#mintresa

Minho became somehow the leader of the large group of immunes cause Thomas refused to take any position in all this. Gally and Jorge helped him a lot though, while Harriet and Sonya gave him some “woman advices”. Using the skills they all learned in the Glade, they were able to reconstruct some order in a short time. 

Everyday was so hard though. Even if Minho didn’t want to show it, he was suffering too. He was strong, but anger and regrets costantly boiled in his heart day after day, making him a bundle of nerves. He lost Newt already and Thomas was not the same after all what happened, so he ended up missing both of them, for very different reasons. And more, he didn’t have any other real friend to share his bad moods with.

At the end of the day, when the sunset started to color the sky with its orange-reddish shades and all the activity in the camp shutted down, Minho was usually having his worst moments. He needed something to do in order to not going crazy. So he went to the beach, ready to make some footing. Not the relaxing type of footing. Three years in the Maze accustomed him to break his own back in running around and now he felt the need to go on with the same tradition here in Paradise too. 

He rolled up his sleeves and started. The sand under his feets was soft and slippery but the breeze felt nice and the smell of the sea helped him to calm down instantly. 

He was just enjoying the unexpected feeling when he saw something in the distance. At first, he thought it was a big fish in the water but as he got closer, he noticed it was a dark hair person. More specifically, a girl. She was standing in the ocean, looking at the horizon with a strange expression on her face.

“Teresa...?” Minho was surprised in seeing her there. She entered in Paradise with them after the explosions but she was a sort of ghost since then, just the same way Thomas was. She stayed always alone in a corner, barely eating and surely not talking with anyone. And actually, Minho was kinda happy about it. He still was really mad at her, he never forgave her for her cruel betrayal. He never forgot the way she gave her back to his best friends. He just couldn’t. If it wasn’t for her, things would have been very different right now. So, seeing her upset was kinda... satisfying? A sort of personal revenge. 

So Minho got closer to the point where Teresa was and he was ready to pass by when he noticed something strange. Teresa was not standing still. She was walking into the ocean, sinking slowly. “Maybe she wants to take a bath” he thought at first. Yeah, alone, at the sunset? With that face and tears in her eyes? That slow? 

He stopped. And in that very moment, Teresa sank underwater. “TERESA, NO!”

With a violent and fast sprint, he followed her in the ocean, reaching out for her. The water already swallowed her down, forcing Minho to take a deep breath and dive. His anger just got bigger and bigger as he grabbed her arm and took her out. Teresa fought back, not recognizing him but very determinated in her intentions. “You crazy and stupid ...!!” Minho gulped and drank some water as Teresa tried to sink again. He grasped her tighter, pushing her closer and swimming toward the shores, using basically every muscle of his in the effort. Teresa was not letting him help. 

“Let me go!” she screamed somehow, “Let me go!”

“You shut up, WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU TRYING TO DO? Are you crazy?” Minho threw the girl on the cold sand, wrestling with her and trying to calm her down. Teresa spat water on his face and took a desperate and deep breathe, coming back to life again. As she realized she failed in her suicide attempt, she got even more numb. Minho took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him straight in the eyes. “NOW STOP!” 

“Don’t you ever touch me again!”

“Oh, really, I use strenght to prevent you from getting yourself killed and I’m the bad one?” 

“Shut up!”

“You shut up, what where you thinking? Was that your solution? You stupid, shuckin, dumb coward of a...!” The rush of adrenaline dissapeared as he watched her breathe again. He closed his eyes, remembering the day when Alby came back from the Maze holding Newt’s body. And again, the same feeling of powerlessness. He hated it. 

He rolled on the side, still keeping her close. They both breathed heavily. “Don’t you ever ... ever ..” He couldn’t finish the sentence for at least 60 seconds. “Why?” 

Teresa stared at him, big blue eyes wide open, shocked and upset. 

“You should have mind your own business” she said, with a surprisingly strong and firm voice. “Nobody would have missed me. Everyone thinks that’s what I deserve, my rightful punishment.” Minho lift his head to look at her, even angrier. 

“That’s your shucking reason!?” he asked. He couldn’t understand her feelings at all, the only thing he was thinking about was Newt suicide’s attempt some years before. But when their eyes met, then he noticed: Teresa was very different from Newt, in every aspect. Newt used to be a weak soul trapped in a strong body, Teresa was a weak body trapping an incredibly powerful soul. She wasn’t desperate or emotionally fragile, she was just trying to do what she thought it was right for the others. Like she always did. Which was crazy. He gave up.

He squeezed her closer. 

“Let me go.”

“I won’t let you go.” Teresa tried to punch him in the stomach, but Minho didn’t move. “I said I won’t let you go. I’m not risking to see someone else dying, especially for such stupid reasons.”

“You hate me more than anyone else did.”

“That’s true, but that doesn’t mean I will let you take away your own life. I’m sure someone will find a better use for you here in Paradise. We gotta repopulate the earth and we don’t have a lot of girls around.” 

“You really don’t know how to comfort a girl, do you?” Minho tried to smile but he honestly was too exhausted. 

“Do you have a place where you can go back to?” Teresa shook his head. 

“I sleep on the grass since we came here.”

“I will talk with Gally about it tomorrow” he answered as he settled better in the sand, making some space for her too. He was serious again. 

“I don’t need your help.”

“Listen, I really had a rough day and saving your back was quite the top of it. You should know better the effect that your decisions may have on the others and I can swear on it: nobody would be happy about your death. Nobody. Not even me. So now shut up for good and accept the spontaneus and selfless help someone like me can give.”

Teresa stared at him for a very long time. Tons of feelings and thoughts crossed her mind, but at the end, she just felt sad. She abbandoned herself in his arms, trying to accept the comfort she refused for so long in the past years. She always thought she would succeed, even alone. How wrong she was. 

“I’m sorry” she murmured. 

“Good.”

They didn’t say anything else, both falling asleep very soon. Sometimes, somehow, in his deepest dreams, Minho felt Teresa’s warm skin under his hands, the smell of salt and sea in her hair. Having someone to sleep with wasn’t that bad actually. He craved for human contact more than he thought it would have ever been possible.