Minho

A loud banging on the door jerked Minho from his sleep. And apparently a few other of the guys woke up. There was a click and a loud squeak. Captain Ronin stepped into the room. He stood in front of the door, feet planted, arms behind his stiff back, his eyes were the only thing moving. He slowly swept the room. He paused when he saw Newt. His eyes kept going and came to rest on Minho, and the girl wrapped tightly in his arms. Minho was awake and eyeing him suspiciously, he instinctively held her closer. Alex was still sound asleep. Minho saw the Captain's eyes soften as he took in Alex's sleeping form.

"The Doctor needs to see her. I'm sorry to wake her. I know she has been through a lot. And I know it's early." He directed this statement to Minho. He just nodded slowly.

"I'll wait outside." He turned on his heel and left, leaving the door open a crack.

Minho sighed tiredly. It was only a few hours...she definitely needed more sleep. Shuck, he needed more sleep! He could feel Newt's eyes on him, he ignored the shank for now, he was still ticked at him about last night. He gently kissed Alex's forehead.

"Hey Sunshine." He said quietly, rubbing her arm. "Come on! Wake up!" He heard her groan. "Come on...open those eyes."

"No." She mumbled.

"Come on. Your Captain Marshmallow is here...I'm sure you can persuade him to get you coffee, he seems to like you."

"I do like coffee." She mumbled, still not opening her eyes.

"You still never told me...why marshmallow?"

"Cuz under his mean tough warrior Viking persona, pretty sure he's soft, gooey and sweet, like a marshmallow." She yawned and stretched.

"That...actually makes sense." He said, chuckling at her reasoning. She peeked an eye open at him.

"Did you doubt me and my wisdom?" She yawned again.

"Never babe." He kissed her forehead again, squeezing her to his chest again, while she hummed tiredly. "Now it's time to get up or he's gonna come storming back in here. And I'm pretty sure he could rip some limbs off, Wookie style."

She finally sat up, rubbing her sleepy eyes.

Shuck she's just so cute!

She leaned over and slipped her combat boots on. He saw something reflected in the fluorescent lights, "was that a knife I saw in there?!" Minho gasped in disbelief.

"Yep." she popped the p. "I slipped it in while I was changing before I left the shower stall. I don't trust this place and I figured they would take my weapons. And I was right. 'Always have something you can defend yourself with.' Wise words from Captain Comfy out there." Alex yawned, nodding towards the door.

Alex shrugged like it was no big deal to just defy the rules of an organization with armed guards and cameras every few feet. Minho just gaped at her, and his shocked expression turned into amusement and pride.

Such a natural badass.

He smiled at her. "That's my girl." He chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in, kissing her temple.

She got up and stretched again. He watched as her body stretched and bent.

Shuck.. she's hot.

He watched mesmerized as she racked her fingers through her messy morning hair and put it up into a high pony.

I want to run my fingers through her hair again...it's so soft.

His stomach did a backflip and his heart sped up when his thoughts wandered back to yesterday. She turned around to face him. He stood up. His hands went automatically to cup her jaw, his fingers wrapped around into her hair and his thumbs gently stroked the skin beside her ear, gently holding her beautiful cheeky face. He didn't want to be away from her.

"Alex." He placed his forehead on hers. "Please use that shuck brain and come back to me! Don't leave me hanging." He whispered seriously.

"Don't do anything stupid, Min. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." She replied cheekily.

"Well...that's gonna be hard. You and Tommy Boy like to cause all kinds of trouble!"

"Ya, it's kind of our thing, isn't it? So don't do anything till I'm back." He tipped her face up towards him and kissed her gently.

"Cross my heart" he whispered against her lips. He reluctantly let her go and drew an X. Alex copying him.

"Cross my heart, Love." She pulled away.

As she walked out of the room, he had an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. He glanced at Newt who had a frown on his face.

________________

The guys were all sitting clumped together at the end of a table, near the back of the cafeteria. Thomas had just finished explaining his adventure through the vents. The uneasy feeling Minho felt earlier that morning was rapidly growing.

"I wanna know what's through that door." Thomas said for the third time.

"Now, we've been over this. You said these body things were covered up, so you don't know what you saw. It could've been anything under there." Newt tried to reason.

Minho was frustrated with him too, and felt like he was gas lighting Thomas.

Man Alex was right...he just chooses not to see anything that's in front of him, all because why? He had a bed..some food? And this cafeteria food sucks!

"I know exactly what I saw. They were bodies. Aris said they bring in a new batch every night." Thomas retorted.

Minho shuddered. He hadn't had any word on where Alex was. And it had been a few hours. He was getting anxious. He was trying hard to keep his wild thoughts under control.

What if she was in one of those coffin things Thomas saw?!

"Who the hell is Aris?" Minho demanded. His voice sounded a little more angry than he intended. Thomas nodded to the table in the corner, where a tall gangly kid was sitting, with his sweater hood up, staring broody at a piece of bread on the end of his fork. Minho snorted, and rolled his eyes.

"Well I'm sold." He snickered. He did a double take. "Hey...isn't he the kid who was in the maze with all girls?"

He turned back to Thomas and Newt. His eyebrows raised. Newt's eyes went wide.

"Shuck. I think you're right. Where is Alex? We need to talk to him! Tommy, he didn't say anything last night? About his maze?" Newt asked, urgency in his questions.

Thomas shook his head. Newt banged his fist on the table. "Well I'll go talk to him anyways." He stood up. He slowly sat down with a confused look.

"Where'd he go?"

Minho and Thomas whipped around. He was nowhere to be seen. "Sneaky little thing, ain't he?!" Minho muttered.

