Hey guys and gals. I'm not dead, just been struggling with writing the chapter, and then being bombarded by my brain with other ideas, and then the not sleeping. I'm back in my groove now. Working on a couple new projects - so if you love the MCU, get ready. And then my TW/PJO series will get updated, cause I have another one-shot racing round my brain, along with the multi-chapter story for that series as well.
Anyway, that is not the point. Point is, while I may be working on these other projects, I will probably be taking some time off of Teen Wolf fanfics for a few months. I've basically been working on them for nearly a year, and my brain is asking for a break on said category.
Now, enough with that, lets get on with the story. Thanks to all of you who have favourited, followed, subscribed, and all that jazz.
Please R&R/Comment if you want.
T.C
PS. The Little Prisoners (the second part of this series) will ONLY be posted in The Maze Runner category. Apart from a couple of characters, it will mainly be set in TMR world. It may change towards the end, but it may not.
PPS. I've also started selling my art of Redbubble. If any of you want to check it out, my user name is the same as it is on here, and on Tumblr - ToxikCherrys16
~oOo~
All I had to go on, was a name, subject number, a county name, and an old picture that WICKED had taken to mark their subjects. I wasn't feeling all that optimistic, but I had to be hopeful.
If we were in the Glade, you'd go to the Leader if you wanted to know something. Where would you go in the real world? The police seemed like as good a choice as any. I remembered a man in a uniform, with a star badge, taking Tommi with him when she was well enough to leave the hospital.
So I kept on walking until I came across a building that had 'Beacon Hills Sheriffs Department.'
"Hey, I was wondering if you could help me find somebody," I said to the man – whose badge said he was named Haige – on the front desk.
"Sure." He sighed, looking like he'd rather be anywhere but here, "What's the name?"
"Thomasina Edison."
The cop looked at me for a couple of seconds before he burst into laughter. "You must really think I'm dumb if you believe for one second that I think you're telling the truth."
"But I am."
"And what's your name?"
"Isaac Newton." I told him, getting a little confused, "But everybody calls me Newt."
That's when he started shouting at me about 'wasting police time' and a lot of things that didn't make much sense, which just set me off in my shouting. I didn't spend all that time with Tommi and Minho, and not know how to argue back.
It didn't last long though. Within a couple of minutes of the shouting beginning – and having pulled the copper over the desk and in a choke hold – more people started coming to see what was going on. The hold wasn't enough to kill him, but enough just to cut off his air supply a little.
"I just want to find my girlfriend. Is that too much to ask?" I said calmly, the copper still struggling against my grip, "Her name is Thomasina Edison, subject number zero two."
One of the officers, who'd come from out of an office, pushed his way through to the front of the forming crowd. He had a star badge on his uniform, exactly like the one from the man who took Tommi.
"You took Tommi." I told him, not taking my eyes off him, "You took her away. Where is she?"
"You're Newt, right? You were at the hospital." I nodded, loosening my hold on the officer, "She told me about you, and the others. She didn't tell me much about what she'd been through, but she mentions the people all the time."
"You didn't answer my question. Where is she?"
"She's safe."
"Who are you to her? Tommi doesn't trust easily, but she left with you, so you must be important to her, even if she couldn't remember much back then. She might remember more now, but back then she didn't."
The man took a deep breath. "I'm her father. And you're right, she's not one for trusting easily, but she said she had flashes of me. Something about a 'changing,' which gave her little bits of memories. She remembers more now."
"I want to see her."
"Okay." He held his hands up to show that he wasn't a threat, "Why don't we step into my office, and we can talk."
After a couple moments of thinking, I nodded my head at him; releasing the officer from my grasp. He coughed a couple of times, and he looked like he wanted to get back at me, but he thought better of it.
The Sheriff led me to his office; gesturing to one of the seats in front of the desk - which was covered in papers, photos, and notes. The wall was also had things pinned to it, like maps and string connecting everything together.
