A lot had happened since the Maze.

After Ada was dragged from Chuck and Gally's bodies, the Gladers found themselves in a helicopter, whisked away to a facility supposedly rescuing them from the claws of WCKD. She could still remember the moment she arrived inside: face still stinging with tears, throat scratched raw from screaming, mouth agape and parched for water.

And then she was separated from her friends. 

At first, she barely even registered the last fact. She was still in utter shock. No matter how many times she thought of it, she couldn't digest it; both Chuck and Gally, lying motionlessly in front of her, dead. Previously, they had been so full of life. 

Chuck, like a puppy, always willing to make you laugh or pull a funny - and sometimes a little carelessly harsh - prank on someone. The girl didn't want to accept that his life wouldn't go beyond the Glade. He was so, so young. 

Fuck WCKD.

And Gally. 

What was Ada supposed to feel about that?

No matter the person he had turned into when Thomas arrived, she was in love with him. He was a softie really. And he cared more fiercely for Ada than anything else in the world. Despite his refusal to accept they were leaving - and refusal of the invitation to join those going - she wanted a life outside the Glade with him.

But she never gained the courage to tell him that. And she was now facing the consequences.

When Ada finally got to grips with the fact she had been pushed into separate sleeping quarters from the boys, Teresa was taken from her too. Then, she was well and truly alone, just when she needed people the most. 

Days went by - she had no idea how many - but time became normal again when the Gladers burst suddenly into her room and whisked her away; having caught wind of the fact their rescuers from the Maze were actually WCKD.

They somehow escaped from the facility. Now set loose in the Scorch, Ada was caught up to the awful things Thomas and his new friend Aris had seen in WCKD. The group was firmly set against them - in particular Janson - and had to do everything to stay far, far away.

This led them to travelling to find the Right Arm. 

But when they finally caught sight of the mountains the Right Arm was allegedly set in, disaster struck. Winston collapsed, and later went berserk with a gun, revealing a dark infection crawling over his chest and taking over his entire body.

They said their goodbyes and left him with a gun.

That night, settled down in the desert in front of a blazing fire, it all came rushing back for Ada. Chuck jumping in front of the bullet meant for Thomas, Gally instantly being speared to the ground, and then the girl being ripped away from the scene before she could mourn either of them.

Everyone was asleep, except from her. At least, that's what she thought.

She sat with her knees tucked up to her chest and her hands raised just in front of the flames, feeling the heat raise from the orange and red embers. Her cheeks were tearstained, and her body trembling ever so slightly, trying to hide the small sobs that wracked her body.

She hadn't cried since it all went down, because she hadn't yet processed it. But now she was starting to.

Thomas wasn't yet asleep. He was turned away from the girl, lying in his sleeping bag with his eyes fluttering closed. He'd be lying if he said that the reason he wasn't sleeping was because he wasn't tired. He couldn't sleep because her crying broke his heart.

The school boy crush he formed for her back in the Glade had only seemed to grow. Being the awkward and nervous boy he was, he had refrained from admitting this to her. If she was anyone else, she would've seen his crush on her from a mile away. But it was Ada. 

She had no idea.

Thomas rolled over in his sleeping bag, causing the girl to freeze up at the sudden noise. The boy took the opportunity to peel open his eyes, and now she felt like a deer caught in headlights. Her crying subsided completely, and she sheepishly wiped at her red eyes to try and make herself presentable.

Thomas shuffled out of his sleeping bag, being careful to be quiet as he got up and settled himself down beside her. She couldn't bring herself to put in the effort of smiling, as she instead focused her eyes on the fire.

"Are you okay?" He asked in a low voice, not wanting to wake the others.

She found herself beginning to laugh, shaking her head at the stupidity of the question. Thomas' heart sank, at the sound of her pained laughter and the fact that she was so obviously not okay.

"Are any of us okay?"

She gave him a smile then, a real one, and so Thomas found himself chuckling. He sidled closer to her, bumping his shoulder with hers, and exhaled.

"I'm sorry about Gally."

Of all the things Thomas could've said, Ada would've been sure that would be the last thing he'd say.

She wasn't sure how to respond. It was a recognition of her closeness to Gally, what he meant to her. But Thomas didn't truly know what he meant for her, Ada was sure of that. 

And how was she supposed to reply? Was she supposed to thank him?

"He killed Chuck." Was what she said instead. 

She was uncertain why she did. It wasn't a happy thing to bring up, but it was as though she was trying to justify his death in her mind, to make it easier for her to get over. Because Chuck deserved to be alive with them more than anyone else.

"He was trying to kill me." He muttered in reply.

"He was stung." Her voice got thicker then, her eyes glossing over, and her words being projected onto the fire instead of Thomas. 

She wasn't even arguing with him. She was simply just stating it; the fact that the last time she saw Gally alive, he wasn't even himself.

Thomas was staring at her then, not knowing what to say or how to act, but wanting to comfort her more than anything. A blind person would've been able to see that Thomas was begging with his eyes for her to see how he felt for her. But she was oblivious to it.

"Ada-"

"-Hey, guys." Another figure sat down beside Ada, his hand squeezing her shoulder reassuringly.

It was Frypan.

He flashed a warning glance at Thomas, to tell him she was not at her best, and he took it as a sign to head back to sleep. Fry watched him go, his hand still resting on her shoulder, and didn't look back until Thomas had rolled over to lie facing away from them.

"Listen, Ada," Fry started in a low voice, his hand moving to grasp hers. "Gally wouldn't want to see you like this."

Her head snapped to him, her hand then grabbing his in return as she questioned him with glistening eyes, "How'd you know I was thinking about him?"

He shrugged, a small sad smile playing on his lips. "You're always thinking about him, aren't you?"

