*Dedicated to @PippinPyper for her enthusiastic support of this story and continuing encouragement*

Nick was having a bad day. For some reason everything that could go wrong was going wrong, and he was having trouble coping with his frustration. Tyn was a huge source of his frustrations, but another month went by and Leo replaced him as Greenie. Leo was the polar opposite of Tyn, with huge strapping muscles, broad shoulders, and the beginnings of a mustache. He joined Damon as a slicer and Nick was secretly disappointed he hadn't chosen a more important job.

Today, however, the problem wasn't with any of the Gladers. Today's problems lay within the inner workings of the Glade.

First it was the showers. Snow had complained about a faulty shower at breakfast that morning and Nick had shrugged it off. Then Stoy and Clint came forward with similar stories. He probably would have shrugged it off again if Gally hadn't cornered him after they did and threatened to crush his hand if he didn't try to figure out a way to solve the problem.

"I'm not a shucking plumber," Nick had said.

"Not my problem. You're leader, remember?" Gally had so kindly reminded him. Nick loved being the leader, he really did, but it was things like this that made his skin itch. It turned out the showers were spewing out nothing but ice cold water. He could deal with a cold shower, but this water felt like it had just come from a melting glacier. It wasn't just one shower, either. It was all seven stalls, including the one in Elizabeth's bathroom-hut (he checked hers with permission, of course).

Then Zart approached him in the early afternoon telling him that the crops had been "destroyed!" Nick was forced to follow the boy to the gardens where he found that, true to his word, Zart was right about the crops. More than half of the vegetables were either dead or in a severe withered state. Some even had flies buzzing around them as if they'd been gone for quite some time.

"The hell you been doing to these things?" Nick asked, "You do understand that this is our food, right?"

"It wasn't me!" Zart protested. "I'm just as shocked as you are. They were completely fine yesterday!"

The food situation only got worse. Damon reported that three pigs and five chickens had died overnight. They simply dropped dead where they stood and had started rotting and giving off a foul scent. It made the surviving animals sick, and as a result no eggs had been laid and the goat's milk was sour.

"I think they had food poisoning," Leo said.

"Food pois - you don't know what you're talking about, Greenie!" Nick shouted, coming to the end of his rope. Did they expect him to know the answers to everything? The only thing he could think of was the stupid people who had sent them up here. Perhaps they were getting tired of keeping so many of them and wanted to kill a few off through starvation and poor hygiene.

He talked to Frypan and they agreed to cut back on mealtime.

"I won't make any extra servings tonight," Frypan said.

"You get the wax paper you wanted?" Nick asked him, proud that he'd remembered something about someone. He struggled in that area.

Frypan shook his head, "Nah," he said, "I always request it but they never send it up."

Nick sighed and shook his head with a frown. He was angry and frustrated, but not with the Gladers. No, he was angry with the people who had sent them here, and he was angry that he had been one of the lucky few to be kidnapped. And he was angry with himself for failing to see the changes that had been happening. They would ration food. They would have another meeting. They would decide what to do about whatever was happening, and they would get through this.

They had to.

---

Snow wasn't an expert on plants by any means, but he'd be blind not to see that theirs were suffering from some sort of unseen plight. None of the seeds they'd planted last month had sprouted, and they had lost so many vegetables...He'd pulled up the dead plants along with Newt and Tyn while Zart worked on the overgrowth of weeds on the remaining healthy greens. The sun was high in the sky, descending to dusk when he finished cleaning up the last one. Pulling out the roots had been tougher than he'd originally thought. Plants were quite deceiving in the way their slender stalks hid much thicker, deeper roots. Even in death, they were hard to dig out and break completely.

"The Runners should be back by now," Zart said, coming to stand beside him and Newt. Newt wiped sweat from his brow.

"Yeah," he said. Snow caught Tyn watching Newt from behind his thick glasses.

"Wonder if anything weird happened to them," Snow thought out loud. He thought he saw Newt flinch, though he remained silent.