_____________________

Alex

She was sitting in an exam room, on a bed waiting for the x-ray results. Dr Prior had taken a few X rays of her head and neck and then some CT scans and MRI's.

Her anxious thoughts were banging around in her already sore head. She woke up with a headache, the same one she went to sleep with. Now it was pounding. The bright florescent lights didn't help. She was rubbing her temples when a sharp stabbing pain shot threw her head from the back to the front. Alex groaned.

What's going on? And what's taking him so shuckin long??

Her nerves felt shot, this whole place gave her the creeps.

I just want to curl up in Minho's arms and sleep.

Another sharp pain stabbed her. It felt like her mind was being poked with a hot metal poker. It was the pain she got with her memories but there were no memories happening right now. Just the pain. She hunched forward groaning. The third time the pain hit, her head felt like it was going split apart, her sight was becoming fuzzy and her ears were buzzing. She clamped her hands around her head, holding it, tears formed behind her squeezed eyelids. The pain was becoming unbearable.

Dr Prior and a young nurse had entered the room. He saw her hunched over, her head on her knees, and hands clamped around her head. He rushed over.

"Alex? What's wrong?"

She let a whimper out, "it...hurts!"

Dr Prior nodded, understanding. He looked at the camera in the corner and said directly to it "we can't wait. Surgery needs to be done now."

Alex let out a sharp cry of pain, rocking back and forth, tears running down her face now. Dr Prior turned to the nurse, "Grab the results. Follow me. We need to get her to OR 2. We have Jack waiting to switch camera feeds. We need to move now." He said urgently.

The nurse nodded grimly, she grabbed the clipboard and folder. "Ready."

Dr Prior gently picked Alex up, she didn't resist, too focused on the pain in her head, that was making her body spasm with the pain. They left the room in a hurry. He poked his head around the end of the hall.

"Where's Ronin?" He muttered. An anxious moment later the large Captain appeared. He held out his arms, Dr Prior handed the small girl over, she was still whimpering in pain. Eyes still clamped shut. Tears slid down her cheeks. The Caption held her close to his chest.

"I'm following you." He said.

Together the three ran down the hall to OR 2. Captain Ronin laid her gently down on the operating table.

"Everything else is ready?" The doctor asked.

Ronin nodded. "Everything is packed, and sitting by the Bay Gates. I just need to get the information to the young man she's still with, he also doesn't trust what he sees and he has the respect and trust of the group. I trust them to make it." Ronin rumbled.

"The boy? Oh. Black haired, muscular, looks like a troublemaker?' Dr Prior said, as he fussed with a heart rate monitor.

"Yes. Minho. They were together before the maze, and got back together inside the maze." Ronan rumbled.

Dr Prior nodded, "Good, no one suspects you? Pass me that swab Amy. Huh, that's rare, is it not? To reconnect after the swipe?"

The young blond nurse handed him what he needed and continued to prep the syringe and the rest of the surgery instruments. The girl on the table was starting to thrash and her cries became louder. "Hurry before we're heard!"

"Ready. Here." She handed the Doctor the syringe. He moved Alex's hair, wiped an area on her neck and inserted the needle tip. As soon as the drugs were in her system she relaxed and was breathing normal.

"No one suspects me. Or Jack. Though Janson is keeping a closer eye on you. You didn't inform him immediately she needed a new chip. But I wouldn't worry about it. Jack and I will cover, if needed we'll get you and Amy out. But in regards to her and her little misquote friend...No, it's unheard of. They are the first and only."

"Yes, especially when her chart says Maze E." Amy frownd glancing at the notes on the counter.

"Yes. She was supposed to. Maze E...the delinquent kids; the kids who were found and brought in from outside Juvenile Jails. Maze A and B were the elites, she was part of that group until they chose her for the experimental research trial-"

"The Herculean Trials." Amy interrupted, setting another heart monitor on Alex.

Captain Ronin nodded.

"How did she end up in A then?" Amy asked, inserting the IV needle into Alex's arm.

"Somehow, someone snuck her into Maze A. Janson and Ava weren't impressed. Then with the way her body works, and everything they pumped into her during the Herculean Trials, the swipe didn't work properly. She had memories slip through- which helped her and the boy reconnect and how she remembered her biological brother. They suspected, but couldn't prove, she might have been able to communicate with her sister as well, through her malfunction swipe, activating her chip's communication section- it was like blue tooth, connection her sisters chip to Alex's."

"I can only imagine the chaos that would have caused. Okay, now. We need to move fast. That deformed chip needs to come out. And we need to find the broken pieces floating, the X ray showed 4 separate pieces. And we need to do it fast! It's killing her."

Dr Prior, Amy and Captain Ronin worked as quickly as possible. The tree knew they were under the clock, Alex's life was in their hands and they also knew they could be discovered at any moment.

It took them two and a half hours, almost three to extract the chip that was implanted and find all the scattered broken pieces. If they didn't have such advanced medical technology this type of surgery was not possible. And the recovery was only a few hours instead of weeks and months. Science and technology was a wonderful thing.

The trio had Alex sedated and sleeping. They cleaned up the OR room.

Ronin gave the medical team a nod, "there's no turning back now." He rumbled and slipped through the door.

"Okay, Amy, are you okay to take her to the recovery room? Jack will have the cameras elsewhere. As soon as you're in the room the door will lock, Ronin has a key and will slip it to the group of boys." Dr Prior asked.

Amy nodded, unhooked Alex's IV bag, laying it beside Alex, who was sleeping soundly. Amy pulled a white sheet over her and covered her face. It looked now like someone had died, and she was just transporting the body on a gurney. Amy pushed Alex's bed out the door and down the hall.