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Holly’s screams are devastating.
Her voice is raw, breaking whenever she makes the vowel sounds in Nancy. It’s haunting, the way they echo around the surrounding area. Later, Nancy will wonder if this was the same noise Barb made when she was begging for somebody to save her, but now she doesn’t have the time. Her baby sister is dangling in mid-air, seemingly suspended by nothing. She could drop at any second.
“HELP ME NANCY, PLEASE!” Holly shrieks, choking on her own tears.
“HOLD ON, JUST HOLD ON! I’M GONNA GET YOU DOWN, OKAY?” Nancy cries, staring upward in anguish. She won’t take her eyes off her sister for even a moment.
She looks and looks and looks and yet finds her brain blank - no plan, no strategy, no nothing - all she feels is an overwhelming sense of dread. Nancy might watch her sister die tonight unless she comes up with something that will save her. Holly’s eyes are so terrified as she screams for Nancy once again, this time heaving with sobs. It breaks her to hear Holly like that. She was so innocent before, cuddling Care Bears and drawing crayon suns with smiley faces only last week and now she’s been roped into this bullshit too. Nancy’s whole family has been burned by her decision to stay in Hawkins and keep quiet. She’ll never forgive herself if anything else happens to Holly.
“What do we do? What do we do?” Nancy rushes out, panicking. Her eyes stay glued to her sister despite directing her voice to the group around her; she needs to be ready in case something changes.
Nancy just barely makes out the conversation happening around her over the thunderous rush of blood in her ears.
She must be on top of the orb thing - what did you call it?
Exotic matter.
Right, it’s a big fucking invisible ball - it’s what Nancy shot earlier.
And that caused the melting goop?
Yeah. You think Holly’s stable up there for now?
Honest answer, no idea, I’d need more time but- she’s hung up there for this long. She definitely needs to stay balanced but I’m guessing she’s not gonna fall through, at least. Not if we move fast.
How are we gonna get up there?
Nancy tunes them out again, gulping. They don’t have the answers, none of them do. If this was the real Hawkins they’d need the fire department, a crane or a big ladder - nothing they have on hand. They don’t even have a piece of rope to their names.
Holly’s breathing seems to get harsher, finally looking through to the concrete underneath her. It’s a miracle she didn’t splatter already, but the chances are still high. Nancy catches the way the erratic movement of Holly’s rib cage has changed her position on the sphere slightly. She’s tipped backwards, not enough to slide down at all but she's definitely not in the center anymore.
“Holly!” Nancy calls her attention. “Holly I need you to try and stay calm, okay?” she shouts up to her. Their eyes meet despite the distance and Nancy gives her best reassuring smile. It’s watery and quivering but it’s there.
“We’re gonna get you. We are, but until then, I need you to breathe slower. Can you do that for me?” she pleads, trying to fill her voice with a confidence that maybe for the first time, she doesn’t have.
“I’m scared.” Holly whimpers in response. Her voice is almost completely lost - it’s only the strange echoing atmosphere of the upside down that carries the sound across to them.
“I know, I know. Just keep looking at me. I’ve got you” Nancy yells. Her face is completely wet with tears and her legs feel like lead but she nods encouragingly despite it all.
“Please tell me you guys have come up with something.” she implores quietly. Her voice likely won’t carry over to Holly at a regular volume, but she doesn’t want to take that chance. She doesn’t want her to think that she’s scrabbling for a solution - Holly needs to believe that her sister will rescue her.
“If we could hook up some sort of pulley system, we might be able to control how fast she falls, but it requires a supply run.” Dustin proposes. Nancy knows they don’t have the time for supply runs, though, and Holly is way too high up to get anything to her without jostling her precarious position.
“When I threw the pipe before, it lit up the whole thing - we’d be able to see where-“
“We are not throwing anything in there with my sister on top!” Nancy protests, cutting Jonathan off entirely. It’s too unstable, anything could happen.
“What if we dragged up a mattress or something - cushioned her fall?” Dustin starts, “It’s not ideal but it’s better than nothing. We’ve used it before.”
