda, the turncoat – the experiment continued. Of course Ava wouldn't stick around in a building that was under attack when the entire experiment was moving to a second location. Of course she would go with the experiment, follow it through to the second site. Of course.

Shuck, Ava was alive.

"She's in custody," the Sheriff repeats, and Thomas spins back to face him. He looks concerned – eyes flickering from Thomas to Minho and back again. "We arrested her before we got to you. We knew she was the one running the whole thing, we made sure she couldn't slip away. She's been in holding since we got you out of that place. She'll be transferred to FBI custody once they arrive and take over the case; they're taking it over today. Paige is going away for a long time. She'll never step foot outside of a prison again."

Yeah, sure. Because this rescue is real, and Ava's really been arrested, and the FBI are really still a thing that exist anywhere but in stories from before the Flares. Uh huh.

Thomas must make a noise of scorn, because the Sheriff's eyebrows twitch in, what is that, concern? It's meant to look like concern, probably, but Thomas knows that everything from this man's words to his expressions are all planned out well in advance.

"Stiles," the guy says, and Thomas twitches irritably at the incorrect name. "What they did – what Paige and Argent and all those scientists did to you all – that was so, so illegal. You know that, right? And Paige will pay the consequences for that. So will all the others we arrested."

And, well. Thomas certainly hadn't thought it was moral, but he's pretty sure WICKED are fully sanctioned. No cost is too high, after all, according to world governments. Not if it finds them the cure.

"I'm surprised anyone gives a klunk about the law, these days," Minho says, echoing Thomas' thoughts. The Sheriff glances at him, face drawn and eyes sad.

"I know you guys have been through a lot," he says. "And I know it's probably hard to believe that anyone cares, after all the shit those scientists put you through. But there actually are still people who care about the law. Quite a lot of us, actually. Most people. The people who did this to you were criminals. They didn't care about the law, but they should have."

Thomas isn't convinced.

The Sheriff can tell, apparently.

"Here – look," he says, and strides forward suddenly.

Thomas and the other Gladers all leap to attention, hands going to their various weapons – Frypan grabs the knife from the counter behind him, Thomas yanks out the knife at his belt, Minho slides his out from the sheath on his back, Gally pulls the pistol from the back of his pants, Harriet does the same with her gun, Sonya produces a pair of thin but deadly sharp blades that she holds in each hand, and Aris pulls a knife from his sleeve – and the Sheriff stills, freezing in the middle of the kitchen.

He raises his hands slowly, and doesn't drop his eyes from Thomas'.

"I'm just getting my laptop," he says, soothing.

There's a scuffle at the bottom of the stairs, and suddenly Scott and Derek are in the doorway – both of them unarmed, but stances clearly ready for a fight – and even as Thomas shifts his feet into a fighting stance and feels Minho doing the same behind him, the two new arrivals freeze at the sight of the Sheriff in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded on all sides by armed teenagers.

"Derek, Scott, stand down, it's fine," the Sheriff says, his hands still raised and his voice still calm, like he's talking to a pack of spooked dogs and keeping his tone even and modulated will help calm them.

"I moved too fast, I startled you," he goes on, still looking at Stiles. "I'm sorry. I'm just going into the living room to get my laptop."

No one says anything – the Gladers have their attention divided, half on the Sheriff and half on the two in the doorway, the six of them with their weapons aloft and ready, and Derek and Scott in turn are watching the Gladers, both of them frozen in the doorway and still tense and ready for a fight despite the Sheriff's words.

It's obvious that they've been eavesdropping on the entire conversation – the Sheriff moving suddenly and all the Gladers pulling their weapons in response was too quiet for it to have attracted the attention of anyone who wasn't already listening hard to the interaction. For them to have shown up so quickly means that they were close – they were probably just out of sight on the stairwell, listening.

"I'm just gonna get my laptop," the Sheriff repeats, and – keeping his hands raised in the universal gesture for unarmed, slowly starts moving towards the living room. No one stops him, and Gally slides silently further back (out of grabbing reach) when the Sheriff reaches the doorway to the living room.

"It's just on the couch there, I'm just gonna grab it and come back into the kitchen, ok?" the Sheriff says, and Gally keeps his gun trained on the man as he proceeds into the living room, heading for the silver computer that is indeed lying on one of the couches.

