Alex didn't say much for the next few days, she was quiet, she did her work and kept to herself. Alby continued with Archery, just to keep her busy and an eye on her. Jeff kept a close eye on her too, not leaving her alone on shift for long. Bark never left her heels and Newt was always popping in "just to see how you're doin'." Minho was glued to her side the moment he was done mapping. He also continued with runner training; she was fast and agile. And had some good muscle to her, she was surprisingly strong, but he still made her do chin ups. (Mostly because she would get tired after a while and he would have to help, by placing his hands on her waist or hips and helping her pull herself up- and she wasn't arguing about it. Every time, it would send tingles from where his hands made contact).

"Man Sunshine, you are so light! Fry's gotta give you more bacon! Or a cheeseburger!"

Alex laughed and dropped off the tree branch breathing heavily, her arms sore, sweat running down her neck and back. She turned around to say something sassy, as she placed a hand on Minho's arm. Her head snapped upwards and she felt like a wall around her memories was blasted apart. Her body started to shake like she was freezing.

She was seeing Minho in front of her, but she was seeing a younger version. He was cleaner, in different clothes, he was wearing grey pants and a white button up shirt with a black logo on the chest. His sleeves rolled up so high you could see his biceps. He was smirking down at her, but the background was different, it was a white disertet hallway. He was leaning slightly into her, with his shoulder leaning against the door fram beside him. He had a hand buried in her hair, and his other on her hip, pulling her close, sliding it to the small of her back. He leaned his forehead on hers. "Babe, we gonna sneak some cheeseburgers tonight? Just you and me...let's ditch the others. It's a date, ya?" She smiled up at him, both their eyes sparkling. Even in her memory she could feel the hot tingly feeling spreading from her chest. He dropped his voice into a deep husky whine,"I miss just us, you're too busy with extra training." He was leaning in, closer to her, she lifted her face towards him-

"Hey, Alex?!" Minho asked, panic in his voice, "Alex?? Hey, you ok?"

"Huh? What?" She blinked and she was back in the Glade. Minho was still in front of her, but he was older, more muscular, dark brown pants, light blue shirt and his runners vest, his face was dirty and sweaty, but still the same hair, same eyes. Although they looked tired, and a little broken, like he has seen too much. She was holding onto his biceps and he had his hands under her elbows supporting her.

"Wow...that was so weird! You were here, but you weren't! You were asking me about going for burgers...but we weren't here...!"

"Wait...what? Did you have a memory? About us and cheeseburgers?" He gasped, his eyes wide. She just nodded, feeling a little warmer than before.

"Awesome!" Minho said dreamily "Cheeseburgers...can't remember eating one, but I know I love 'em!"

Alex shrugged, "I don't know, you said it here and when I touched your arm it was like a memory or whatever it was, exploded in my head. I had one with Thomas his first day. I saw him in a control looking room, he said something like 'It's ok, he's alive. Alby and Minho found him. He;s going to be okay.' Does that make any sense to you? No one else has had this happen, right? Why am I different?"

It was Minho's turn to shrug. "No idea, Sunshine. Why are you the only girl? Who the shuck knows... But if it's memories about food, by all means continue." he said with amusement. His face changed from amusement to concentraition. "Wait..Alby and I found him? Found who?"

Alex shrugged. "I don't know, it was like a five second flash. That's all he said. I felt like this intense sorrow! Was there a time when something awful happened and you had to find...wait...no..."

She trailed off, her eyes wide. Minho copying her expression, both their mouths dropped open.

"Newt." They whispered together.

"I saw him! I must have seen it on the screens that were on the walls behind! Shuck...I watched my brother try to commit suicided!"

Minho wrapped her in a hug.

"It's all right. He's okay. You're all right. Thomas was right. He lived. He's okay."

"Minho! That means I must have watching from the beetle blades! What the shuck was I doing watching you? The shuck is going on?" Alex's voice was tight and high pitched.

He pulled away and looked at her. "I don't know Sunshine! Nothing in this place makes sense! But you're ok though? Do we need a break?"

