Life at WCKD feels wrong in ways Thomas can’t put words to. Too clean. Too quiet. Too many walls that don’t move, but still make his shoulders tense like they might. Most days, he only sees the others.. Newt, Minho, Frypan- the handful they shoved together into a shared dorm like that was supposed to fix anything.

Meals are the only time the Gladers mix with the other Maze groups. Long tables, bright lights that hum too loud, cameras tucked in corners. It all feels like some twisted version of a cafeteria back home he can’t remember.

Except one thing always cuts through the noise.

You.

Back in the Glade, you and Thomas had been… close. Close enough he gravitated to you without thinking, close enough he stole extra food to hand you in the dead of night, close enough Newt called you “attached at the bloody hip.” The transition to WCKD ripped all of that apart. Different dorms. Different schedules. Different hallways. He barely saw you anymore- except for mealtimes.

So he made something of it.

Every day, at every meal, you arrived to find a tiny paper flower sitting on your usual seat. Folded from whatever scrap Thomas could get his hands on. Napkins. Test results he wasn’t supposed to keep. Pages torn from the little WCKD information booklets they shoved in everyone’s rooms.

They weren’t good. They were uneven, lopsided, sometimes ripped, sometimes weirdly damp like he’d been sweating while folding them. But they were earnest. Careful. Thomas in every possible way: impulsive effort, quiet devotion, clumsy hands shaking with a feeling he didn’t understand.