No one moves a muscle as the Sheriff retrieves his laptop – Gally keeps his gun trained on him (good move – sure, the guy says he's getting his laptop, but if he's up to anything else, then he'll think twice about pulling any klunk while he's got a gun trained on him at short range) and the rest of them have their attention either on the Sheriff, now moving slowly through the living room, or Derek and Scott, both of whom are still standing stock still in the doorway to the kitchen, clearly ready to burst into action at a moments' notice.

From where Thomas is standing by the sink, he can clearly see into the living room, and he keeps his eyes trained on the Sheriff as he makes it to the couch and bends to pick up his laptop one handed, keeping the other one raised in the air. The man makes his way back towards the kitchen just as smoothly and calmly as he left it, laptop in one hand trailing a charging cord and the other hand still raised.

He sets it down on the kitchen table, telegraphing his every move. He hits a button and the machine starts to power up, and he turns and finds everyone still with their weapons held at the ready, Derek and Scott still frozen and ready in the doorway.

"Ok, everyone, how about we put the weapons down," he says exasperatedly, gesturing with one hand to Thomas and the Gladers and with the other to Derek and Scott. Not that those two have any weapons, and Thomas finds himself reluctantly impressed with how willing they clearly were to throw themselves into a fight to protect the Sheriff, even though they're both unarmed and outnumbered three to one.

Still. He's not about to put his weapon down when the two of them are standing there ready for a fight. Dropping his guard when there's enemies within spitting distance, still looking for the slightest excuse to start a fight? Thomas doesn't think so.

"Call off your wolves and we'll think about lowering our weapons," Thomas says, not loosening his grip on his blade at all.

And its only for a moment, but Thomas doesn't fail to spot the way all three men freeze at his words.

Thomas barely gets enough time to think, That's… weird, before the Sheriff's countenance is dropping back into deliberately loose and easy and non-threatening again, and the man is chuckling in a way that only sounds slightly forced.

"Call off my wolves," the Sheriff says, with a laugh, and waves a hand at Derek and Scott. "I suppose it's fair enough to call them that – stop looming, you two, no one's going to attack me. It was my fault – I moved too fast and startled everyone. Won't happen again."

Scott is the first one to ease out of the fighting stance, and he elbows Derek to follow suit, leaning in and murmuring something too quiet for the Gladers to hear. Derek is reluctant to fall out of the ready stance, it's clear, but at an exasperated sigh from the Sheriff, he does so. The tension falls out of his limbs and he crosses his arms over his chest and moves so he's leaning against the doorjam instead, clearly not planning on going anywhere, but also no longer one wrong move from launching into a fight. He looks relaxed, but immovable. Beside him, Scott is much less relaxed. Now that he's not looking ready to launch into a fight, he's shifting from foot to foot, looking anxious and restless and stressed. He keeps looking at Thomas, something like shocked disbelief in his expression, but he clearly doesn't want Thomas to catch him looking, because he looks away again just as swiftly, only for his gaze to flicker back to the Glader within a second.

"Ok great, thanks, boys," the Sheriff says to them, and then turns to the Gladers. "You guys can put your weapons down now," he says pointedly, with a quirked eyebrow.

Thomas hesitates, but sees no immediate threat. He flickers his eyes around to the rest of the Gladers, one by one. One by one they twitch either a nod or a shrug at him, ending with Minho behind him, who quirks his shoulders in a shrug while keeping his face set in stern lines, which Thomas translates to mean, Sure, lower them, but don't put them away. Like Thomas was going to do anything else.

He lowers his knife first, but keeps it in hand – holding it by his thigh with the tip pointed down – and the others all follow suit, Harriet and Gally clicking the safety back on on their respective guns, Sonya lowering her blades and easing out of her ready stance, Fry and Minho and Aris lowering but not stowing their knives. If need be, they'll all be fighting ready again in a heartbeat.

Derek looks displeased that none of the weapons have been put away, and Scott looks more conflicted and anxious than before, but the Sheriff just looks resigned.

"That'll do, I guess," he says with a sigh, and gestures to his laptop. "This is my work computer, so it's connected into the Station's database. I'm going to show you Ava's arrest photo."

That gets Thomas' interest despite himself, and with a glance at Minho, who looks just as reluctantly curious as Thomas feels, but jerks his chin in a nod, Thomas moves cautiously forward so he can see the screen of the laptop.