"You look better then you did at the hospital." He commented, taking a seat behind the desk, "But I would like to think that all of you are doing better since then. I know Sti… Thomas is still struggling to get used to everything."
"It's a lot to get used to, sir." I told him, "The beds feel like a marshmallow, and going to the supermarket is very strange. We had to grow and kill what we wanted to eat."
While my words shocked him, he seemed to take it in his stride. I guessed that he'd been given a copy of the report on what the investigators had found - Nick had a copy come through the mail - so it wasn't that much of a surprise. Whether he'd read all the report or not was a different matter entirely, but he'd most likely read some of it.
It didn't have everything though because they did that in person - even if a lot of people didn't show up to it. I didn't go, but Nick and Alby did. A few of the families showed up, but the Sheriff walked out when it got to George's death.
"How are you all doing?"
"Okay, I guess. Some of us weren't able to find our families because WICKED killed them, so we're living together. Going to start school in a few weeks as well, even if we will graduate in a few months."
He sighed and wrote something on a piece of paper before he handed it to me. It had an address on it, and the directions of how to get there from the station.
"That's where Thomas is. She's been… Unhappy, over the past couple of weeks. I think she's been missing everyone she was kept with, and she most definitely misses you."
I stood up, giving the Sheriff a nod, and opening the door to his office. Walking past the officers – who were viewing me with a lot of suspicions – was very weird, especially when I got to the officer on the front desk. He was giving me the evils; his throat still slightly red from my earlier hold on him.
But they didn't matter. I had what I'd come here for. It was time to go see Tommi.
~oOo~
It was a couple of weeks after I first saw the Sheriff. He'd let me stay with him and Tommi, instead of traveling the two hours back to the others, when we'd be moving into our newly acquired house in Beacon Hills just over a week later.
So here I stood, in the middle of the room, surrounded by boxes; some saying our names, and others just saying specific rooms. While we didn't have that much to call our own, being in an enclosed space made it seem like we had a lot more.
Getting everything put away didn't take half as long as I thought it would. We each took a room and unpacked the boxes, then we'd help somebody else with their room if we finished before them. If Minho wasn't happy with where I'd put his stuff in our room, then he could change it later.
After spending all week with Tommi, it was kind of hard to move out. She told me all about the Supernaturals around town, and how she was friends with most – if not all – of them.
When everything had been put away, Nick came in; a small pot of paint and some brushes in his hand.
"Don't think we're gonna get much painting done with those brushes, Nick." Minho commented, almost collapsing onto the sofa, "Too small to do anything. Probably take us a week to paint Newt. While he may be tall, he's skinnier than the rest of us."
"And we'd need more paint then what you've got." Ben fell into the seat next to Minho, "Not saying anything about your weight Newt, but there's not enough paint in that pot to even colour one of the Beetle Blades."
"We're not painting Newt. We're gonna paint our names on the wall by the door, just like in the Glade." He told us, "I think this might help us. Yes, we did this in the Glade, and while they might not be the best memories we'll ever have, we did it together. This is what united every person in those two years."
Nick put down the pot of paint and took one of the brushes, before dipping it into the paint, going over to the wall you saw first upon opening the front door and writing 'Nick' at his eye height. Alby went after him, and soon enough, all of us had written our names on the wall. We just had to wait for Tommi to come round to paint her name on, and then it would be complete until everybody else decided to come visit.
~oOo~
Movie nights were fun. It was much like the campfires we had in the Glade, only there was more food and we had an unlimited variety of things to do, which didn't include wrestling each other and cooking what we wanted to eat. We could just order food and watch as many movies as we wanted without worrying.
After a phone call with Tommi, I stopped in front of her house. It just gave her one less job to do when she was finished with whatever the Pack wanted her for, which hopefully wasn't fighting anything in the woods. We had plans, and they were going to happen, crisis or no crisis.
I used the key she'd given me to get into the house. She had a key to my place, and we really just spent more time round each other's places, as we did in our own homes.
