SUMMARY: Paradise has never been about places. It exists in moments. In connection. In flashes across time. -Victoria Erickson MinhoxOC, NewtxOC different OCs, no love triangles

Disclaimer: I do not own The Maze Runner

A.N: Hi first TMR story. Obviously this will be a bit different since it takes place during the events of the Death Cure. I will be completely honest, I have watched the movies and just started reading the first book, so a lot of things which I don't know are from WIKI, so don't kill me if I got the facts wrong or differently. I also have no idea about who has what subject number so that is completely made up.

Also as in summary this is a Minho/OC and Newt/OC (two different OCs so no love triangles) So don't worry?

Anyway, I hope you will find it at least a tiny bit interesting.

Enjoy

CONNECTION

Some souls just understand each other upon meeting - N.R. Hart

Minho

Days were changing into a blur. He wasn't sure what day it was. They brought him whenever they wanted to for tests, experiments, torture. Sometimes it was day sometimes it was dark outside. God, he missed his watch. He wanted to know the time, not just to actually know the time but for some sanity. Just a little bit of something. Anything.

He missed the run. He sometimes wanted to try to escape. He did a few times. It ended badly. Always. It still wouldn't get him to stop. Not ever. One of the guards told him once that he should before he would get himself killed but he spit at his feet. The thought of freedom was the only thing which kept him alive, there was no way he was giving up. This wasn't a maze with no exit. This was a building with people in a city with walls around it as far as he could tell from the little time he spend near any window, but he didn't care because he was getting out of there. He knew he was.

The first time he noticed her she was brought to the elevator by two guards with guns just like him. She didn't even glance at him, but he sneaked a peek at her. Her eyes were so tired. He figured his looked the same. He knew there were other kids. He heard the doctors, the nurses, the traitor Teresa talk about other subjects. Come to think of it. His code name, A7, was often mentioned with B5. Aris was from group B which was full of girls so she must have been from his group as well. He didn't tell them much about individual girls there though. He only knew the ones that weren't caught by WICKED and who were saved by Vince.

When he felt her fingers against his he almost freaked and flinch. Not because it was unpleased, but because he felt so startled by feeling of someone else's hand all of the sudden. Someone, who wasn't trying to strap him down to the bed or putting a needle to his arm. Just someone….not WICKED.

He didn't dare to look at her, but from the corner of his eyes he could see she was looking in front of herself so she wouldn't draw suspicion or attention to them.

He tried to calm himself but that small touch of her fingers against his made him more excited and awake then the nightmarish experiments they made him go through. He knew she was doing it on purpose. She had to be because if she only accidentally touched him she would pull away, but she didn't. He felt her fingers move against the back of his for a moment. He gathered some courage before he reached out as well locking their fingers together.

Her chest raised a bit higher for a second as far as he could tell without fully looking at her, and they just stood like that. Oddly, just holding hands with this girl, a girl he knew only as B5 somehow brought him so peace. For those few moments, he knew he wasn't alone, he knew there was someone else going through the same torture he was every day, every hour, every moment of his existence in this place which was pure hell.

The elevator door opened and they instantly let go as they saw Janson walked inside with a pleased look on his face Minho wanted to punch so bad, 'Well, hello there. Another working day, isn't it?'

The girl looked away breathing hard trying to control her anger. He understood it. That bastard was enjoying it, he wanted to hurt them, he liked hurting them. Others sometimes looked like they were just doing their work. They acted as if they weren't real. As if he wasn't human maybe just because for them it was their job to find the cure or something else. But Janson was different. He liked seeing them strapped down crying in agony. He was a sick bastard.

They came to the stop and for a second he and the girl shared a look. It was brief, but the message was clear.

You're not alone in this.

And for him it meant everything in that moment as he watched her leave with her guards. She was on the 10th floor. It meant she would be set to the fake maze. His stomach made a move as if he was going to puke remembering what it was like to be trapped inside his own head by a nightmare they made him relive or and over again. He felt sorry for her. It was ridiculous. Tomorrow, or maybe in the next hour he would be next but seeing the door close on her back made him want to switch their places. He was a pathetically sensitive shank sometimes.