"Nah, I'm fine, Minny." She replied shakily, running a hand through her sweaty hair, trying to shake away the weird unsettled feeling in her chest. "Could go for a cheeseburger now...with bacon!" She tried lightening the mood.

He smiled dreamily at her for a moment.

"What's next on the bloody agenda?" Alex asked after a moment of daydreaming.

"Well, my young grasshopper. We are now finally off to the Map Room."

Alex was both nervous and excited. The growing anticipation of seeing inside this mystery room was very high. Hoping to find the secrets these runners kept. Minho opened the big metal door and swung it open. Alex stepped inside and was hit by a musty metallic smell. She wrinkled her nose. It was quite anticlimactic. The walls were grey cement and bare, a few hand drawn maps pinned up. In the middle was a big wood table, 8 wood stools placed around it. Some blank paper piles and pencils lay scattered. Along the walls on the floor, there were 8 trunks, 2 per wall. Minho swept his arms wide.

"Welcome, my padawan, to The Map Room!"

Alex looked at him, with a deadpan expression. "I expected more from you, you Big Drama Queen. This is so...boring! So.. anticlimactic."

"Hey! That was so uncalled for!" He spun on his heel, pretending to flip his hair.

Alex snorted, shaking her head at him. He had gone to one of the trunks and opened it, brought out some paper and brought it to the table. "Come here Grasshopper and learn." He sat down and explained how the maze was a giant circle, but divided into eight sections, every night the walls move, repeating the same pattern every month. The sequence being: 71526483. He explained how the further away from the glade they got the more spread out the maze became.

"Wow. That's a lot to take in" Alex whispered.

"Ya." He sighed, she could see his body language shift, almost like he deflated, "That's not all. Follow me."

He led her silently to the back of the small room, moving a trunk out of the way. Underneath there was a small trap door, he took out a key and unlocked the lock and led her down the rickety steps, helping her the last few. He turned on a light that was a bare light bulb in the middle of an earthen cellar. On three walls there were all sorts of weapons, from knives, to spears and bows to some weird medieval looking ones. There were clubs and rolls of barbed wire. There was even a small pistol. Minho ignored all that and went to the only wall not covered in ways to hurt people, there was a table with a dusty sheet on it.

"Uh, Min, why all the weapons?" She asked, waving to the vast assortment of deadly weapons.

He shrugged, "The creators kept sending them up. Alby thought it best to lock it all up, only letting runners take a few to defend themselves in the maze. Only Alby, Newt and I have a key for here, and only runners and keepers know about this room. Now, come here."

He waved her over to the table. When she was beside him, she gave him a questioning look. He didn't make any sarcastic or sassy comments so she knew to stay quiet, and listen.

"Ok, Alex."

Using my real name, this is really important.

He paused and took a slow deep breath. "Ok. So, only a few people know this and I trust you with this." He pulled the sheet off the table, "This is a full replica of the maze. All of it." He said without any expression on his face.

"Hold up, what do you mean by 'All of it?' I thought you guys were still mapping it?" Asked Alex in disbelief, looking at the replica, made out of sticks and rocks, in great detail.

"There's nothing left to map. We discovered a year ago there was no way out. I've run every inch of it myself. Every cycle. Every pattern. If there was a way out, we would have found it by now."

He looked so broken, so despondent. His body sagged, his face fell, his shoulders slumped. He looked away from the table. It was quiet for a moment, Alex taking in what he had just said. She was studying the little replica when she heard a small sniff. Alex looked over and saw Minho rub his eyes. Her heart exploded with empathy. She reached up to his shoulder.

"Hey look at me." she said gently.

Minho didn't. He continued to look away, his eyes downcast. "There's no way out. I can't find a way out. There was supposed to be a way through the maze, we tried everything. I failed. I failed everyone. I'm a useless keeper." he said quietly.

Those words broke Alex's heart. Behind the sass and cocky attitude, behind his twinkling eyes and easy smile there was a tiered, lost, broken boy. She turned fully to face him, she placed her hands on both sides of his face and moved it so he was looking at her. He had tears slipping down his face. Alex used a thumb to wipe the tears tenderly from his cheeks.

