You and Newt climbed out of the room you had slept in that night, and out into the tunnels. After checking left and right, you were sure there were no cranks in the tunnels with you.

"Ok come on," you tell Newt while slinging the backpack over your shoulders, your little book of maps in your hand. Newt grunts as he climbs out of the door, and stumbles to the side. You grab onto his arm to keep him from falling, but the action had the opposite effect, because you went down with him. You landed on his chest, and you felt him groan under your weight.

"Holy crap. I am so sorry," you speak frantically while scrambling off of him. You get to your knees, and standup, reaching a hand down to the boy. He grips it, and you pull him to his feet. You see he's leaning on one leg more than the other, but you don't pay much attention to it. "You ok," you ask, making sure you didn't hurt him during the fall.

"Yep. I'm fine," he tells you while looking down, and dusting his jacket off.

"Okay now we should get moving," you tell him, putting emphasis on the word. You look down at your book, and see where you both are in the tunnels. You start walking off in one direction, not worrying about Newt following because you hear his quiet footsteps behind you. Wait why are they uneven, you ask yourself.

You slow down a little, so your walking right alongside him. Is he limping, you ask yourself, making the observation out of the corner of your eye.

"Hey are you ok," you ask him, and he can tell by your tone, your not talking about the fall.

"What do you mean," he asks, trying to stop limping, but failing miserably.

"Newt I'm not kidding," you tell him in a strict tone while stepping in front of him and facing him so he'll stop walking. "Why are you limping?" You ask in a worried tone.

"It's nothing. I promise. It happened a long time ago," he assures you, probably trying to calm you down. You give him a skeptical look, having to tilt your head up to look into his eyes. After a minute, you sigh.

"Just," you hesitate, trying to figure out the right words to say. "Just promise me you'll tell me if something's wrong," you ask in a tone that's like your trying to meet in the middle of a negotiation.

He wraps his arms around you, and it takes you a minute to return the gesture, unsure of how to deal with the situation. "Promise," he tells you, and you can tell by his tone that he's telling the truth. Why the heck were you responding to a boy like this? Your feelings were jacking with your brain, and you hated being confused.

You took a deep breath to try and collect your thoughts, and then pulled away from the hug, looking down at the ground. You clear your throat, and turn your attention back to the book in your hands, figuring out the way to Marcus's house from underneath the city.

"Ok," you say, running your finger over the map trying to see what would be the quickest way. "Looks like if we keep going in this general direction, and at the speed we're going, we'll get to Marcus's house by tomorrow."

Without waiting for an answer, you turn back around, and start walking through the tunnel, trying to calm your racing heart. He's just another boy who doesn't care about you, so why should you care about him?

You were walking for about five hours, with the only sounds being that of your feet against the concrete.

"You said you wouldn't do it again," Newt speaks up, while walking alongside you. You turn your head to look at him like he's crazy.

"What does that mean," you ask in a baffled tone.

"When you stepped in between me and that other guy. You told me 'don't expect it to happen again,' but you've saved my life twice since that happened," he tells you while keeping his head forward.

"I mean I wasn't just gonna let you fall to your death," you tell him as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. You wrap your arms around yourself, and don't look up at him, trying to shut him out again, but for what reason you don't know.

"Just wondering," he says. You inwardly groan. Why does he have to be so confusing!?

After another three hours of walking, and you start hearing your stomach growl. You hear Newt chuckle from behind you, but when you turn around to glare at him, he covers his mouth with his hand, and you just roll your eyes.

"Come on. Let's eat something," you tell him, while walking over to the side of the tunnel, and sitting down against the wall. Newt comes to sit next to you, and you take your backpack off, and reach inside of it. You pull out two cans of beans, and set them on the ground.

Oh crud, you think to yourself.

"What," Newt asks. Oops. Apparently you said that out loud.

"Ugh that's all the food we have left in the bag. I swear I refilled-" your cut off by remembering something. "I swear to god I'm gonna kill him," you whisper while standing up, and running your fingers through your hair in a frustrated manner.