He realized a pattern quite quickly. He used to run the maze his memory was the only thing which kept him alive most of the times. He knew that if they brought him out of his cell, or the room he was allowed to stay if there were no test or experiments, he would surely see her either on her way out of the tests room or in. They were always scheduled to go one after another. He figured that every three days their places would switch. He sometimes saw her coming from the test room or more like being dragged from there. It was the only time he could look at her face properly. She was probably around his age, always looking worn out from the experiments or maybe the nightmares. She always looked at him if they were walking from the opposite direction. He forgot all about the guards that were leading him in that moment.

She had short raven hair which was usually pushed behind her ears. Her skin was a few shades lighter then Alby's and a little bit darker than Winston's. It was sort of warmly brown. She was quite high and skinny from what he could tell and since she was tested as much as he was she must have been a runner. He could picture her running through the maze.

If they ever got close enough and their guards weren't in the way she would reach her fingers and stroke his ever so slightly that someone would have taken it as an accident, but he knew. He knew it was her way of showing him that they were in it together and that they needed to survive.

They moved him from the other kids ages ago, but they moved her just now. He heard the guard saying that she bit him when he was taking her into the room. He couldn't help but smirked.

'I hope it still hurts.'

It earned him a punch over the back of his head, but he didn't mind that much.

When he saw her next, it was when they were bringing him into his room and her out. She had an ugly shiner on the side of her face probably from getting hit after she bit the guard.

When she was close to him, he grabbed her hand risking getting caught, but for a moment he didn't care. He wanted her to know that he knew about the bite and he loved it. He squeezed her fingers as they dragged her away. It was only a moment. She didn't even look at him, but maybe she was just too tired from the torture.

His last simulation was possibly the worse. He literally fainted on his way to the cell. They had to carry him. He barely remembered her, but he realized she must have had a cell right next to him. He practically fainted once he got inside his cell again.

He woke up later to noises from the outside. He assumed they brought her in. He waited until the guards would be gone checking the door before he started to bang on the wall.

Nothing.

He wondered if maybe she didn't faint as well, but knocked again waiting.

It was almost a good minute later when someone knocked back. He could barely hear it. He felt like smiling for the first time in a while now and knocked at her again. Soon the knocking stopped and the girl must have fainted from the exhaustion or fallen asleep. He didn't blame her. He found himself pressing his forehead against the cold wall of his cell. He used to run the maze for hours feeling like the only person in the whole world. Yet, he never felt so lonely the way he did stuck WICKED's hands. At least he did until she stroked his fingers.

Cora

Survival was hard. But she did not survive ice cold maze to die just yet, even if the thought was appealing. It often crossed her mind. Maybe if she took a screw, nail, or found some scalpel on the near table the next time they will take her blood.

'This will hurt a little bit,' said the woman, and she felt like telling her to bite her.

The woman often told her that it would hurt or that it would be cold. She was a nurse. She always saw her in a light green scrubs with her brown hair tight into a ponytail or a braid. She was short. Shorter than her. She tried it once. She pushed her off easily since she was so much smaller than her, she fell backwards hit her back and head and went for a run to the guard to take his gun, but the other one electrocuted her before she got to him.

She thought she wouldn't see the nurse again, but she was doing her job the next day she saw her. She was calm and looked like it didn't bother her in the slightest.

Cora found herself feeling a little bit guilty. Just a tiny bit.

'Okay,' she mumbled for the first time. She didn't talk. She didn't think there was a point to answer the question or say anything. She wasn't there to talk, she was there to be tortured and cut until there would have been nothing left of her. She was there to be a victim of WICKED. She was there to die. One way or another.

The nurse looked at her and smiled a bit before she injected the needle and took some blood, 'All good, Cora.'

The girl blinked startled. She almost never heard her name. It was like she didn't have one anymore. Property of WICKED was all she was. Subject B5 at best. She was silently watching the nurse for a moment unsure of what to make up of her. She didn't always work with her, but when she did Cora was glad. From all the doctors, nurses and guards. She was the only staff she was didn't mind seeing. It was better to know your devil, or not?

On her way from the room she caught up with the boy.

A7

She still didn't know her name. All she knew was that he looked just as damaged by the place as she felt.

They touched so often, she found herself feeling upset if they didn't. It was one thing that she had in this stupid place, the boy with eyes just as dead as hers and the nice nurse. They felt like the only thing she had left. She doubted any of her friends were alive. She hadn't seen them since she was out of the maze. She got hit over the head hard as she pushed Harriet from a Shade who got too close. She didn't wake up until she was in a different place with other girls Maria, Annie and Maya. They took her away after a while and put her into a train and then moved her next to the boy. She hated calling him A7 even in her head. She hoped it was a sort of rebellion against WICKED even if a small one. They weren't their dolls, toys or property. THEY WERE NOT THEIRS! They did not belong to them no matter how big was the tattoo on their backs which had Property of WICKED on them.