The Sheriff doesn't even turn around as Thomas approaches, though the Glader can feel Derek prickling with distrust the closer Thomas and his still-unsheathed knife get to the older man. The Sheriff just continues clicking away at his computer, typing in a password here and then clicking at an icon, entering another password and then a series of buttons in the program that opens up, until he types "PAIGE, AVA" into a search bar, clicks on the name that comes up, and then there she is.

Ava Paige – face forever frozen in an expression of arrogant disdain, her blonde hair slightly mussed where it's come loose from her usually pristine bun, white coat mostly hidden from view by the board she's holding up with perfectly manicured hands that says "Brewster County Police Department," and then has a series of numbers underneath – stares up at Thomas from the screen.

His breath catches in his throat. She does look different to the last time that he saw her. The bags under her eyes are more pronounced, the grey in her hair standing out in the harsh station lighting. It's only been a few weeks since he last saw her, but she looks… older.

It may not be evidence that she's been arrested (photos can be faked so easily, Thomas still believes none of this), but the photo does serve to solidify the belief that she is, after all, alive. Thomas' jaw clenches.

"We brought the local PD in on the case once we found the compound and arrested her," the Sheriff says. "I wasn't about to transport her back to the same town I was bringing you home to, not if I could leave her in Brewster. She's being held there. The FBI is on their way – this case is way too big, crosses too many jurisdictions, for any one PD to handle it, and she and the rest of her coworkers will be transferred into their custody when they arrive."

"Co-workers?" Thomas asks, sharp, and pulls his gaze away from Ava's photo to stare hard at the Sheriff instead, a feeling like cold water splashing down his spine as he realises something. "How many of them?"

"Uh – " the Sheriff says, thrown by the sudden intensity in Thomas' demeanor. "About… seventy, all up. Largest single organisation seen… ever, I'm pretty sure. Why, what – "

"Ratman," Thomas says, cutting him off, because shuck. Thomas is pretty sure he's dead – is 99.8% certain he's dead, given that Thomas saw him die, choked the life out of him with his own two hands – but now that he's thinking about it, Thomas wouldn't put it past WICKED to have somehow saved the shank.

"Rat-" the Sheriff repeats, blank. "Ratman?"

"Janson," Thomas clarifies. "Is he still alive too?"

"I don't – I don't know the name – "

"Ugly shank with a face like a rat," Minho pitches in, coming up from behind and standing shoulder to shoulder with Thomas.

"Smug, nasally voice," Sonya pitches in from across the room. "Always sounds like he knows more than you, and isn't afraid to lord that over you."

"Ava's right hand man," Thomas says, and the Sheriff slowly shakes his head.

"I don't think so," he says. "We're still going through all the employee files, but there's no one by that description. But I'll get all the arrest photos up, and you can have a look – here, hang on."

The Sheriff closes the photo of Ava, and inputs new parameters into the search bar. A long list of names comes up. He clicks on the first one, and twists the computer so Thomas and Minho can see better. The first photo is a skinny guy with dark hair and a wide-eyed expression of terror.

"Just click the left or right arrows, and it'll bring up the next record," the Sheriff says, and Thomas reaches out to do so.

They're a few photos through men and women, of varying ages and with various expressions on their faces at being in front of a police camera, when Harriet pipes up with a cold, flat, "I know that one."

Thomas looks more closely at the photo. It's a woman with shoulder length dark hair who's staring at the camera with as expressionless a face as she can manage. Thomas doesn't think he's seen her before.

"Oh yeah," Sonya says darkly, and they're all loosely knotted around the laptop now, weapons all still drawn and half their attention still on the three non-Gladers in the room, but the other half of their focus on the photographs in front of them. "She was…"

"Not pleasant," Aris finishes, scowling at her photo.

A Group B-focussed scientist, then. Makes sense. They probably had scientists who were devoted to one group or another, and then others who oversaw both. Thomas clicks through to the next photo.

There are familiar faces here and there – a scientist who ran obs on Thomas during Phase Three, one who makes Minho hiss almost silently, one that Gally recognises as the one who patched him up after he was stabbed (the Sheriff and Scott twitch at that, in apparent distress), a few more that Thomas and Minho both recognise or that Aris and the girls do. But no Ratman.

"He's not there," Minho says, once the photos have circled back around to the first scared looking man who's wide eyes do nothing to engender any sympathy on Thomas' part.