"Whoa, calm down ok," Newt says while standing up, and resting both of his hands on your arms. "What are you talking about?" He asks when he thinks you've calmed down a little.

"That a**hole! Jorge must of taken some of the cans from my bag and put them in Brenda's. I swear to god," you say while running your fingers through your hair again, turning away from Newt, and pacing for a minute. You lean up against the wall, with your face in your hands.

You take a few deep breaths, and then drag your hands down your face. "I'll just wait. I'll go up into the city tomorrow, and sneak into one of the factories and steal something," you tell him as if it's an everyday chore that you hate doing. "Go ahead and eat something. I'll be fine," you tell him while sliding your back down the wall, and leaning your head back against it, clearly frustrated.

After a minute, you feel Newt sit down next to you again, and you hear him zip up the backpack. You open your eyes, and turn your head towards him. He's giving you a soft smile, and says, "Come on. Let's see if we can make it one more mile before we call it a night ok," he asks you in a tone that's like he's trying to keep your spirits up. You lean your head back on the wall while taking a deep breath.

You stand up, and reach a hand down to him with a smile. He takes it, and gets to his feet, while slinging the backpack over his shoulders. You just now realized how stubborn he was because no matter how many times you tried, he would not allow you to carry the backpack. After a few minutes of arguing, you turned around exasperated with the boy, and start walking back down the tunnel.

You can practically see the smirk on Newts face while you walk. Ya ya whatever, you mumble in your head.

Your walking for another twenty minutes when you stop in front of another door. It seemed like a good time to stop because the sun would be setting outside right now. You go over to jiggle the doorknob, and it opens after a few turns. You step inside, but tumble to the floor. Apparently there was a large step right after you walked through the door, so you dropped almost three feet.

"(Y/n)!" Newt shouts, not knowing what happened.

"Watch out for the-" your cut off by a large body falling on top of you, and knocking the air out of you, causing you to cough. "Drop," you wheeze while your head falls onto the floor, giving you a headache.

"Bloody hell (Y/n)," Newt says while trying to get off of you. Because it was so dark, what he thought was the ground was really your stomach, so all of his weight was put on that one spot.

You cough again, and groan when he puts all of his weight on that one spot. "Shuck," he mumbles before just completely jumping to flip off of you. Once he's off, you gasp for air, sucking it up like it's life it's self. "I am so sorry. Are you ok," Newt asks, kneeling back down next to your gasping body.

You lift a hand up weakly, and give him a thumbs up, then drop your hand back to the ground. Newt sighs in relief, then gets up. You hear him unzip the backpack, and something clicks, so he probably got the flashlight out. You hear him walk over to the door, and he shuts it.

After a minute of you catching your breath, you sit up with a groan, and stand to your feet. Your starting to feel the effects of no food, no water, and little sleep, and the headache isn't helping. You can't let Newt notice, so you try to shake it off.

You stand up, and grab the other flashlight from the bag. You turn it on, and start looking around the small room. It's about six by six feet, so your lucky you even had any space to fall. You see a large pole in the corner of the room, so you walk over and grab it. You move towards the door, and put it as a sort of makeshift lock across the door. You take a deep breath, a sudden wave of dizziness coming over you, and sit down against the wall.

"You ok," Newt asks while walking up in front of you. You look up at him while he stays standing.

"I'm fine. Just a little tired is all," you tell him. You know he doesn't believe you, but he drops the subject. He gathers some small scraps of clothing from around the room, and throws it into a small pile in the corner. He lights a match from the backpack, and sets the clothing pile on fire. The warmth makes you feel a little better.

You lay down on the ground, and use your arm as a pillow, taking deep breaths, and just trying to get a few minutes of rest. You must have actually fallen asleep, because suddenly you feel someone shaking you awake, and you shoot up from your sleep, panting and shaking. Your leaning back on your hands, and your head is shooting around everywhere.