Their eyes meet as they passed each other. Since she was walking on her know, he would know there were no simulations this time. She wondered if he saw the same thing she did. She was back in the cold maze full of ice and snow with flying bat monsters going after her expect this time, she was all alone there. Here at least she had him, his touch, the knocking and the nurse. It wasn't anything special, and yet it was enough to keep her from dying. She was sure of it.

She shivered at the thought each time.

Either way, today they would be fine. Today, they would just take some more blood and let them rest. It gave her small peace and she wondered if it gave some to him as well.

His eyes were so dark.

Their shoulders brushed a bit as they passed.

She waited for him in her room. The walls were strong but noise carried around. It was stupid to wait for him. They never spoke and they didn't actually meet, but she waited. There wasn't much else to do.

Once she heard the sound of the door.

She waited a moment before she knocked on the wall. It was like having a neighbour. It sounded stupid and pathetic, but it was what kept her sane.

He returned the knocked. She wondered if they could actually talk, but since nothing else than the knocking sound on the metal wall could be heard, and you couldn't ask a question with a knock, she let the thought go.

He knocked back. She pressed her back against the wall. She never thought she would miss the sharp cold which was always around her day and night. The air always smelled so fresh though, and she was never alone. She used to share a bed with Marie and Emily. Emily died one year after her arrival. They never found out what happened to her just that one night she got out of the bed in the middle of the night without a coat or her shoes and went into the night. They found her in the morning in the snow. It looked like she just fallen asleep or turned into a ice princess.

Cora pressed her hand against her face to cover it. She didn't know why she was thinking about it again. It was so pointless and so long ago. Maybe because she couldn't remember her face anymore. She had long red hair and freckles all over her body, but that was it. Her face was blank.

Tears fell down her face, and she couldn't make herself stop.

The boy knocked again and she forced herself to knock back. They were all they had left in a way.

Minho

They took more blood from him after the last experiment. He wondered how was it that no matter how many times they played with his mind, he always failed to realize it wasn't real. Was he just so stupid or they were so good? How come whenever he found himself back in the maze he couldn't remember that he already got out once?

The nurse shook her head as he started to get up from the examination table, 'No, you will get dizzy. Just wait a bit, please, Minho.'

She stopped him with her hand gently pressing into his shoulder.

He blinked. WICKED didn't ask politely. He sometimes thought that all he was was property of WICKED. He remained sitting, but he could see his guard didn't look too pleased about it. Yet, he didn't say anything. One guard today though.

He thought about the nurse. The doctor told her once or twice nurse Mitch. She was short and relatively young. Maybe not even thirty. She was the only who called him by his real name. Well, the name he remembered as being his even if it was given by WICKED as well. He will probably never know any other name so there was no point in dwelling on it. Either way, the nurse was...different. He noticed that the doctors as well as guards were nice to her as she was nice to people as well. She was nice to him. It could have been because she was so short and generally looked so non-threatening.

He didn't trust her though, not he did he like her. He took a scalpel on her once pressing it against her neck, but they caught him and beat him up a bit. She came to work in a few days with a small plaster over the spot he probably cut with the sharp tool. She didn't look upset though. She was calm and acted nice to him anyway. He wondered if maybe she just got used to it. If maybe she didn't even hope to find a cure and just wanted to do her job or really believed they were doing the right thing but torturing kids. Then why wasn't she cruel like the others? Or cold like them? Something puzzled him about her.

'Just a few more minutes,' she said calmly. He seriously didn't know what her deal was.

In the next moment the noticed through the glass the girl passing with her guard. She looked startled when she saw him still in the room, but walked closer toward him anyway.

The nurse looked over at her, 'You can sit down, Cora. Minho will be out in a few.'

She said it so casually like they were not prisoners of a terrible organization which wanted them dead to find a cure for a virus that was killing millions of people. There had to be a motive for this. People in WICKED weren't good people. They were monsters. They were shucking monsters every one of them.

The guard frowned at her, 'Are you sure they can be together in one room?'