"Good," Thomas says, firm. "Hopefully he really is dead then."

Scott, still hovering in the doorway, looks startled at Thomas' tone. Thomas pays him no heed.

"Why do you think he's dead anyhow?" Minho asks. "We don't know he was even in the Compound. What if he went over to Site B, with Ava?"

"No," Thomas says, shaking his head once. "He was definitely in the Compound as it was going down. He tried to kill me, but I killed him instead."

He sees the way the three non-Gladers eyes widen at that – the Sheriff's eyes go wide at the he tried to kill me part, while Scott's flare wide at the but I killed him part, and even Derek, who thus far has exhibited no ability for expression, always maintaining a blank and vaguely threatening visage, goes wide-eyed with sudden shock at Thomas' frank words – but Minho's face shifts into one of stern approval.

"Good," he says, fierce and immediate. "I never liked that slinthead."

"Nice," Sonya agrees, and Harriet is nodding with her. "There's a few I wish I'd gotten the chance to take down. That brunette girl, for starters."

"I'd happily slit all their throats," Gally adds, light voice belayed by the dark words, and the others all consider that for half a second.

"Yeah," Thomas and Sonya agree with synchronised shrugs, both speaking just as Minho says "Good that," Fry says "Fair," and Aris and Harriet say "Same here" in unison.

Scott's eyes widen further and the Sheriff looks quietly wounded, looking from one to the other of them with an expression of muted sadness. Derek, though, Thomas notes, looks down at the ground with his lips curled just at the edges in a smile that looks, to Thomas' untrained eye, approving.

Whatever. Thomas doesn't care whether these people approve of him or not. He wouldn't change what happened with Janson. Would strangle the life out of the guy a second time, in fact, if the opportunity arose. And he doesn't give a shuck if these people would approve or disapprove of that.

"Alright, so, great," he says, getting things back on track. "Ava's been arrested – or so you'd have us believe, at least. That doesn't answer my question. What's next. What's the plan, here."

The Sheriff shrugs helplessly.

"I don't," he starts, and then lets out a gust of breath. "I guess – we move forward. We prosecute all those involved with everything you've all suffered these last years, we work out how to deal with everything you've been through. We… we give you space, I guess. Time. I know you don't trust us. I hope we can change that eventually. We work through it. We find your friends' families, get them home, we–"

"What?" Thomas demands, at the same time that Minho says, "Find our families?" and Harriet says "Get us home?"

"I – " the Sheriff says, apparently startled by their reactions. "Yes?"

"Our families are dead," Sonya says, voice flat.

"Yeah, or as good as," Gally mutters under his breath.

The Sheriff looks like someone just punched a puppy in front of him.

"No they're not," he says. "Look – I may not know where any of you came from, what kind of families you had before you were taken. Maybe some of your family members have died in the years you've been gone. But you all have families out there. You do. And I'm going to make sure we find them. Ok?"

The Gladers trade expressions. The guy sounds so convinced, so convicted, that if they didn't know he was dead wrong, they might believe him. Either the Sheriff is one hell of an actor, or – and the thought pops into Thomas' head like a lightbulb being flicked – maybe the Sheriff isn't in on this at all. Maybe he's not an employee of WICKED – maybe he's like the Gladers were, back when they were in the Maze. Aware of WICKED's existence, but unaware of what that meant. Unaware that they were in a colossal experiment.

That would explain a few things. It would explain why the guy seems so genuinely earnest, so honestly concerned with their welfare. It would explain why this freaky idyllic suburbia seems like something out of stories of a pre-sun flares world. The Maze was huge – if WICKED had filled it with a replica of suburbia instead of ever-shifting walls, it would be easy to get a result like this place. That would explain the lack of Cranks, too, and why no one here seems remotely prepared for their inevitable arrival. So maybe that's it. Maybe this guy is part of the experiment, but he's not aware of it.

"Is – is that what WICKED told you?" the Sheriff asks, almost hesitant, like he's pretty sure the answer is yes but wants to confirm anyway.

Thomas opens his mouth – is going to say that he didn't need WICKED to tell him anything. Is going to say that he remembers his father dying. He remembers his father's slow descent into madness, how he lost himself piece by piece to the Flare, starting with bouts of madness and moving on to him digging his own eyes out and ending, ultimately, with it killing him.