"Hey your ok. It was just a dream," Newt tells you while resting a hand on your shoulder. Dream? What's he talking about? That's when everything comes rushing back to you.

You had been having a nightmare about Noah. You had remembered everything. The bombs. The cranks. You being pulled out of his arms by the WICKED guards, and watching him fall to the ground after they shot him for fighting to get back to you. You scramble to the backpack, practically ripping it open, and digging around until you found the chain with the charm you were looking for. You gripped it in both hands as you leaned back against the wall, still panting.

Newt crawls over to you, and kneels down in front of you. He seemed to be worried, but he was gonna wait until your panic attack ended before saying anything. Still gripping the chain in your hands, you opened your eyes to look at him.

"Sorry," you mumble. "Nightmare," you tell him while looking down at the charm in your hands. You loo knack up to see Newt staring at the chain, so you continue. "This is the last thing I have of Noah. We were best friends. Before all of the solar flares, and cranks. I remember our last night together. We were both hiding in a back ally way because we were some of the only kids left in the whole city. WICKED had already gotten my dad, and I had been separated from my mom and sister in all of the chaos. The started dropping bombs all over the city. I didn't know what would happen, but all I knew was that I had him with me. We stayed there for almost three days straight, but that's when WICKED found us. Took me away from him, and he fought back. The guard ended up shooting him," you say, staring at the charm in your hands the whole time.

"Is that why-" you cut him off by asking and answering his question.

"Is that why I don't let myself care for anyone? Yep. I'm to scared to lose anyone else, and he's the one that started that fear," you tell him while pulling your hood up over your head. Newt stares down at the charm in your hands, while you grip it tightly, thinking about all of the fun times you had with Noah.

Newt sits up, and crawls over to your side, wrapping an arm around your waist, and pulling you into his side. You lean your head on his shoulder, and curl your knees to the side, one resting on top of the other. You wrap your arms around yourself as you curl into Newts side. He wraps his other arms around your front from the side, and holds you to him tightly, and that's when you realize something. When Newt was holding you, you had the exact same feeling when Noah would hold you in his arms. You didn't know whether to cry or smile at the thought. You decided to do neither as you slowly drifted to sleep laying on his shoulder.

Maybe it isn't so bad that I'm getting a crush on him, you think to yourself.

Time Skip

You woke up the next morning laying on the ground, using your arm as a pillow. You yawned, and slowly sat up, looking around. You saw Newt sitting by the fire, poking at it with a stick, mumbling things to himself. He must have been so lost in thought, that he hadn't seen you wake up. When you focused, you could hear what he was mumbling.

"Stop being stupid. She's just another bloody girl that you don't care about. You just need to get to the safe haven. That's it. Ya. Just another bloody pointless girl," he mumbled. Wait what, you asked yourself, hoping your ears weren't working right, but he had said it. Right from his own mouth.

"Just another pointless girl hu," you ask him, making him jump, and turn his head towards you. He had a shocked expression on his face, like someone who had been caught in the act of a crime. "Good to know," you say while pulling your hood over your head. You stand up, and take the two steps towards the door while grabbing the backpack off the ground. You hoisted yourself up the three foot ledge, wincing from the wound in your hand, and moved the piece of wood.

"(Y/n) no wait," Newt says, standing up, and rushing to the door.

"No I get it. It was stupid for me to think you might actually care about a girl like me," you tell him with tears in your eyes. "You stay here. I'm gonna go try and sneak us some more food, then we can get you to Marcus's," you say, and you can hear the tears in your voice.

"No (Y/n) please," Newt says as you start walking away from the door.

"Just stay here," you snap at him. He seems to get the message, and he stops talking. You secure the backpack over your shoulders, as you turn away from the door, and walk to the nearest exit in the tunnels. That's when you let the tears fall. He had said it himself. Just another bloody pointless girl. You ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and out onto the dusty street.