When they’d used it before, it had been maybe a seven foot drop from the roof of Eddie’s trailer. Even that had knocked the wind out of her. The height difference here isn’t even comparable. It’s also the only helpful idea they’ve had so far. It could be the difference between life and death. Nancy swallows back the bile in her mouth. Holly’s only nine.
“When you saw the exotic thingy before - did it reach the edge of the higher roof?” Steve asks, pointing up to one of the four taller buildings.
Nancy diverts her eyes briefly but she can’t remember, not for certain. She’d been too preoccupied by the way the lightning darted across it, like a storm raging inside its own personal globe.
Jonathan answers, “I think so - it was close, maybe. Why?”
“It’s a shorter distance to fall.” Steve begins distractedly. “I can climb up there-“
He’s cut off by a guttural scream.
Their heads snap up to find Holly sliding sideways from her perch on the top of the sphere, her hands clawing for a purchase that isn’t there.
Nancy feels herself freeze in time and space.
She can’t feel her body. Nor the concrete underneath her. Her ears ring loudly, Holly’s piercing scream tearing through her skull. She can’t see anything apart from Holly. Her arms are stretched out, her fingers strained, her mouth perpetually held open in a gasp. Her socked feet attempt to fight against the lack of friction. Gravity pulls her
down,
and down,
and down.
…
Nancy is suddenly rushed with a memory from years ago: Holly curled up on her lap on the couch, drooling all over Nancy’s favorite blanket that Barb’s Mom had knit her. She was annoyed because she wasn’t sure the blanket would survive the laundry that well - hadn’t wanted to risk it falling apart in the machine - and Holly was slobbering all over it.
And then she remembers looking down at Holly’s hair - so golden that Mike had taken to calling her Rumplestiltskin for a period of time until their Mom banned it on account of the arguing - and thinking that it felt so soft when she was coerced into doing it on lazy weekends. She remembers running her fingers through the strands afterwards, half-focused on the television and half-focused on how nice it felt, like playing with a doll again, even though she’d far outgrown that. The blanket issue had been forgotten in a heartbeat because her sister was too cute for it to matter that much.
Nothing extraordinary happened that day - they didn’t go out anywhere, or laugh together. Nancy thinks she barely even saw her for most of that day, maybe didn’t even talk to her. It was one tiny moment. It should be forgettable - an hour or so curled up on the couch watching Family Ties - but it isn’t. It’s Nancy’s strongest memory of her sister.
She hadn’t even been conscious.
…
Nancy watches in slow motion as her sister falls gradually at first, inching further and further down until she is forced off of the exotic matter entirely and freefalls - no - plummets to the ground.
Holly hasn’t had a chance to grow up yet. She hasn’t experienced a real rollercoaster or had a first kiss. She doesn’t know how to braid her own hair or how to throw a football the correct way. She hasn’t had the chance to become friends with Nancy in the way that she and Mike have started building a tentative bond - going from bickering siblings to genuinely liking each other and not just loving each other for the sake of it. The kind of change that took years for them to make, only when they were both grown up enough to handle it.
Nancy realises that she doesn’t know her sister half as much as she wants to. She’s let the age gap fester into a chasm between them, constantly brushing Holly off to prioritise more important things. What could be more important than this?
They won’t get the chance to build better memories. Not now.
She waits to hear the crunch of bones. The splat of blood. Her baby sister in smithereens laid before her, unrecognisable in her corpse.
Selfishly, Nancy closes her eyes.
…
There is silence,
…
and then there is noise.
…
Heavy, urgent footfalls. A scrape of something across the floor. A scream cut off by a sucker punch to the lungs, all the air stolen from a body. There is a second simultaneous scream, Steve, she recognises, coming from much farther away than she expected. He was behind her just a moment ago. Nancy doesn’t know what happened. She doesn’t know if she wants to find out.
A hand grips her sleeve, tugging her forward and she is given no choice but to open her eyes.
The sight before her is vastly different from the one she concocted in her brain.
There are no mangled limbs, no visible bones, there isn’t even any blood.