"I guess we'll find out," Zart said, shrugging. The four Track-hoes made their way to the Homestead where the others were gathering. They were speaking together in hushed, serious tones about the dead crops and livestock, and the freezing showers. Snow saw Nick leaning casually against a tree with a mildly perturbed look on his face. Alby was next to him mouthing words, but their leader didn't seem to be listening. After a moment, however, he nodded to Alby and his gaze flickered to the Maze opening. Snow realized Minho and Elizabeth weren't around.

"Are the Runners back yet?" Snow heard Newt ask Doug. Doug shook his head.

"Not yet."

Time inched by slowly. Some boys proposed solutions to the food problem, others offered to help warm up some water in a couple of the well barrels so they could at least have something to scrub down with. Snow had never seen any of them look so somber before, and meanwhile Newt was getting more worried with every minute that passed. Snow decided to do the friendly-guy thing and shoot out some peppy words to take his mind off the missing Runners.

"I guess this explains my wacky dream last night," he said. Will, who was in the same circle as him raised an eyebrow.

"Weird dream?" he asked. Snow chuckled.

"Yeah. Some slinthead kept cutting me in line and my teeth all fell out."

"I've had that dream before, too," Will said.

Snow was surprised: "Oh, really? Were we dream-fasting together or something?" It probably had some sort of strange explanation, like they were both afraid of always being bested by the person in front of them in life. Or something along those lines.

"No, I mean about my teeth falling out," Will explained with an embarrassed blush. Snow snorted and looked at Newt, but Newt wasn't paying attention. There was a crease in his brow and he had his arms crossed. Poor dude. Snow was worried about his friends too, but there wasn't anything to be done about it.

---

Breathe, he told himself. Just breathe.

They were okay. Everything was fine. They had probably just lost track of time.

She was okay.

His palms felt sweaty against his arms and he released them and wiped them against his trousers. His throat was too dry but he knew if he drank anything now he would just throw it back up.

He knew that he cared about her, of course. But he hadn't fully realized to what extreme. He had told her he loved her, and she, him, but they hadn't mentioned love since that night. Maybe it was because he was too afraid to; too afraid to completely bear his heart to her. Doing so would mean his heart didn't belong to him anymore. Though, he surmised, it hadn't fully belonged to him for quite some time.

And now she wasn't here. She wasn't here for him to tell her!

"Newt," someone placed a warm hand on his shoulder. It was a comforting notion, and Newt opened his eyes to give them a smile of gratitude.

It was Gally.

"I know how you feel," the freckle-faced boy said. Newt blinked, but found he wasn't as surprised at Gally's words as he expected to be.

"I love her, too," Gally said.

That surprised him. Newt jerked away and tried to swallow the sudden burst of jealousy. It left an acid taste in his mouth and made his stomach hurt. Gally's frown of concern turned into one of disgust.

"Not romantically, shank!" his lips curled up. "I meant as a sister!" He closed his mouth abruptly, as if he hadn't completely wanted to share that particular information. Unfortunately, once it was out, it was out.

"Looks like you've got some rather brotherly competition, Newt!" Snow said, wiggling his eyebrows.

"Big brother Gally is so protective of his family!" Will giggled. Gally scowled and a couple of the others shuffled their way into the conversation.

"Aww, did I miss seeing Gally's soft side?" Frypan groaned. "Do it again, Gally, please?"

"He called Elizabeth his "little sister,'" Snow said.

"SHUT UP!" Gally's face was turning red. "And I never called her 'little!'"

"That's incredibly..." Clint struggled to find the right words, "non-jacked of him."

"Shuckin' sweet," Alby agreed.

Newt almost laughed, Gally's face was so beet red and the veins were popping out at his neck. Without warning, he charged at the boy nearest to him, which just so happened to be himself. He grunted at the impact, and fell backwards, his arse hitting the ground. The force of it sent painful sparks of pain up his back through his tailbone. The other boys yelled and he brought his hand to his head before leaping to his feet.

"What the hell was that for?" he demanded. Gally took a step back, but didn't back down. In fact, he looked even more fired up than before. Newt staggered forward, the pain in his rump still fresh. His limp didn't help. Gally dodged his first blow with a muscular arm, but Newt took him by surprised by bending down to avoid another hit, and his fist connected with Gally's chest with a satisfying THWACK.