Thomas is going to say he remembers it starting with his mother, too. Remembers the way her temper got shorter and shorter and how she started laughing at things that weren't funny and that she started pulling her hair out, follicle by follicle, just to watch the individual hairs pile up in a tangle at her feet, only to scream in shock and anguish when she finally turned around and caught sight of her new bald patch in the mirror.

Thomas is going to say all that, but then he catches himself. He and Minho (and Newt, his brain whispers, but Thomas shies away from the thought) all declined to get their memories back after Phase Three. As far as WICKED know, he still doesn't remember anything from before he woke up in the Maze, and Thomas thinks he should probably keep it that way. His memories are bleeding through piece by piece, and so long as WICKED doesn't know, Thomas can use it against them. Can catch them out in lies, can utilise knowledge that they think he doesn't remember.

At the very least, him remembering without their knowledge will screw with their test results. It's a variable they haven't factored for, which will skew any results they pull from his brain. Case in point – they're trying to convince him that this guy is his dad, which they wouldn't be doing if they knew he remembered his own father. He's already screwing with their results.

So he says nothing. Closes his mouth on what he wants to say, and sets his lips into a line.

Turns out he doesn't need to say it, because someone else does.

"Some of us didn't need to be told," Aris says, voice hollow and dark. "Some of us remember."

Thomas glances at him out the corner of his eye, keeping most of his attention on the Sheriff and the other two non-gladers still lurking protectively in the doorway, listening to every word. Thomas wonders what happened to Aris' parents. The kid was one of those who elected to get his pre-Maze memories back – actually, aside from Minho and Thomas, everyone here elected to do that – so as long as he was old enough before WICKED came for him, Aris would have memories of his parents. Of what happened to them to make it clear that Aris was an immune and they weren't. Thomas wonders if Aris' story is anything like the fractured memories bleeding through into Thomas' own consciousness.

"Oh," the Sheriff says, apparently not sure how to respond to that. "I'm… sorry to hear that, kid," is what he settles on. "But – the rest of you. If… if WICKED told you your families were dead… you know they were lying, right? To be frank, I doubt they told you a single honest thing the whole time you were with them."

Thomas scoffs, and the Sheriff looks over at him.

"You think we're going to give your word any more weight than theirs when you're one of them?" Thomas asks, faintly incredulous that WICKED would think them this stupid, after everything. Because either the Sheriff is an employee of WICKED, or he's had his own memories shucked with and what he's feeding them now is exactly what WICKED wants the Gladers to hear. But either way it's not likely to be anything close to the truth.

"Stiles –"

"No, my name's not Stiles!" Thomas interrupts, yelling suddenly. "Stop calling me Stiles – I don't know who the shuck Stiles is! My name is Thomas!"

The expression on the Sheriff's face shatters for a moment, before he visibly wrangles his face under control and shutters the grief away and out of sight, and then he holds his hands up placatingly.

"Alright, ok, Thomas," he says. "Thomas. It might… it might take me a bit to get used to that, but. I can try."

"Great," Thomas says, biting and fed up. "So can we move on to the part of the show where you tell us what we have to do? Escape a Maze, cross a Crank-infested city, what. Cause this waiting thing is really getting on my nerves, and if it's all the same to you, I'd rather just get started."

"Agreed," Minho mutters, for Thomas' ears only. "I shuckin' hate waiting."

"There's not – " the Sheriff says, a hint of frustration creeping into his voice. "There isn't anything you have to do. You can do what you like."

"Can we go get a pizza?" Fry asks, sarcastic.

The Sheriff shrugs.

"Sure, if you want to," he says, and the Gladers all blink at the unexpected answer and stare at the guy.

"What," Gally says, after a long moment.

"You're not prisoners here," the Sheriff says, sounding exhausted. "You're not on house arrest. You can go outside, go for a walk, whatever. Go get a pizza, or… burgers. Re-explore the town. Go for a damn bike ride, if you want to. Whatever."

Thomas trades a disbelieving look with Minho while the other Gladers do the same around them.

"We can go outside," Thomas repeats flatly, turning back to the Sheriff, beyond dubious. That's… new. Thomas doesn't like new things.

The Sheriff sighs, shoulders drooping like someone's just dropped a heavy load across them. Scott looks like he's about to cry. Derek looks blank-faced.

"Yeah, kid," the Sheriff says, sounding tired. "Yeah, you can go outside."