Cora, as he just now learned her name already went to sit down on the examination room next to him while the nurse raised her brows, 'Yeah, as long as they are not naked I think it's fine.'

Both of them widened their eyes as they looked at the nurse, who chuckled, 'Just kidding. It won't take long. How is your mom, Kowalski?'

He stopped paying attention to the other three people in the room and focused a bit on Cora. He finally knew her name so he didn't have to call her B5 or girl or whoever. She had a name. Cora. Thomas told them all their names were given to them by some famous scientist. He wondered if the girls group got theirs like that as well.

She sat down next to him. Their eyes didn't leave each other. It was the first time he could properly look at her. She was almost as tall as him.

When she touched his palm, he felt every single hair in his body stand up. It was an odd feeling. It felt so intense to be touched by this girl. No, not girl, Cora. He reminded himself looking into her brown eyes. They seemed darker than Newt's or Thomas's with a little bit of honey in them. She had two moles on her left cheek and a small almost invisible scar on her chin. He wondered if she got it in the maze or here. He wanted to talk to her so badly. He shifted his hand and linked his fingers with hers. It was as if he felt a spark whenever they touched. Maybe it was cause he wasn't able to touch anyone who he wanted to since WICKED got him. He never realized that it was a choice or a given to be able to touch someone or be touched by who you wanted to.

He wanted to talk to her so bad, but seeing her in front of him nothing came into the mind. Nothing good, nothing was good enough to say and waste in the short moment they had left.

Klunk, he was such an idiot!

It was one girl and he was losing his maybe only chance to talk with her like a dumbass.

She opened her mouth to say something just as the guard spoke that they needed to go.

Her jaw shifted and he knew she wanted to punch him.

'Twice is I'm okay, three times is I'm not.'

Her eyes lightened up for a moment as she realized what he meant. He actually got off the table on his own and let her go. He instantly felt the absence of her hand.

He looked at the nurse. She was perfectly calm and smiling. Nothing out of the ordinary, but in the smallest and quickest of the moments, when his guard wasn't probably looking the smile fell and something flashed behind her eyes. It was a signal. It was something. It was as if she just put down her mask and revealed who she really was. And whoever that was, it was not an ordinary WICKED nurse.

It thrilled him almost as much meeting Cora. He felt as if for a moment he felt hope. It was foolish. He shouldn't trust anyone. Not someone from WICKED, but the look. It meant something. Whoever the hell nurse Mitch was she helped him be close to Cora and told him her name. He thought it was an accident, but now, he was pretty much sure it was on purpose. She was planning something.

Or maybe he was wrong.

Cora came to the room later and knocked at him twice.

A week later there was no knocking. When Nurse Mitch finally had a shift her eyes were a bit red and she wouldn't meet his eyes. He wanted to ask her so badly what happened, but he didn't, he was too afraid. If he would ask her, and she would answer...he didn't want to know. He already did.

He punched a guard that day and got beaten up by him and his partner. He was bleeding hard and some man came shouting at the both of them.

'Are you inside? We just lost subject B5!'

Later in his cell he punched the wall until his knuckles weren't bleeding. He then got to the corner of the room and actually cried. It was so pathetic and stupid and million others things, but he seriously didn't care. He felt just so impossibly exhausted. He had Cora, now he was alone again. He just wanted it to end. He just wanted it all to end. He just wanted it to end. He was so tired, and...he just...It crossed his mind.

The next day, they were keeping a close eye on him. He didn't care. Nurse Mitch sat him down on the examination table and took some samples to analyze.

It surprised him a bit when she took his hand and gave him a look full of sympathy and sad smile, 'I'm sorry about Cora.'

That was it. Nothing more, but he felt it. When she took his hands she gave him something. He didn't dare to move right away. He didn't dare to raise suspicion. Whatever she gave him could mean everything.

His heart was beating so hard he was afraid the guards could see how fast he was breathing. He came into his room, but he still waiting another half hour before he carefully went into his pocket and pulled out the little piece of paper with three sentences in it.

Cora is alive

You are next

Do not die

He felt like crying again, but for a completely different reason. Once he was done, he told himself, he wouldn't do it again, and swallowed the piece of paper.

Newt

He woke up in the night. He felt like he couldn't breathe again. It happened to him a few times now. It was some sort of anxiety which woke him up at night like someone was sitting on his chest. Crushing it, crushing him.