Gally took a few steps back. He spat on the ground and then ripped his shirt off. Newt pulled his own sweaty shirt off and tossed it aside.

"Are you ready for this?" Newt was surprised to hear wariness in Gally's voice. How annoying. This slinthead was going down.

"Ladies first," he said.

Gally's eyes narrowed. "Says the one everybody calls "Glade Mother,'" he said.

Newt was already running at Gally head on, but just as they collided in a mesh of sweat and dirt, Tyn pointed towards the distance and shouted: "They're back!"

---

Elizabeth was tired and sore, and completely filthy. All she wanted to do was take a hot shower and fall into bed. She and Dalton each had one of Minho's arms around them for support, and P.F. was carrying all of his supplies. Minho was conscious and babbling, which was a good thing, but she wanted his leg checked as soon as possible. They'd had a run-in with a Griever for the first time in weeks, and they'd gotten away with him, but Minho had acted irrationally and paid the price for it.

The good thing was he hadn't been stung. That much she was certain. There was a deep gash in his leg that was actively leaking blood, and they'd managed to bandage it with parts of their clothing torn off. The only thing now was his loss of blood. She couldn't recall exactly when it happened, but it was at least an hour prior. She'd kept him talking for his safety, but what had started out as merely slurry words of sarcasm and wittiness had turned into incoherent nonsense.

P.F. and Dalton had gotten tired of his babbling pretty early on. She'd responded to it at first, but after a while she too had gone quiet and left him talking to himself like a crazy person. It wasn't as if she was bothered about talking with him, but...she didn't know how to respond to it. She feared that he'd hit his head on his way down too, which was not helping his cause.

"I've always liked this time of day," Minho was saying. "What do you say to this time, Dalton?"

"Yup," Dalton mumbled.

Elizabeth shifted his arm on his shoulder to a more comfortable position and looked around for somebody else to take over.

"Where is everybody?" she asked. P.F. nodded ahead of them.

"Somebody got into a fight," he said. Elizabeth looked to where he was gesturing and groaned. Thankfully they had put the match on hold to greet them.

"Here comes Newt," Minho said. "He's a good mate."

Newt was shirtless and covered in dirt and sweat. Gally was beside him in a similar state. Elizabeth realized they had been the ones fighting. Whatever he'd been doing must not have been too bad, considering how fast he'd ran over to them. Alby reached them first, and relieved her of Minho's weight.

"What the bloody hell happened!?" Newt demanded. His eyes met Elizabeth's in horror and he was immediately at her side, running his hands down her arms and patting at her shoulders and head. She tried to ignore the heat that came from his touch, and averted her eyes away from his bare chest.

"Are you hurt? What happened? What is this blood coming from?" New's voice was a tarried whisper as he continued searching for scrapes and wounds. Elizabeth didn't know what he was talking to at first, but then remembered that Minho's blood had sprayed up at her. She must be covered in his blood. She placed a tentative hand against his chest.

"It's okay, Newt. I'm okay. It's Minho's blood." Her voice squeaked at the end and she pushed him away and drew her hand back. He frowned slightly, and then pulled her in for a quick hug.

"Explain yourselves!" Alby shouted.

"We met a Griever today," P.F. said. "It took Elizabeth by surprise but Minho here jumped in front of her so she wasn't hurt."

Newt released Elizabeth and went over to Minho and grabbed him by the shoulder. Minho grunted a "your welcome," and managed a messy side-hug.

"Was he stung?" Nick asked. The Runners shook their heads.

"It wasn't using its stinger," Dalton said.

"Was there only one?"

"Only one that attacked us. We spotted a few earlier but left them without being seen."

"Something's wrong," Nick said after Clint and Jeff had taken Minho away. His tone held a bitter note to it. "First they kill our crops, then they kill our animals. Now they're increasing the amount of Grievers in the Maze? What is going on?"

"It's simple," Chris spoke up. "We're in their game and they're playing us."

