Chapter Text
Attending her ex-boyfriend’s wedding alone may not be the stupidest thing Nancy Wheeler has ever done, but it’s close.
It was meant to be a statement, attending the wedding at all, crossing out the plus one on the invite, traveling all the way back to Hawkins, where her parents don’t even live anymore. But as Nancy steps off the plane, she can feel the pit in her stomach, the one that says, this is the worst idea you have ever had.
She pushes the pit down, takes a deep breath, and goes to find her luggage.
For some inexplicable reason, she’s been invited to the rehearsal dinner, a tiny slip of a note in her invitation, perhaps by virtue of arriving early from out of town, or maybe Steve just wants to get the introduction out of the way before the actual wedding.
She’s never met his fiancée, but it’s a wedding. Nancy’s going to have to meet her eventually.
Might as well get it over with.
The first person she sees (of course) as she walks into the restaurant is Carol, who mutters something to Tommy before walking over with what Nancy knows to be a fake smile on her face.
“Nancy Wheeler, what brings you back to Hawkins? I thought you were too big for our little town?”
Nancy plasters a matching smile on her face, even as she remembers exactly why she left Hawkins in the first place. “I was invited, Carol. Although I didn’t realize you were close enough for the rehearsal dinner?”
Carol lets out a simpering laugh. “Tommy’s a groomsman, I’m just tagging along. Are you bringing anyone?” she asks, looking around, her tone implying she knows Nancy’s here by herself.
“Oh, um,” Nancy begins, but Carol cuts her off.
“I mean, it must be so hard finding someone who can live up to all of your demands, I mean, dreams.”
Nancy blinks, the smile on her face turning brittle. She knows Steve would have unburdened himself after the breakup, but she should have expected this, should have realized there would be an ambush. She shouldn’t have come alone.
“It was great to see you again, Carol,” she says, cutting off the conversation, only sort of trying to hide the sarcasm as she walks away.
It doesn’t end with Carol.
Steve’s mother, his grandmother, his cousins, everyone mingling, all incredibly interested in Nancy and how she’s doing, and if she brought anyone, Nancy stammering out vague responses.
She should have prepared for this. Made up a boyfriend sick with the flu back in New York, or in the Peace Corps, or Canadian, unable to cross the border for some reason. Anything would be better than having to admit that she came alone to her ex-boyfriend’s wedding, as a matter of principle, yes, but also because she hasn’t dated anyone since she broke up with Steve last year.
And then she sees Steve.
Their eyes meeting across the room, his arm wrapped around someone that has to be Robin.
It’s easier than she thought it would be.
And harder, all at the same time.
Nancy manages a weak smile, one that Steve returns. The hand resting on Robin’s waist lifts in a wave.
She needs some air.
It’s started raining.
Of course it has.
Nancy stands just under the awning to the restaurant, letting her hair frizz up, letting the raindrops splash onto her toes. Breathing in and out, wishing she hadn’t left her wine inside, or that she’d stopped after the fourth glass, she’s not sure which.
“Fuck,” she half-shouts, at life, at her choices.
Maybe she shouldn’t have come at all.
“Everything okay?” an unfamiliar voice asks.
Nancy turns to find a stranger tucked into the shadows, smoking a cigarette, looking at her with concern.
She blinks, flustered. “Oh, no, yeah. Everything’s . . . ” She pauses, trying to find a way to describe her situation. “Fine.”
The stranger smiles wryly at the emotion she packs into the word. “Anything I can do to help?”
Nancy begins to turn him down, then reconsiders. Nodding at his cigarette, she says, “Can I get one of those?” She’s not normally a smoker, but if there was ever a time, it’s now.
He frowns, his nose wrinkling. “It’s, ah, my last one. But?” He holds it out to her.
Nancy looks at him, considering.
Finally she breathes, “Fuck it,” and takes a drag. Lets out a deep sigh of relief.
The stranger laughs.
“Thanks,” she says, handing it back to him, and as he leans back against the wall, gestures to herself. “Nancy.”
“Jonathan.”
She nods at him, looking back out at the parking lot. The rain starts to fall harder.
“Should I ask?”
Nancy huffs out a mirthless chuckle. “Probably not.” She puts her head in her hands. “Oh god, what am I doing here? I shouldn’t have come, I should have never come back, I can’t believe I have to deal with these people all weekend.”
“Bride or groom?” he asks, and the perfunctory curiosity of someone who doesn’t know her history with Steve—with this town—is so refreshing that Nancy laughs out loud.