There is Steve Harrington, laid out on his back, body curled protectively around her sister. His palm shields her head against the floor, suggesting that he’d caught it in time to stop it from bouncing right back off the concrete. His other arm is wrapped around her torso, pulling him half on top of her. Holly has a leg dangled to the side and a knee wedged in Steve’s stomach. Nancy can’t see her face, or her arms from this angle.
She looks like a rag doll.
Nancy stumbles forward, suddenly recalibrated with her body as she rushes to their side. She kneels close by, careful not to touch anything in case she makes it worse. She recognises Dustin next to her, talking a mile a minute. At this distance she can now see Steve’s labored breathing, his eyes fluttering open and his grip tightening around Holly.
Who still hasn’t moved.
“Holly?” she whispers desperately. “Holly?”
Her tears are back in full force now, clogging up her airways and blurring her vision. She brushes a pigtail out of the way to press two fingers up against Holly’s neck. It’s warm and wet, and Nancy really hopes that it’s not blood.
There’s a moment where she can’t identify a pulse and she’s about to scream but then, miraculously, Holly gasps for air, coughing and spluttering violently.
Nancy’s never been more relieved in her life.
Holly’s face is still turned away from her, so Nancy, cautious that she shouldn’t be moving either of them without a basic medical assessment, carefully leapfrogs both of their bodies to bring herself into Holly’s existing eyeline. She pitches herself forward on her knees, leaning low down to the ground where Holly’s head rests. Her breathing is labored, like she can’t get enough oxygen in and tears pool in the crease between her nose and eye.
“I’m here,” Nancy reassures her. “I’m here, Holly.”
She touches their foreheads together delicately, bringing a hand forward to swipe at Holly’s tears. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Just keep breathing.” she repeats, letting herself model a breathing pattern for Holly, trying to slow her down somewhat so she doesn’t begin hyperventilating.
Nancy focuses on the sound of their breathing together. Holly’s here. Holly’s alive. They still have time. She can fix this. She so desperately wants to fix this. She keeps one hand gently cradling her face, tucking her hair behind her ear and rubbing small circles on her cheekbone.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” she asks softly, the way her mom would if she was here. God, she could really do with her mom right now.
“I- I don’t know.” Holly chokes out through her tears. She seems so small here, curled up on the floor. She’s just a kid. How has Nancy let this happen?
She smoothes a thumb over Holly’s hair as gently as she can, “That’s okay, you can take a minute.” she smiles wetly. Her tears have soaked into the neck of her shirt, making the collar sticky and uncomfortable.
Not knowing means one of two things: Holly’s either too in shock to feel anything yet, or she isn’t that injured. God knows Nancy’s been given two miracles already today, but what she wouldn’t give for a third.
All she can think is my baby sister, my baby sister, on repeat but she knows she’s going to have to be practical soon. Her injuries need to be assessed and they’ll need to move her, delicately and- oh God,
Steve.
Nancy almost can’t believe that he’d thrown himself over here to cushion Holly’s fall. It doesn’t feel like real life. Her brain hasn’t processed anything except that Holly is alive and in front of her.
“Steve? Are you okay?” she asks hesitantly, voice shaking.
By the way Dustin hasn’t been screaming his head off and the early signs of life he’d presented earlier, she assumes he’s somewhat okay. That doesn’t stop her from being too cowardly to properly look though, afraid she’ll be met with the face of another dead body. Just like Fred and just like Eddie, except this time it’s someone she cares about on the deepest level there is.
She sees movement; the arm that's hooked around Holly, keeping her in place half draped across his chest, slowly curls into a thumbs up. She can’t help the whimpered smile that she makes or the sigh of relief that goes with it.
“I’m surprisingly alright - I think.” He replies, voice tight from where Holly is pressing against his lungs.
“Good, that's good.” she nods, finally meeting his gaze by lifting her head to peer over Holly’s.
She takes a moment to assess the situation - nothing major seems wrong but that doesn’t account for anything like internal bleeding. Holly will likely need to go to the hospital regardless, and Steve should probably be checked too just in case.