Thomas glances at Fry and Gally, then Aris and the girls, all of them thinking the same thing. This… is not how WICKED usually does things. At all. Usually, they're restricted to one place, given strict guidelines. When they were in the Maze they didn't have free-reign – had to be back within the Glade before sundown, or face the consequences – and even when they were turned loose into the Scorch they weren't allowed to just do what they wanted. They were working to a strict timetable, and they all knew it. Get to the coordinates by the set date and time, or perish. Not really a lot of free choice involved in that Phase. And even in Paradise, they'd had free-reign of the island, sure, but it was an island. They'd managed to make rafts that could hold two people at a time to go fishing out in the shallows, but they had yet to bother attempting to make anything larger that would get them out beyond the breakwater beyond the bay. Unmitigated freedom of choice and roaming just isn't WICKED's style.

So this – this "Go for a walk, go ride a bike, whatever" attitude? It's different. And it's weird. And Thomas doesn't know what it means.

"Some ground rules," the sheriff says, before any of the Gladers speak. "One. You don't leave the town. I didn't look for you for three years just for you to run off just after I found you. Two. You're home by 6. All of you. If you're not back by then, I don't mind telling you I'll be launching a panic-fuelled search party for you. Three. One of the pac– uh. Scott, Derek, or one of their friends accompanies you at all times."

Ok, that sounds more like WICKED. Not quite, sure – WICKED's ordinary stipulations would be far more restrictive and have more dire consequences than "I'll panic and start a search party for you," but still. The restrictions make sense.

"Ok?" the Sheriff says, and Thomas realises that he's waiting for a response.

"Uh…" Thomas says, when the others all glance at him sideways, apparently waiting for him to speak. "Sure."

Thomas is pretty sure they can lose the tail with no problem, after all. Derek might have muscles and a looming presence, but there's one of him and seven Gladers, and even if Scott accompanies the older man, Scott's so clearly got zero experience with – well, anything – that Thomas will almost feel bad ditching him and leaving the guy bemused and without his quarry. And after that, they can walk until they find the walls of this place. Because it has to have walls, there's nothing else that would keep the Cranks out. And if they find the perimeter, then they can start working out how to get out of here. Or they'll kickstart whatever this Phase is really about, and then they can deal with that. Either way, it's better than sitting in the Sheriff's house waiting for something to happen.

"Here," the Sheriff says, and then he's rummaging in his back pocket and coming out with a small square of folded leather, from which he pulls a couple of sheafs of patterned paper.

Money, Thomas' mind supplies, even though he's never seen any in his life. By the time he was old enough for memories to stick, money had already fallen out of use. What use is money, when the world is falling apart and even the riches people in the world can't buy a cure? Even in Denver, the Last City, they didn't come across any money. They weren't there long enough before everything turned to clunk to get their hands on any or to bother trading it. Thomas knows of it in an abstract, academic way only.

But the Sheriff is holding it out in Thomas' direction like it's a thing that actually has meaning – like if they're really going to go out into the neighbourhood and buy a pizza, then they're going to need money to achieve that, so Thomas reaches out and gingerly takes the offered notes, not moving any closer to the Sheriff than he has to in order to be able to reach.

"Main Street is east of here," the Sheriff says, apparently dedicated to this get them to go buy pizza idea now that it's come up. "You wanna turn left when you leave the house, then right onto the bigger road. After that, just follow the signs and you'll get there. Derek, Scott – will you –"

"We'll go, Sheriff," Scott says, eager and earnest. Thomas is starting to think that that earnest is the guy's default setting.

Derek sighs as though it's the last thing he wants to be doing, but nods at the Sheriff.

"Thanks, boys," the Sheriff says. "Make sure they get home safe?"

Like Thomas and the Gladers aren't planning on ditching them the second they're out of the house.

"Sure thing," Scott says, while Derek inclines his chin in a gesture Thomas assumes means yes.

"Ok, great," the Sheriff says, and reaches to gather up his computer. "Well – I'm gonna go to the station. See if I can't get some of the paperwork done before the FBI swing past. I'll see you all later."

That last bit is said with a pointed glance at the Gladers as a whole, as if he's wordlessly reminding them of his various conditions, and then he leaves the room, making his way past Derek and Scott and down the hallway, fetching his keys from the bowl under the mirror and then slipping out the door without a backwards glance.