“Groom,” she tells him. “About as groom as you can get. What about you?”
“Neither,” Jonathan shrugs. “Or, both. Kind of? I don’t actually know anyone in there, except for the bride, and I’ve only met her once. I’m just waiting until they need me.”
She tilts her head in confusion at the statement, but before she can ask him to clarify, she hears from behind her, “Nance?”
Nancy swallows. Turns.
“Hi.”
Steve looks good, better than the last time she saw him in person, although that wouldn’t take much—almost anything is better than tears and screaming.
He pauses for a second, a vague smile on his face, almost rueful. “I didn’t think you were actually gonna come.”
Nancy shrugs. “Here I am.”
Steve nods. “Yeah.”
They stand in silence for a few moments, Nancy breaking it before it goes on too long. “Everyone’s told me you’re doing really great—she’s really great—I’m . . . I’m really happy for you.”
Steve smiles, a real smile this time, one that lights up his entire face. “Yeah, she’s . . . yeah. She’s amazing.”
Nancy smiles back. “That’s great,” she says, meaning it, and even though it’s awkward, so awkward, it’s manageable. She thinks maybe coming back was a good idea, that the closure provided was, in the end, worth it.
Until Steve asks the question, the one she’s been asked too many times to count.
“And what about you, how are you? Are you uh, seeing anyone?”
Later, Nancy will blame many things for the words that come out of her mouth—the wine, Carol, her precarious emotional state—but even as she says them, she knows they will be impossible to take back.
“Actually yeah, I am.”
What has she done?
“Oh.” Steve sounds surprised. “My mom—she was saying . . . ” He shakes his head. “That’s great, Nance. I’m . . . happy for you too. I’d love to meet him.”
Just kidding, Nancy wants to say. Just wanted to see your reaction.
Instead, what comes out of her mouth, even as she thinks stop, what are you doing, is, “Well, you won’t have to wait too long.”
She watches as her hand extends toward Jonathan, the man she met literally minutes ago, hears herself say, “Steve, this is Jonathan,” makes herself meet his eyes as Jonathan’s head cocks in confusion, pleading silently, please, just go with it.
To his credit, Jonathan barely skips a beat. He drops the cigarette on the ground, grinding it out as he leans forward, placing his arm around Nancy’s waist in the same movement as his other hand extends towards Steve. “Jonathan Byers.”
“Steve Harrington,” Steve replies automatically, before his eyes narrow and flick to Nancy and then back to Jonathan, shaking his head from side to side, once, twice.
His eyebrows knit together.
“Wait,” he says, slowly, and Nancy holds her breath, sure the ruse will end before it even begins.
“You’re dating my photographer?”
Nancy feels like she’s going to faint.
She feels Jonathan’s hand tighten around her waist, almost like he can tell, like he’s trying to hold her up.
(Or he’s warning her that he’s about to walk away, she’s not really sure.)
Steve is still looking at her expectantly, and after the silence drags on for far too long, Nancy says, lightly, hesitantly, “Yes,” her tone landing somewhere between statement and question.
“That’s so crazy.” Steve shakes his head. “How did you guys even meet?” But before Nancy can even try to come up with a plausible explanation, Steve answers his own question. “Oh, New York, of course.”
Nancy presses her lips together, turning her head to meet Jonathan’s gaze, and this time Jonathan’s the one to answer, his “Yes,” even less confident than Nancy’s, his eyes locked on hers.
“Great, that’s great,” Steve repeats. He seems to mean it, and Nancy feels a twinge of guilt at her subterfuge, but her sense of self-preservation keeps her tucked into Jonathan’s side.
“So I’d better, uh,” he nods toward the door, “get back, but, uh, good to meet you.”
Jonathan nods.
Nancy does the same, counting the seconds until Steve leaves, even as she knows that the conversation she’s about to have will be one for the ages.
“And,” Steve turns back, hanging onto the door frame, saying to Jonathan, “I think we’re gonna start the speeches soon, so . . . “
“Got it,” Jonathan confirms, waiting for the last glimpse of hair to disappear, before turning to Nancy, stepping back, his steadying presence at her side disappearing, Nancy strangely finding herself missing it, even as she knows she doesn’t deserve to feel that way.
“Okay—”
“I am, so, so sorry,” Nancy breathes.
“Yeah . . . ” he trails off, and she blanches, her anguish swallowing up the rest of her apology. “I mean . . . so that’s clearly your ex, right?” he says, offering her an opening.