The question raised something that she didn't want to address, and so she looked back to the fire that was now close to dying down. The black charred wood was swallowing any unburnt logs that sat on the pile, the flames beginning to shrink down too.

"I miss the Glade."

She echoed the thought that he admitted to the group earlier. She was too scared to say it then, because she missed it for people that her friends didn't miss. Well, a person. It was only Thomas and Teresa that didn't like him, but she was still a coward.

It was difficult. They didn't know the Gally that she knew and loved, but she couldn't particularly blame them for hating him. He was awful to them.

But Ada just couldn't hate him.

She knew why he acted that way. He was afraid. Afraid of everything finally changing, things messing up, people dying. All he knew was the Glade, and the uncertainty that Thomas brought, scared him more than anything.

And that's what killed him.

Not Minho shooting the spear in his chest - well, that did actually kill him - but it was the fear that killed the Gally that Ada fell for. Long before he had died, the Gally that cared for every single person in the Glade, was already gone.

Frypan didn't need to say a thing for them to both know that he was willing her to move on. Not to forget him, but to get to a place where it didn't hurt to remember him. Because there was no way she could be happy without managing that.

"How am I supposed to get past something like that Fry?" She spoke in a whisper, her voice dangerously close to breaking.

Fry didn't have the answer to that. No one did. There was no objective answer to how you're supposed to mourn anyone, but the boy knew that pointing this out wouldn't help her in anyway. And so, he just had to give her the best advice he could.

"Don't live for him, live for yourself. Just remember him. That's all you need to do."

Frypan's wise but simple words were the ones that motivated her to mourn Gally. She did manage the task of mourning him, having gained previous experience from deaths of her other friends back in the Glade.

Possibly the only positive thing to have happened out in the Scorch was Minho getting struck by lightning. Well, maybe not that exact event, but what followed straight after.

As Minho laid lifelessly on the floor of a seemingly empty warehouse they had dragged him into, Newt loomed over him, clinging onto his jacket and shaking him desperately. And then, when he surged back to life, the blonde boy had tugged him into a kiss so rough that even Minho was taken aback. But even a bolt of lightning didn't stop Minho from taking the chance to make out with Newt.

"Alright, lovebirds," She murmured after a few moments, causing them to break apart, both rosy cheeked. "You done?" 

Minho pouted playfully at her as he was helped up from the ground. Newt was avoiding his glances, suddenly shy now, and so the Asian boy slung his arm around the blonde to say, "For now."

A girl emerged from the darkness, moving towards them down a path lined with Cranks. Little did they know, she'd become one of their greatest allies.

Alongside Brenda, and her father figure Jorge, they evaded WCKD once again. Brenda and Thomas managed to get themselves drugged at a party, but they found Marcus, who led them directly to the Right Arm.

More specifically, the gunpoint of the Right Arm.

Aris saved them from the threat of two young girls, as it turned out they were fellow friends from his time spent in his Maze. They took them back to the Right Arm's camp, where they were planning to head to the Safe Haven in the morning.

But then, disaster struck.

Brenda had been scratched by a Crank. She collapsed, and there was a kerfuffle in which the leader of the Right Arm - Vince - nearly shot her. Luckily, their saviour came in the form of a woman named Mary.

Mary convinced Vince not to shoot her, and took her to a tent where she swore to help her. Thomas trailed after her, both worried for Brenda, and curious about Mary. 

Mary did something unknown yet lifesaving to Brenda, and the Flare had seemingly been slowed in her system. It was then that Vince and Mary agreed that they could come to the Safe Haven with them.

At that moment, everything seemed to be going well. They were going to get to the Safe Haven; away from WCKD, away from Cranks, and all together.

But of course, it was all too good to be true.

It turned out, their downfall came due to Teresa. The whole time, since they got to the WCKD facility after escaping the Maze, she had been working against the Gladers. And then, she finally called WCKD to take them all.

Of course, Teresa wouldn't lose anything from it. She was perfectly happy where she was with Ava Paige and Janson, whilst the rest of them were held at gunpoint, being threatened with torture. 

Ada wondered if Teresa had ever considered any of them to be her friends. And if she did, what did she remember that caused her to do something so damaging to all of them?

But that wasn't the end of it.

Jorge and Brenda crashed the party, sparking yet another riot. WCKD scrambled as best as they could, trying to grab as many kids for experimenting as possible, and leaving swiftly.

They got Minho.

And six months later, that's how the group wound up heading to the Last City to save him. They couldn't go to the Safe Haven without him.

However, what they didn't anticipate to happen, was being kidnapped by a group of masked men outside the walls of the City. Really, they should've expected it to happen, because nothing had really ever gone their way. But they'd never expect their kidnapper to be someone they had believed to be dead.

Gally.

Little did Ada know, Gally was very much alive. Since the Maze, Gally had been in the City with a group of 'rebels' working to take down WCKD. And little did she know, Gally had been working to find her ever since he arrived. 

When he spotted Thomas' stony face staring up at where he was sat on the roof of a car, cruising the outskirts of the city, he knew he had done it. He knew she couldn't have died. Of course, the thought crossed his mind, but he was so insanely stubborn that he refused to even acknowledge the possibility.

And then he saw her.

His heart leapt in his chest. Her head was tilted to the side thoughtfully, their eyes locked together intensely, despite the fact she had no idea who he was. She looked much older - Gally thought she looked more tired and less innocent than when she arrived in the Maze - but she somehow looked just as positive as he remembered.

And as he turned around to look at her for as long as possible, he remembered how much he loved her. That's when he came up with the genius idea of kidnapping them.

And so, a lot had happened since the Maze. 

Ada couldn't imagine it would get any more shocking than their kidnapping. But boy was she wrong...