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It’s somewhere in the Scorch, almost a full month after, that Thomas actually processes what Teresa was saying the night she betrayed them. It happens in a strange way; Newt gives his spare water to some other RIght Arm survivors they barely knew and when Thomas asks why, he says:
“Oh, yeah well, needs of the many ‘n’ all that.”
It’s said so offhandedly and yet the line rattles around in Thomas’ brain more than the things Newt says to him usually do. It follows him to the campfire that night, forcing its way out of his mouth in a question to Jorge.
“What does ‘needs of the many’ mean?”
Jorge turns to him, surprised, before seeming to remember that Thomas had his memory thrown into the trash, probably not even more than two months ago.
“Ah, it’s a um, like a saying, y’know? ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’. It’s actually a quote from some old sci-fi show — do you even know what shows are? — anyways, it’s pretty self-explanatory when you have the whole quote.”
Thomas is reminded, unwillingly, of Alby; one boy sacrificing himself so that fifteen others had a chance to live a little longer.
"There are millions of people suffering out there. Millions of stories, just like mine."
Thomas must remain quiet too long because Jorge puts a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“You good, hermano ?”
“No, yeah. Was just curious.”
Jorge smiles at him — it makes Thomas realise he can count on his fingers how many times he’s seen anyone smile since leaving the Glade. He mutters some excuse about the campfire smoke and fresh air and stumbles off to find a lonely outcrop of rocks.
Despite only walking, Thomas finds himself struggling to breathe when he finds a nice rock for sitting alone on. A rock to think on. A Thinking Rock. Shuck, he can’t stop thinking about it. His mind’s eye is clouded over by memories, each taking their time in the spotlight.
Teresa asks him if it was a good idea to leave WCKD then begins to suggest they should turn back. He’s shocked and confused — why would they ever go back, what good would that do anyone??? — but then he hears gunshots behind him and his mind turns back to his friends rather than their ex-jailors.
In hindsight, he should have brought that back up with Teresa — sure, the last few days before she ratted them out were busy and full of running and crank fighting — but he’d had time in the Scorch, or the small gaps of relief between all the action. But even then, if she had really decided that WCKD was right, what would he have done? Would he have been able to abandon her in the Scorch or the city? Would he have chosen to protect his other friends and the Right Arm, even as it hurt her and himself?
Yes, Thomas decides, he would have. He did it before, didn’t he?
“I just had to see you… and just try to explain things before… Oh, no.”
“Thomas!” Teresa’s confused, craning her neck to see who was circling the server racks but making pointed faces at Thomas for an explanation.
“Just listen to me, okay? Whatever they tell you about me, whatever they say, I just need you to know I had to do it. Okay?”
“What did you do?” Despite her scared, questioning tone, her words feel like knives of damnation through his heart. He knew what WCKD’s goal meant to her, how much effort she put into every second of her work, and yet he’s done his best to destroy it all with a single data transmission. He needs her to know what he did wasn’t to hurt her; it was to save them .
“I just couldn't keep watching them die.”
Of all the memories Thomas had to regain, this one felt most like a joke.
By his own logic, he was a traitor himself. The exact same as Teresa.
He chose the hundreds of Maze kids over WCKD, betraying Teresa in the process. She chose the millions of people suffering without a cure over the Right Arm, all while revealing her betrayal in practically the exact same way Thomas had.
The timeline was funny to him; while all the regained memories felt like they happened years ago, in reality, Teresa’s backstab was maybe only three weeks apart from his own.
Thomas sits and thinks. Sits on his new Thinking Rock, just thinking and remembering.
“What did you do?” Teresa’s words echo in his mind.
“What have you done?” His own seem to reply.
“Whatcha doing?” Newt says behind him, definitely not in his mind. Thomas’ head whips around to look behind him, greeted by the sight of Newt strolling towards him.
“I’m thinking.”
He gets a raised brow in response. “Out here?”
“...Thinking Rock.”
Thomas is offended when Newt laughs at him.
“Hey, this rock has let me do lots of thinking so far, I wouldn’t knock ‘till you try it!”
Newt’s strange look is accompanied by an amused smile and another laugh.
“Alright, scooch.”
Thankfully, Thomas’s Thinking Rock is big enough for two to sit on, if sort of squished together. When they finally find their comfortable positions on the rock together, they both turn to look at each other. Thomas’ brain registers how close their faces are when he can feel the sharp exhale of Newt’s strangely stuttered inhale. He then notices that Newt seems a little wide-eyed and curious, a way he hasn’t looked since the Glade. The frown that had stuck to his face all through the Scorch, only deepening when Minho was taken, was absent.