They decide that they’re going to have to move the pair of them no matter what - there’s no paramedics in the upside down and they shouldn’t stay here any longer than they need to. Carefully, Nancy, Jonathan and Dustin begin to extricate Holly from Steve so she can lie flat on her back.
Holly’s panting has subsided a bit by now but she winces as soon as her arm is touched, hissing through her teeth.
“What’s wrong?” Nancy questions.
“My wrist,” Holly lets out with a sob. “I can’t move it.”
Nancy shushes her gently and they work on moving her to an angle where they can take a better look at it. Holly is brave as anything as she tries to stifle her tears through the pain, gritting her teeth and humming deep in her throat. Nancy had been nothing like her as a child - she used to cry over paper cuts. It’s only the end of the world that's hardened her so severely and she doesn’t want the same to be true for Holly. She hopes her sister still gets to be a kid after this - she’s suffered through too much in the past three days - her childhood shouldn’t be taken from her, too.
The basic first aid training they all know doesn’t give them much more than a ballpark for the injury - it’ll need an x-ray later on the right-side up - but they can keep it supported for now. Dustin wraps it with supplies from his backpack, keeping Holly distracted by telling her about the time he fell over a kitchen chair and broke his own wrist. Nancy can tell he’s purposefully exaggerating the comedic elements, but Holly is taken by it, tears drying on her face instead of being replaced by new ones.
With Holly currently being taken care of, she lets her attention wander over to the others. Jonathan has apparently given Steve a once over, from the way he’s awkwardly hovering over him. He catches her eye and says he’s going to check the other exits from the roof to see if there’s a clearer way out and Nancy tells him to not stray too far. The last thing they need is another one of them trapped or injured, but she does let him go, they need to get out of here in one piece and a recon mission would be helpful.
When he’s gone, Steve finally pushes himself up to sitting. There’s a nasty graze on his knuckles but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. She imagines his hand had scraped across the floor when he’d caught Holly’s head. How did he even get over to her quick enough?
She’s staring at him, she realises, but she can’t help it. When Nancy had stood frozen in fear, he had rushed to Holly’s aid, letting himself take the brunt of her fall. Steve is so many things: brave, selfless, kind, athletic, she could be here all day listing his good qualities. She wants to tell him all of it - she wants to ask how he did it, why he did it, but the words die on her tongue. Tears gather in her eyes again as she looks into his own. He offers her the tiniest of smiles and she feels her own eyes soften in response.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” she whispers.
“‘m sure Nance -oof” he wheezes as Nancy barrels him into a tight hug. She buries her head into his shoulder and clings on. He smells of drywall, sweat and upside down gunk, though underneath it all, she can still smell him. His own arms timidly wrap around her back, almost like he’s waiting for permission. She squeezes him tighter and then he relaxes into it, rubbing lazy circles against her spine.
“Thank you for saving her.” she says with a shaky voice. Steve nestles his chin to press on top of her head. His voice vibrates through her when he speaks.
“It was no big deal, I’m just glad she’s okay.” he replies, humble in his actions. Nancy’s not having him diminish what he’s just done for her, though, no way.
“It was a big deal, Steve... You saved my sister’s life. I’m never gonna be able to repay you.”
“Hey- I don’t need repaying okay.” he says, voice muffled in her curls. A thumb swipes across her arm now. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
She chokes on a laugh, of course he would. She doesn’t know how to thank him any more - not in a way that he’d accept. She settles for an extra squeeze, pressing her forehead into his neck before removing herself from his hold. When she pulls back she’s met with his smile. It's got no right to be so charming.
Nancy wipes more tears from her face and redirects her attention back to Dustin and Holly, now finishing up the makeshift splint, securing it with a final knot.
She makes sure Dustin patches up Steve’s hand too - which of course he tries to fight against, but upside down infection risk wins out over ‘it’s barely a scrape’ - and Nancy checks Holly over one more time, holding her uninjured hand in her own with her thumb resting over her pulse point.