He got out of the car without waking Fry or Thomas up closing the door softly behind him. He didn't want them to know what he was going through. He walked a bit further from them looking at the dark night full of stars. He couldn't avoid it anymore now.

He knew the truth. He wasn't immune and with the way he was feeling lately, he knew he was infected as well.

He was passed the point of angrily punching into the sand and asking why or denying it. He had to accept it. He would have to tell his friends soon. Very soon. He didn't know how much time he had left, but it was clear the flare spread fast once you started to show the first symptoms.

Everything was so quiet. He felt as if he was the only person awake, and it was a very peaceful thought. Looking at the quiet nature around him, he felt like it would be meaningless if he died and it made him both calm and wild. Oddly, he didn't feel the same way he did when he climbed the wall of the maze that day which felt like ages ago. Then he felt devastated, sad, desperate to just…escape. Now he felt calm. He didn't feel so broken.

He brushed his face before he looked down at his necklace. He hoped he would at least get to see Minho one last time before he was gone. It was pretty much the only thing, he really hoped for anymore.

When he returned to the car Thomas stirred a bit. He wasn't fully awake maybe he wouldn't even remember talking to him.

'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, go back to sleep, Tommy.'

'We're going to save him, Newt.'

'I know.'

Bloody optimist.

Claudia

There was a time when she almost thought about making a mistake. It seemed so surreal. The first time she did it. She kept on shaking all day in work, or she thought she was shaking. No one noticed though. Everyone was walking around like nothing happened. They brought her the boy. She went over the plan again and again in her mind but it still felt as if she was dreaming. She took some sample before he would go to the simulation. No one stopped her. No one noticed a single thing.

Not one little thing out of place.

She waited. She was supposed to have a lunch break but her stomach felt all wrong so she didn't even eat. No one noticed again. It was almost insane how much people could hide from one another. Even treason.

One of her colleague came to the room and told them. It wasn't anything special. Another subject died. They were disappointed, some even sad, but in the end they all returned to their shift, to their stations to their work.

They took the boy downstairs. He wasn't the first subject to die. She got him out of the building like he didn't use to be the most precious belonging of WICKED and into her apartment. He was out behind the walls with the rebels within little less than a month. No one stopped her. No one noticed.

So she did it again, and again. Her total count was fifteen. Fifteen kids she just took away from them without anyone noticing.

She sometimes thought about making a mistake. Just so she would see if someone would notice or play along.

Claudia shook the thought away. She was being cocky.

She went to have a cigarette outside. She rarely did it. But tonight she felt like she should. It was going to be too close. She felt like somehow things were pushed to the limits. Like somehow she missed something and something was happening.

She put the cigarette out and climbed back to her apartment. It was a small one with one bedroom. She used the live with her uncle. Now, she lived alone. It was that way for many others. They used to have someone, now they didn't. It was just another way to ignore the word death.

She went downstairs to the laundry room. There was a backdoor. She had everything timed. People were creatures of habits. The security guard in her building liked to smoke as well. She waited until he went on another one of his breaks.

The man on the other end knocked. He worked for the WICKED. When someone died and his body couldn't be used anymore they cremated him. Subjects, even the useful ones couldn't donate blood anymore.

She smirked at that. Donate. Yeah, right. More like couldn't be robed of their blood anymore since it was contaminated once they died.

The man, Charlie, helped her put the large bag into the small elevator for laundry baskets. She gave him another dose.

'Thanks, doc.'

It was a running joke among them. Among the traitors. She didn't mind maybe it would even work to her favour if they would be looking for a doctor not a nurse. She wasn't naive though. She knew that if someone found out about any of the things she had done. They would track her down relatively quickly. She made mistakes here there. Maybe no one noticed before, but if they caught a sense of something, they would remember, realize, put pieces together and just know.

They nodded and parted. They didn't have time for talking and there wasn't anything to say anyway.

She went upstairs and greeted Tom, the guard who returned from his smoke break. She went to her apartment and locked the door.

The elevator had already brought the black bag up.

She walked toward it and pulled it out. It was heavy, but she was used to it. She quickly opened the bag and checked the pulse. There was none.

She left a needle on her kitchen counter. She took it and stabbed Cora into the chest. It took a while, but Claudia was so over the fear of not getting one of them to wake up.

At least Cora didn't wake up with a scream. She just gasped as she breathing in for the first time out half way to freedom.