She had her bag on her bed; her pillow resting on top of it. It was a well-known fact that she found it hard to sleep without it. Took her ages to be able to sleep in the Glade, and nobody knew why. It made sense when we found out.
Hooking her bag over my shoulder, and taking the pillow under my arm, I made my way downstairs; leaving a note for her father before leaving and driving home. He knew about our frequent movie nights – and when they were – but whenever I used my key to get in, I always told him I'd stopped by, and why. He told me I didn't have to do that, but I considered it a courtesy to do so.
Now came the wait for Tommi to be done. I would've picked her up, but she had Roscoe, and she wouldn't have wanted her friends to ask questions. She wasn't ashamed of us by any stretch of the imagination, but she wanted to keep what little amount of privacy she had left.
Ben had ordered the food when they'd got home from lunch with Tommi, and they were now only waiting for it to be delivered in the next half hour or so. Junk food and drinks were already on the table. Everything was going to be ready to go by the time she got here, even if the others had started the movie before she arrived.
But when the pizza came, and there was still no sign of Tommi, I started to worry about where she was. Alby told me not to. That she had probably got held up with whatever they were talking about, but I had a bad feeling.
And by the time I heard the engine of her Jeep, I was drumming on my knees, and acting like I'd been injected with coffee. I was pretty sure that Gally would have killed me if she hadn't arrived within the next ten minutes.
We hard the driver's side door open and close, but after a minute of waiting for the front door to open, I knew something was wrong, and I was out of my seat and opening the door before Minho had time to give one of his sassy comments.
From what I could see, there was a dark shape on the ground by the Jeep; only just illuminated by the tinted yellow streetlights. It looked like she was shaking, but I don't think that had anything to do with the cool air.
"Tommi? You're okay." I ran over to her, sweeping the hair out of her face, "Let's get you inside."
I gently cradled her against my body and picked her up; carrying her into the house and setting her down on the sofa. Somebody threw me one of the many blankets laying around the living room and wrapped it round her shoulders. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her eyes were puffy and red.
"Gal, can you go get me one of my tops and a pair of sweats, please?" I asked, not wanting to leave her, even if it would only be a couple of minutes, "Tommi? Can you tell me what happened?"
"He… He wanted me to…" She sobbed, burying her head in the crook of my neck, "I couldn't tell them. I don't want them to know." And I tightened my hold around her. I knew what she was trying to say.
"Well, the shank should respect what you want to tell him, and what you don't." Minho handed me a damp cloth.
"That piece of bloody klunk shouldn't have pried into it." I agreed, lifting her head so that I could clean her face, even if it was only a little, "Now dry your tears, because we have a whole evening of fun planned, and it can't be fun if one of us is crying… Unless it's tears of joy."
That's when Gally returned with some of my stuff and handing it to Tommi. She went to the bathroom to get changed. I thought that she might calm down more if she was wearing something of mine.
She looked a lot better when she came out. Her hair had been brushed, her face washed, and her dirty clothes were in the hamper to be washed. My clothes almost drowned her, but it didn't matter.
"Aren't you a little short to be a Storm Trooper?" I asked, smiling and pointing at the t-shirt she'd bought me a few weeks ago.
For the rest of the night, she sat in my lap; her head resting on my shoulder and surrounding herself with a much junk food as she could, while I rubbed small circles across her back.
As the night wore on, Tommi started falling asleep. She was fighting it, but she was slowly losing the battle. Her second bag almost fell out of her hand a number of times, and that is when I finally told her what she needed to hear.
"Go to sleep, Tommi." I whispered in her ear, and kissing her forehead, "We're not going to leave you. We'll be here when you wake up."
It didn't take long at all before all of us were falling asleep as well. I grabbed her pillow, and laid it on the sofa cushion, before moving us into a laying down position; wrapping an arm round her middle, and falling asleep with the movie playing in the background.