"This isn't a game, Chris," Newt said. Elizabeth heard it, she heard the slight inflection of his name Gally had told her everybody used with Chris.

"Who says it's not? You?" Chris asked, letting out a dry laugh. "We've been at their mercy since day one and you don't think they just sit there and watch? No, this is entertainment. This is their way of reminding us who's in charge."

"It's a test," Elizabeth found herself saying. Chris met her gaze and she turned away from him. "Remember, everything is a test?"

"Nobody told me that," Leo frowned.

"That's because nobody knows for sure, Greenie." Ben sighed heavily. "That's just Elizabeth trying to make us feel better."

"Why would the test us?" Dave said at the same time.

"I'm not trying to make anyone feel better," Elizabeth said, glaring at Ben. "I'm guessing just as much as you are."

That wasn't altogether true. There was the note on her arm when she'd first arrived about being tested. And then there was the notebook with the list of immunes and non-immunes in it. And that dream she'd had...she wasn't sure what the tests were for, exactly, but she was almost one hundred percent sure that's what this was.

"Than can I be so bold as to ask what the goal of this test is?" Snow asked.

"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked.

"I mean, what are they trying to test us for? Is it to weed out the weak ones? Is it something like that, or is it more like they're just seeing what we're going to do next?"

It was a good idea, one that Elizabeth hadn't thought of. It was possible that WICKED was simply watching their behavior and wanted to know how they handled things like this. But then, why hadn't they done it sooner? And if it was to weed out the weak ones, then why hadn't they just released a bunch of Grievers into the Maze to slaughter them? Neither conclusion was completely satisfactory, but it did seem more likely to be about studying their behavior rather than killing them off outright.

Elizabeth was so deep in thought she didn't participate in the rest of the conversation. She did, however, notice when Jeff came back with a report on Minho.

"We've got him on the bed, and he's resting fine. The cut wasn't actually that deep," he said. "I think he was acting more dramatically than necessary."

Elizabeth was mildly irked at that information, and she wondered how much of Minho's seemingly delirious blabber was actually faked. If it was, that boy had a weird sense of humor.

"What's that?" Alby asked. Jeff had a crumpled piece of paper in his hand.

"Oh, erm...we passed the Box on our way there and it looks like somebody sent this note up," he said.

"WHAT?" Alby shouted. "HOW DID WE MISS THE BOX COMING UP?"

Jeff shrugged. "I don't know, but it doesn't make much sense," he said.

"Well what's it say?" Nick demanded furiously.

"It's for Elizabeth."

Me? Elizabeth felt Newt's hand grab hers.

"Why does Elizabeth keep getting special things?" somebody whispered as Jeff walked over and handed her the note.

"Well?" Nick place his hands on his hips and the rest of them all looked on expectantly. Elizabeth unfolded the note, took a deep breath, and read:

Elizabeth,

I'm sorry.

-Thomas

Newt squeezed her hand and leaned in closer to her. She turned the paper over and froze. The men started chatting around her.

"Eh? What the klunk does that mean?"

"Who's Thomas?"

"That's the stupidest letter I've ever heard of."

"Are we supposed to know what this means?"

"Never-mind, I'm glad people don't send me things I don't need."

Elizabeth felt numb. She couldn't tell who was talking, but she could feel Newt's heartbeat against her shoulder. She quickly crumpled the piece of paper in her hand.

"Is something wrong?" Newt shifted and bumped into her. She shook her head and smiled up at him.

"It's fine. It's just Thomas apologizing for what happened between us," she said. Newt didn't look convinced.

"Was there something else written on the back?" he asked.

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, nothing else."

He didn't press her any further, but she knew he was still suspicious. He had good reason to be, since she wasn't telling the truth. She clenched the paper in her hand and vowed to burn it as soon as possible. Her head was still spinning with the words.

I will miss you when you're gone.

She knew what it meant. She knew as soon as she read it. Deep down she had known it all along. She was, after all, the only one in the Maze who wasn't supposed to be there. Another time it might not have affected her quite so much, but it broke her heart because she knew it would break his, too.

I will miss you when I'm gone.

She wasn't going to survive the tests.