Thomas and the others watch him go, bemused and not a little wary. This is weird. This whole situation is weird. Thomas doesn't like it at all. For all he knows, the second they step out the door they're going to be beset by Grievers or something.

"What the shuck is going on here," Fry murmurs to Minho, and Minho shrugs.

"No idea, but eyes open, yeah?" he replies, muted so that Derek and Scott – still just outside the kitchen door – won't hear. "I don't trust these shanks not to have something set up."

"Good that," Fry, Thomas and Gally murmur in response, while Aris and the girls nod seriously.

"So!" Scott says as they hear the Sheriff's car start up outside, and the guy is bright and cheerful and apparently oblivious to the tension in the room. "Pizza?"

"After you," Thomas says, because like hell is he going to walk past these two to get to the front door. If the two non-Gladers are going to accompany them, then fine, but they have to be jacked in the head if they think that any of the Gladers are going to willingly put their backs to them.

Derek seems to pick up on the unspoken parts of Thomas' words more than Scott does, because he nudges Scott in the side and gestures to the front door when the younger man looks up at him quizzically.

"We'll meet you outside," Derek says, and gives Scott a push to start herding him down the hallway. The younger man goes without any verbal protests, but his confusion is plain on his face and in his body language.

They open the door and walk out into the sunshine, Derek pulling the door closed behind him, and only when the Gladers have heard the snick of it latching properly closed does some of the tension eke out of their limbs.

"So this is… different," Sonya says.

"I don't like it," Harriet adds immediately, and Thomas nods in agreement.

"Me either," Minho agrees. "But I say we get it over with."

"Agreed," Gally says, while Aris bites his lip for a second before nodding.

Harriet and Sonya glance at each other and have a silent conversation for a moment, before turning back to Minho and Thomas.

"Ok," Sonya says. "We're in."

"Fry?" Thomas asks, and Frypan blinks at him in surprise.

"Of course," he says. "Cookin's great for the soul and all, but if you think I ain't standing here with ants in my pants wondering where the next hit's coming from, you can guess again. I say we go find the hit before it finds us."

Minho grins.

"After you, fearless leader," he says, gesturing to Thomas.

"Don't think I'm not aware of how you only ever treat me like the fearless leader when there's some unknown klunk we're about to be heading into," Thomas says, and Minho's grin brightens.

"Well I'm the actual leader," Minho explains. "These shanks would be lost without me. So I gotta send you in first to the dangerous situations."

Thomas snorts and rolls his eyes.

"Right, well," he says, and then glances around the circle of Gladers. "Anyone need anything else from upstairs?" They all have extra layers on today than what they had on yesterday when they arrived, having raided the upstairs wardrobe for newer, clean clothes to add to their rather worn outfits, so they're set for clothing. They have their weapons on them, and Thomas can't think of anything else they might need from the little blue room upstairs.

"Ooh, not from upstairs, but hang on –" Fry says, and darts over to the pantry. He rummages around inside for a second, then comes back out with two boxes of muesli bars and a bag of apples. He tosses the various foodstuffs to the rest of the Gladers until they've got a bar each and an apple for every second person.

"Chef's privileges," Thomas says when Fry tries to hand him the last apple. "We'll all split ours, you have that one."

Fry flashes a quick grin.

"Knew I liked you," Fry says, tucking the apple into the oversized pocket on the jacket he'd liberated from upstairs.

"Let's get this over with, then," he says, and makes his way down the hallway towards the front door.

It's a short hallway – painted in blues and greys like the rest of the house, and lined with supposed family pictures that Thomas refuses to even glance at as he walks by them – and it's not long before he's at the front door. He pauses, hand on the handle, and glances back at the six people behind him.

Minho so close behind Thomas he's practically right beside him, and Gally, Fry, Aris and the girls behind are clustered close behind. They've all got their weapons in hand and their faces are set in readiness. They've even all got full stomachs, which is better than they've had at the start of some of the Phases they've all lived through. Thomas turns to face forward again, twists the door handle and takes a breath, then trades a last look with Minho, who gives him a bracing smile.

"Here goes," Thomas says, and he steps out the door and into the street.

…

AN: Who else cried like a baby at Newt's letter in the movie? Because wow, I definitely did.

Next up: Tommy and the Gladers go exploring, try to lose their babysitters, and fail to purchase pizza.