~oOo~
About a week after Movie night, it was time to start school. None of us had told Tommi that some of us were going to be attending Beacon Hills High School, and instead, surprise her when we turned up as students.
We were given out timetables and locker numbers at the main office, and then made our way into the almost empty corridor. Only one person was by their locker, and I knew it was Tommi. She was wearing a thigh length black knit jumper, red leggings, and her black DM's; her long brown hair falling like a curtain over one shoulder.
As we got closer, I could hear her mumbling under her breath about 'stupid werewolves' and 'nobody ever listens to me,' while she shoved some books into her locker. She gave a slight scream when I grabbed her round the waist and kissed the side of her neck.
"Miss me?" I asked, smiling, "Cause I certainly missed you. A lot more then these guys did."
I guess I did deserve the elbow I got to the stomach. In what world did I think it would be a good idea to sneak up on somebody like Tommi? She broke somebody's nose in the Glade when they did that.
"Idiot." She murmured, turning around to kiss my cheek, "I could've done some serious damage to you."
"I'll remember that for next time."
"There's going to be a next time?"
"Well, I…" There was a cough behind me, "… We are going to be coming to school here, so I'd like to think there'll be a next time."
A smile spread across her face as she took me, Minho, Gally, and Ben in, almost like she wasn't believing what she was seeing and hearing. Then she laughed, and ran at the others, bringing them in for hugs.
"You guys have just made the rest of my time in the hell hole more enjoyable."
~oOo~
School was not what I was expecting it to be. Being cooped up in a room was not what I wanted to be doing for hours a day. And then having to take work home with you to do overnight. Who came up with this?
If it wasn't for Tommi sticking with it every day – and Nick breathing down my neck to finish the rest of the year – I probably would've quit school, and done something else with my time. What that something else would be, I'm not sure, but I would've come up with an idea eventually.
"How do you cope with it?" Minho was still complaining about school, three miles into our daily morning run through the Preserve, "I'd rather spend a night in the Maze, then go back to that place. And I've done that, in case you don't remember."
"I remember it perfectly fine, Minho." Tommi grumbled, keeping a steady pace, "In case you don't remember, it was the very night that we were all trapped together, and I almost died."
"Are you gonna bloody complain for the next two miles, Min? Cause if that's the case, we're prepared to leave you behind." I told him, "These woods are very easy to get lost in."
"And we'd just hate to lose you."
The rest of the run was spent mostly in silence. Tommi was in a bit of a mood, but it was nothing we weren't used to. Feed her junk food and tread carefully, and you were normally spared from her mood swings.
We each took turns in the shower and changed into the clothes we'd left here before our run. Then we drove to school together, practically having to drag Minho out, and strap him into Roscoe.
"What do you think I've been doing since I got back?" Tommi asked, using the rearview mirror to glare at him, "I had three weeks rest, before I was dropped off in front of the building, and told to have fun. So suck it up."
~oOo~
Date night was suppose to be relaxing. Go out for a fancy meal, go back to mine, watch a movie, and fall asleep in each other's arms, and then spend the next day doing whatever we wanted to. But that's not how it worked out.
We'd had one glass of wine before we went to check in for our reservation, and while we were walking – and kissing – I caught sight of somebody in the corner of my eye. It was Scott.
Words were said, and Tommi left in tears. Who knew that somebody in heels like hers could move so fast, because I certainly didn't know it was even possible, let alone that she could do it.
And after searching for a couple hours, we finally found her, freezing, bleeding and almost naked, in the middle of the Preserve. The best I could do was keep her warm until more help arrived. We didn't have much, but our jackets would have to do for the moment.
By the time the ambulance got to us, we had a lot more jackets, and they were all covering her. She still wasn't moving, but her breathing was becoming better. It wasn't as shallow anymore.
Scott decided to argue about who got to go in the ambulance. I wanted to scoff when he said that he was her best friend. That might've been true before she was taken, but he'd screwed that up when he decided to push for information that Tommi didn't want to tell him.