“Yes.” Nancy swallows. “And you’re the wedding photographer.”
Jonathan nods at her, an expression on his face that could be apprehension or amusement. “So, what—”
Nancy cuts him off. “I’m so sorry,” she says again, because she can’t say it enough times. “I don’t know what I was thinking, it’s just that his mother, and everyone in this fucking town, it’s like they were all waiting for me to come back, tail between my legs for dumping him, and I just . . . with everyone else I could fake my way through it, but then he was right there . . . and you were right there, and I’m so sorry and if you give me five minutes I will march in there and pretend you dumped me because I didn’t tell you about Steve, just give it a second for it to spread around so people won’t get confused, because it will, I promise you, and then you can spend the rest of the evening taking truly awful pictures of me, which I absolutely deserve.”
Jonathan blinks as she catches her breath. His gaze is sympathetic, and Nancy hopes against hope it means the photographs taken of her won’t be too unflattering.
“I think you would have told me about Steve, though, right?” he muses. “If we’ve been dating for—how long have we been dating?”
Nancy’s mouth drops open. She stammers for a second, before finally choking out, “What?”
He shrugs. “I did offer to help.”
“Yeah, but this is—this is beyond . . . are you serious?”
Jonathan laughs at the expression on her face, shrugging again. “I’ve been there, trust me. And like I said, I don’t know anyone here, so it’s not like I’ve got anything to lose—and it seems like you do.”
Nancy feels tears prick at her eyes, perhaps from the wine, or perhaps because someone she just met is being kinder to her than all of the people inside the restaurant, people she’d grown up with, people whom, before she left, she’d considered almost family.
“Plus,” he goes on, hurriedly, as Nancy blinks the tears away, “weddings are boring. I could use someone to talk to.”
She frowns at him. “Is there lots of time for conversation? Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, be taking pictures or something?”
“My contract doesn’t officially start until 8, and it is,” he checks his watch, “7:55 on the dot. So, no.” His head tilts. “I’ve got nothing better to do for the next five minutes. Except talk to my girlfriend of . . . five months? Seven?”
Nancy eyes him warily, but his face is open, genuine, and she thinks he may actually want to help her, for no other reason than she needs it. For the second time that evening, Nancy says, “Fuck it,” but this time it’s accompanied by a grateful smile. “How about six?”
Jonathan grins. “Six months it is.”
They stand in silence for a few moments, Nancy letting the enormity of what she’s about to embark on wash over her. She’s going to lie to everyone she knows. And she’s going to have help doing it. She thinks about telling Jonathan forget it, I changed my mind, but the thought of having to walk back her lie to Steve, to his entire family is far too daunting.
Better to just have a fake boyfriend.
Nancy sees the door to the restaurant opening and moves toward Jonathan, almost instinctively. He frowns at her sudden movement, but picks up on her intentions quickly, wrapping his arm around her once more, solid, steady.
Tommy’s head appears around the door.
“Hey Nance, heard you’re banging the photographer.”
“Hello, Tommy,” she says dryly.
If Tommy knows, everyone knows.
“Anyway, best man duties mean I’m here to tell you to get your asses inside. Speeches, and all.”
Nancy frowns. “I thought you were just a groomsman?”
“Whatever. Just . . . get in here so he can take the pictures.”
“We’re on our way,” Jonathan says pleasantly, as Tommy rolls his eyes and disappears inside.
“Sorry about him,” Nancy apologizes, “he’s always been—”
“A dick?” Jonathan guesses.
Nancy shrugs, “I was going to say asshole, but, yeah.”
Jonathan laughs, and then walks away, back to the shadows. Nancy feels a sharp stab of alarm, but he’s only slinging a large bag she hadn’t noticed before onto his shoulder.
Photographer. Cameras. Of course. He’s not just here to prop up her ruse.
“Hey,” she says, waiting for him to turn to her, giving him one last chance to back out. “You’re really sure you want to do this? Because I can—”
“I’m sure.” He looks at her sideways. “Six months?”
She lets out a grateful laugh, and instead of answering, says, “Thank you.” Nancy tries to put everything she’s feeling into the words, the gratitude, the relief, and as he looks back at her, she thinks he understands.
He raises his eyebrows. “Don’t mention it. Literally. Or everyone will know.”
“Right,” she says, nodding solemnly. “Six months.”
He nods back at her. “Exactly. Shall we go in, honey?”
She makes a face at him.
“No pet names. Got it,” Jonathan says with a grin, and offers her his hand.
Nancy takes it, and holds on for dear life.