"Minho. You listen to me and you listen good." She demanded in a stern tone.

His eyes were searching hers.

"You are NOT a failure. You hear me? You're not. You have the hardest, most stressful job in the entire Glade. You risk your life every single shuck day for all of us. How is that failing? You said you have run and mapped the whole maze? And yet you continue to go out there, despite that, looking, hoping for a way out of this bloody hell hole. You know how strong and determined and stubborn you have to be to do that? You alone give this entire place a reason to get up in the morning. You give every single person here hope. If you truly thought there wasn't a way, you would have stopped and refused to go back out there. Yet every morning, you get up and go out, giving us hope."

She said firmly, believing every word she said.

"You give everyone hope! You give me hope, Min." she added quietly.

______________________________

Minho

Her words were a soothing balm on his hurting heart. He was full of self doubt and self loathing. No one ever said anything like that to him. No one ever noticed how hopeless he had become. Because he wouldn't let them. She could somehow see past his jokes and sarcasm to what really lay underneath. She made him want to be vulnerable, but only in front of her. He didn't feel like he had to be okay all the time. Her words were the sun that his dark soul needed.

His personal thoughts had been so detrimental, dark and dangerous lately. She was the sun shining into the dark cracks of his heart.

What would I have done if she hadn't been sent up when she was?

He had almost given up. He had lost the ability to hope. He was thinking that what Newt tried to do last year wasn't such a bad idea. An escape he didn't have to deal with. The seduction of black nothingness. And that scared the klunk out of him. She gave him a new drive, she gave him hope.

"Shuck it, Sunshine," he said laughing sadly, "How did you know I needed to hear that?"

Alex smiled kindly at him, "because, I can see the hope you have. It just needed a little light. That stubborn streak inside you will get us out of here. Minho, I really do believe in you. In all the runners. And you never know, maybe you're not looking in the right places. Everyone knows men can't find anything."

Minho let out a small chuckle. "Very true sunshine. It's a good thing you're here then. Help all us blind boys."

He pulled her into a tight hug, pulling her into his strong chest. He wrapped his big strong arms around her waist, and buried his face into her hair. While she stood on her tiptoes and wrapped her arms around his neck. He lifted her up so her toes barely touched the ground. She turned her face into his neck. She could smell his musky, spicy sunshine smell, and it made her heart beat faster. They stayed like that for a while. Neither one wanted to let go.

They were just kids. Teenagers, stripped of a life of normalcy. Kids dealing with death, gore and trauma. And for what? They were broken, everyone was broken here, but they had each other's back. The Gladers were friends, they were family, and they wouldn't let each other lose hope. He was her anchor when she would drift away. She was his sunshine when he was lost in the dark.

They distantly heard the chiming ring of the supper bell. They held onto each other for a minute longer. They slowly stepped apart, feeling empty, missing each other's warmth. Minho looked down into her hazel eyes, seeing the green and gold flecks in them, the splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks. The bruising from her attack had finally faded. There was a small scar on her forehead from when she came up the box, her pale skin was now sunkissed and rosy from being in the Glade for almost three months.

Three months? It feels like she has been here forever, what did we do before her? She makes everyone laugh and smile and have hope. Shuck I want to kiss her.

He realized then, how hard he had fallen for her, and he felt a warmth start in his heart and spread to the rest of his body. He wasn't sure what it was, but he liked the way it made him feel. It took so much self control not to lean down and kiss her. He wanted to so shucken bad, but he didn't want to ruin the friendship they had again.

He cleared his throat, "We should probably grab some supper, or Fry is going to have a shuckin hayday coming up with reasons for why we are late."

Alex laughed, "He sure is, come on MinMin. I'll race ya?"

"Oh, you're ON Princess! You can't beat me a third time" Before he finished talking she was already scrambling up the steps and out the Map room door.

"Hey! No fare! You cheated!" He called after her.

But he didn't mind, he hung back for a second longer just watching her run, her hair flowing behind her, and listening to her carefree laugh. He was going to be ok, he found hope again, he found the light. And he chased after his sunshine.