Things went from bad to worse on the ride to the hospital. She started to warm up, which was good, but with that, came the uncontrollable shaking. We had to hold her down, to stop her from doing more harm to herself. And when we got to the hospital, they took her straight back to a treatment room, and I was told to stay in the waiting room; which was exactly how Gally found me when he arrived with the Sheriff, Frypan, Scott, and a girl I recognized but didn't know the name of.
"Newt, how is she? Please don't give me any bad news."
"I don't know." I continued the pacing I'd taken up about five minutes after arriving, "She started shaking in the ambulance, and they took her straight through, and now they won't let me see her. They told me she had hypothermia."
"She's going to be okay." Gally put a hand on my shoulder, "She's going to be okay, Newt. She's survived much worse than this, and so have you. Don't give up hope now."
"But she looked so pale. When they hooked her up to a heart monitor, it could barely pick up her heartbeat." I could feel hot tears rolling down my face, "And they had to pin her down because she was shaking so much."
"And we've dealt with much worse with no proper medical equipment or training." He pulled me towards the uncomfortable seats, "Sit down. Pacing isn't going to make anything go faster."
The wait was almost unbearable. I hated having to wait for news, especially when it was as important as this. My head was buried in my knees, hoping that time would go faster if I couldn't see it. Alby, Nick, and Gally all tried to get me to look up, but I didn't want to.
I looked up when the door opened, and out came the woman who told me to wait out here. She had curly black hair, and I later learned that her name was Melissa, and she was Scott's mum.
"She's okay. A little cold, but you guys got to her in time." She told me, rubbing my hand like Tommi did when I was nervous, "We still need to warm her up a bit, but you can see her if you want."
Nodding, I stood up, and she led me through the double doors she'd walked through, to the elevators, and into a room when we got to the floor we needed. I was prepared for the worst, but she looked relatively peaceful; her chest rising and falling in a steady motion.
"Talk to her." The nurse said, nudging me into the room, "I'll let you have some time with her before I go and get the others."
There was a couple of chairs next to the bed, and I took the closest one to her; taking her hand in mine, and rubbing my thumb across the back of her hand, just like the nurse had done with me.
"Hey, Tommi." I started, looking at her pale face, "You're in the hospital. Gave us quite a scare when you ran off, and an even bigger one when we found you. I mean, I know I may have wanted to see what you had one under that dress, but I didn't want to find out like that… Let's just keep that between us, yeah?"
A laugh came from the door, and I looked up to see that the nurse was still standing there, leaning against the frame of the door; a chart in one hand, and a pen in the other.
"How long have you been standing there?" I asked, feeling my cheeks start to go red with embarrassment.
"Not long. I was only coming back to take her vitals, before going to get the others." She told me, coming into the room, "But you're lucky it's me that heard that, and not her father."
"You won't tell him, will you?"
She smiled at me, taking note of Tommi's temperature, BP, pulse, and everything else she needed to take note of. "No. I trust Stiles to know what's right, and I know that you make her happy."
"How do you…"
"A mother knows… And I talk to Noah. Just because our kids aren't talking, doesn't mean we have to stop." She put the chart down, "I'm going to get them now, so no more talking like that."
I watched her walk out of the room, before laying my head on the bed next to her abdomen; still holding her hand. The day was finally catching up to me, and I didn't think that a few minutes sleep would do much harm.
"I'm not going to leave you, Tommi." I murmured, closing my eyes, "I'll be here when you wake up."
~oOo~
Since the hospital, things had gotten better. Tommi and Scott had talked it out and were being back to thick as thieves. Nick told the Pack about WICKED, the Glade, and the Maze, but he left out bits that they didn't need to know – which was mainly the deaths and injuries. And everybody was getting along if you didn't count the minor fights that ensued when somebody lost their temper.