You checked around for cranks, but thankfully it was daytime, so they wouldn't be out and about... hopefully. You double checked that your hood was up, and then you started walking down the street. There were a few people here and there, but you tried to avoid eye contact. Just keep your head down. Just keep your head down. The only time you glanced up was when you recognized one of the large factories, and looked behind you to make sure no one saw you slip in.

You opened the door, and ran around the corner of the hallway so no one would see you. When you were sure no one followed you in, you stepped back into the main hallway, and looked around. There were doors lining the hall you were standing in, but at the very end was a dirty glass door that you could see the actual factory through. You ran to the back door, and opened it as quietly as you possibly could. You slipped around the door, and closed it as quietly as possible before running to hide by one of the caning machines.

You peaked your head over the side to check that there were no sleeping cranks in the building, and when you didn't see any, you stood up, and walked over to the rows and rows of shelves lined with canned food. You looked behind you again, to check that no one was there, and you unzipped the backpack. You started stuffing cans of food into the small brown bag, and crying while you did so.

Why were you stupid enough to actually think he would care? He doesn't give a crap about you. All he cares about is making it to the safe haven, and keeping his dumbass alive. You cried while you had this mental conversation with yourself.

You had stuffed almost fifteen small cans of food into the backpack when you heard the growling. You froze in place as you heard one of the back doors open. You slowly turned your head to see five cranks walk through the door. Oh crap. You ran to the nearest machine to hide under, and you hoped the cranks hadn't seen you. Unfortunately you were to far away from the front door to make it there without the cranks chasing after you.

Oh crap, crap, crap, you mumbled in your head. You could hear the cranks coming closer to where you were hiding. Come on think, think, think. You weren't able to come up with any ideas, because seconds later you heard a crank jump on top of the machine you were hiding under. You stopped moving what so ever. Aside from your heavy breathing, the only thing you could hear was the cranks growling.

You heard it crawling across the top of the machine, and it sounded like it was coming closer to the edge. As quietly as you possibly could, you took your large machete out of its holder on your back, and held the handle in both hands. If you didn't make it out of this, you just hoped Newt was able to navigate the tunnels without you. Stop caring about him! your brain screams at you. He obviously doesn't care about you! It was all just an act to get him to the safe haven!

You got your mind to shut up when you saw a disgusting scabby, rotten hand reach under the machine. In one swift move, you cut it right off at the wrist, and scrambled out from underneath whatever you were hiding under. All of the cranks turned to you while the one who's hand you just cut off, writhed on the floor. All of the sudden, the cranks ran at you, snarling, and swinging their claws.

You ran around on of the machines, as the four chased you. You ended up on opposite sides of a long strip of metal, like it was a track for the canned food. The cranks jumped over the machine, and you swung your machete, slicing one of their heads off, and another ones arm. You spun around and ran to the end of the row, hoping to get to the exit of the factory.

You were about to run through the door, when something tackles you to the ground from behind. You fall forward as something starts crawling on top of you. It turns you around, and your met with the face of a blood thirsty crank. You scream as you try to punch it, but it grips your wrists. For how hideous and disgusting they are, they are strong.

You struggle in the cranks grip, as the other cranks come running over to you. One starts dragging its claws down your leg, and it tears through your pant leg. You scream, and kick your legs when you feel it's nails tearing your leg open.

"Hey," you hear someone shout. Your eyes are squeezed shut from the pain, and your still squirming under the cranks. You hear gunshots, and your first instinct is to duck and cover. You curl your body, and crank bodies fall limply on top of you. Gunshot after gunshot, and eventually all of the cranks are dead. Your to scared to move, so your just stuck under a pile of crank bodies.

"(Y/n)," the person shouts, and you can feel the bodies being thrown off of you. Your to scared to focus on the person. You feel hands start grabbing at you, trying to turn you over, and you immediately think it's another crank. You start throwing your fists all around the place, trying to hit whatever's grabbing at you. "(Y/n) it's me! Calm down!" The voice shouts.

You stop thrashing, and you open your eyes