“So,” Newt’s voice comes out croaky, and he has to wet his cracked lips before talking again, reminding Thomas to keep an eye out for the ‘lip balm’ stuff that Brenda had whined over not having and to not let Newt give away his water anymore, “What have you been thinking about?”
Thomas hadn’t realised how light he’d felt until the question viciously sobers his mood. Newt notices the shift and his frown, to Thomas’ dismay, returns.
“Minho?” Newt questions. It’s not a bad guess, most of both of their previous ‘thinking sessions’ had been about the teen, and Thomas almost feels ashamed to be thinking so hard about himself and Teresa when Minho was still out there being experimented on or something.
“No, um. Teresa.”
“Oh.”
Newt’s eyes tighten, his mouth turns down, and his frown deepens enough that Thomas feels a physical urge to smooth it out lest his eyebrows get somehow stuck that way.
“I was just thinking about—” Thomas finds himself scared to tell Newt about his similar traitor nature to Teresa, but also about the uncomfortable truth that seems to come along with it.
“Whatever they say, I just need you to know I had to do it. Okay?” Thomas desperately explains.
Teresa is teary-eyed as she speaks: “I'm saying, I want you to understand.”
“—just… thinking about why she would betray us.”
Newt is silent for a moment but sounds bitter when he talks.
“You said it before, didn’t you? She wants to let us get tortured and drained of our blood to get her stupid cure.”
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Thomas hesitates.
“She said… she wants to save millions. People that could be saved with our blood.”
“They would need to torture thousands of kids for that, there’s no way that math could be okay morally or ethically.”
“But then why did she still betray us, after everything?”
Newt huffs, annoyed.
“Yeah, well, she barely knew us when you think about it. It was, what, like two weeks tops?”
“But she had her memories returned. By Janson’s people.”
“Huh. Well then, there we go. She was WCKD before right? Makes sense she’d go right back.”
“But I wouldn’t,” Thomas looks at Newt. Newt looks right back. “I chose you guys over WCKD before, even when I was working for them — I was that source for Mary.
And I’d still choose you, if I’d only known you for two weeks.”
He watches as Newt takes another shuddering breath.
“Oh.”
The moment feels important, weighing on Thomas like a blanket. It’s not a burden though, he finds; it’s similar to one of those first nights in the Scorch, when Newt shifted Thomas’ world by telling him he wouldn’t let him give up and that he had faith in Thomas. That he’d follow him everywhere. That the others would too. It weighed on him like protective armour.
His tongue seems loosened by the feeling. Trust something in the back of his mind whispers.
“I came here to think because I was worried I was a hypocrite. I betrayed Teresa back then when I chose to try protect all you guys that I cared about instead of the goal for a cure. But Teresa cares about the whole world and I… I just wanted to save the few of us I care about, plus the other tortured Maze kids that WCKD has now taken.
You said it earlier; ‘the needs of the many over the needs of the few’. Was I wrong to choose the few?”
And there it is, out in the air. Thomas really didn’t mean to word that last part that way — he would never let his friends get tortured or experimented or even hurt — but he needed… he needed something that he didn’t know what. He begins to panic when Newt is silent.
Please, he isn’t like Teresa, he isn’t a terrible person, he just wanted to save them because the other option was unacceptable—
“Hurting people to help others only temporarily is never okay.” Newt’s voice is determined. “Thomas, you’re a really caring person and that means that klunk like this is probably going to make you feel guilty, but it’s not any of our jobs to save the bloody world, especially not when we get tortured to do it.”
Newt grabs at Thomas’ arms, squeezing them as if he’s going to try to escape.
“We’re just kids.”
Thomas feels his face crumple and then he’s being pulled into a hug. He grasps at Newt’s jacket, struggling as he tries to breathe and talk at the same time.
“Shuck, Newt, I would never let you get taken, or any of the others; I just feel so bad about— But I would never — I wouldn’t. And, and, Minho, we’re going to get him.”
Newt just squeezes him back.
“I know, Tommy.”
When they pull apart, Newt has a quiet smile on his face, a simple upwards quirk of his mouth, and now Thomas is feeling quite glad he didn’t end up crying. He’d seen how crying made others puffy faced with red eyes and decided he really didn’t want Newt seeing him like that. He feels only slightly mortified when he remembers that Newt had seen him like that before.
Newt half-sighs, half-laughs — even though nothing’s really funny — making Thomas’ hair move ever so slightly on his forehead which then somehow jolts Newt back into reality from whatever he’d been thinking about. He jumps up off the Thinking Rock and brushes his pants down from where sand and dust had stuck on.
“Well, we can’t save Minho without sleep.”
The Newt begins speed walking back to the rest of the group leaving a confused Thomas to scramble after him.