But all-in-all, everything was great. We'd become official members of the Pack, and learned pretty early on that, Lydia could be scary when she wanted to be. She was scarier than Derek and came pretty close to inducing the same fear that the Grievers did.
Nick offered to drive me to Tommi's house, for the before Prom dinner that her father put together. Tommi had already said that she wanted to have Roscoe as our ride, and she wasn't changing it for anything. It was her way of having her mother with her. No way was I going to try and change that.
I knocked on the front door, straightening my tie and wiping away any wrinkles that had collected during the ride here. I wanted to look my best for the Sheriff, even though I'd met him before, this was Prom, Tommi was now eighteen, and I knew this dinner wasn't going to be just that.
Tommi answered the door. She was in a pair of loose sweats and one of my over-sized t-shirts. Her hair was braided, with only a few strands framing her face, and all make-up but her lipstick was on.
"Hey." She said, kissing my cheek, "I would kiss your lips, but Lydia threatened me, on pain of death, that I wasn't to mess up my hair or make-up… Plus, even though my dad likes you, he would probably stare daggers at you throughout the whole of dinner."
"That's okay." I laughed, leaning down to whisper in her ear, "Just gives me a lot to look forward to."
Her cheeks started turning a light shade a red, and she looked down. I think it was a record on how fast I could get her to blush. She always got bashful and looked away, even though she always ended up smiling.
Then I spotted the Sheriff behind her. I automatically straightened and took a small step back. He looked scary with that shotgun resting over his arm and made me take an even bigger step back when he loaded and locked it into place.
"Come on in, Isaac."
"We talked about this, dad. You promised not to make this awkward." She turned to face him, "And put your gun away."
"Just scaring him a little." He took the cartridges out of the gun, and put it away, "You're my only child. It is my job to look after you."
"We have been shot before, dad." She told him, "While having a gun pointed at you is scary, it's not as scary when you know the person holding the gun, isn't actually gonna hurt you."
"Speak for yourself."
Dinner included a lot of glares – the Sheriff glaring at me, and Tommi glaring right back at him – while trying to eat as fast as we could because the Sheriff was really starting to rival Lydia with how scary he could be.
After dinner, Tommi almost ran upstairs to get her dress and lipstick on. It was almost a relief to be away from the table, where the Sheriff was now smiling. I think it had more to do with the fact that Tommi let him have a greasy burger, chips – which are called fries over here – and pudding. He seemed to be a lot better when he was plied with the food he wasn't allowed. That was a good thing to know for future reference.
Now I'd seen Tommi in dresses – casual, date, and the others – but I'd never seen her in one like this. A floor-length, light blue dress, with lace and embroidery at the top. Her lipstick was a dark pink, that fit her perfectly.
"You look… Wow." I was speechless. She just looked so beautiful. I really couldn't believe how lucky I was to have her.
"Close your mouth, Newt." She smiled, blushing slightly, and walking up to stand in front of me, "Otherwise you may catch flies."
"I can't really help it," I told her, tying the corsage I'd retrieved from the fridge while she was changing, round her wrist.
That just made her blush even harder, as I held out my arm for her to take. She slipped on her heels, pinned a flower onto my lapel, and we walked out of the front door – where her father was already waiting.
She handed me a set of keys, which I was confused about, because I already had one to her house, and there were more keys on this thing then she really needed, in all honesty. "Don't hurt him." She placed the keys in my hand, "Be careful. He grinds in second."
"Well, I feel honored to be allowed to drive him."
I opened the door for her, being careful not to get her dress caught in the door when I closed it. I doubted that she would forgive me if I did that, even if it was by accident.
But the further we drove, the more nervous she ended up getting. So I took her hand and squeezed it gently; rubbing across the back of her hand. I also remembered to keep a careful eye on the road, as the Sheriff was giving us an escort to the school.
"You look beautiful, and I am the luckiest guy because I can call you my girlfriend. It doesn't matter what others think because they'll never know you the way I do."