Miraculously, she really isn’t that hurt in the grand scheme of things - she’s got a possible sprained wrist and a raging headache but she’s able to stand on her own just fine. Nancy still hovers around her like she’s a house of cards ready to give way at any moment, but she seems secure enough to stand independently right now.
Holly looks around at the melted lab and up to the mottled red sky, “Is this the upside down?” she asks, quietly confident.
“Yeah…” Nancy replies slowly. “How do you know that?” she asks.
“Max told me.” Holly replies simply.
It’s at this moment that they descend into chaos - like kids shouting over the top of one another in a bid to glean more information. Max had been trapped in Henry’s mind the whole time. It’s a hell of a revelation. Holly tells the story best she can, finishing up with the fact that Max was the only reason she was able to escape and Nancy briefly thinks she might have to go into the gift basket making business just to thank all these people who helped her sister.
Jonathan returns soon after, having found a better way down than the one they came through and they elect to pack up and get moving. They’ll have to get to a gate somehow still, or return to the Beamer and wait for help. They need to formulate a proper plan, but Nancy thinks they’d all like to get far away from the exotic matter as quickly as possible first. Or, at least out of immediate blast range.
As they go to move away, Nancy extending her hand for Holly to grab onto, her sister remains stock-still.
“What if Max didn’t escape?” she mutters, frightened. Her eyes are glazed over, staring out into the distance. Nancy goes to reassure her but Steve gets there before she does.
“Hey, Holly, look at me,” he calls, voice as soothing as he can make it. He kneels down in front of her so she can look down instead of up. “Max is a real badass, and she’s smart too - she’s made it out before. You said you saw her running to her portal?” he asks.
Holly nods, her lip quivering.
“Well, then I reckon she probably made it out, just like you did. But if not?” he tilts his head, and offers a comforting smile. “Then I reckon we’ve got the best person with us to know exactly where she is and how to get her out of there. It sounds like you’re the expert on escaping Vecna’s creepy mind prison.” he reasons, voice lowered.
Holly’s lip is still in a pout but she doesn’t seem as scared anymore. “Camazotz.” she corrects.
Steve’s face is one of a confused puppy, eyebrow scrunched and jaw slightly agape, Nancy knows he has no idea what Holly’s on about. He nods anyway agreeing with her, “Camazotz.”
Steve glances back at Nancy briefly, waiting for approval from her again which she grants him, before turning back to Holly. “You know, I’m not super smart like you but, I’ve got this hidden talent…” he says hushed, like he’s confessing top secret information. “It’s like my own special superpower.” he declares mysteriously.
“What is it?” Holly inquires, leaning forward curiously.
“It’s my gut instinct,” he answers assuredly. “Sometimes I can feel things in my tummy before they happen. Like, if something scary is going to happen, like when you fell, I felt it in my tummy just before it happened, which meant I could catch you in time. But it’s also for good things, like when someone’s about to tell me they love me, I get this warmth right here.” he explains, placing a hand over his stomach. (Nancy briefly considers if he’s telling the truth, if he’d felt that when they’d first been together. It’s silly to contemplate, she knows, but with Steve she just can’t help herself sometimes.)
“It’s never done me wrong yet… And right now, it’s telling me that if everything you told me is true, Max is gonna be okay.” he finishes, voice calm.
“Really?” Holly breathes, hanging on to every last one of Steve’s words.
“Yeah.” Steve smiles, nodding. “And the best thing we can do for her right now is get out of here and get back to the others.”
“Right.” Holly nods back, now determined to carry on. Nancy thinks that’ll be the end of the pep talk, offering a hand out to Holly once more but Steve surprises her once more.
“I know you’re super tough and all but do you want a piggyback on the way home?” he offers, glancing down to her socked feet. Nancy’s lost one shoe herself and is already dreading the walk back - she’s likely to get stabbed by rogue twigs and rocks the whole way back to the right-side up. It’s annoying as hell but after everything she’s been through today, she can survive a minor inconvenience. Holly, however, shouldn’t have to suffer any more than she needs to.
Holly hesitates in giving an answer, so Steve carries on, “I only ask ‘cause I’ve walked through here barefoot before and it hurts like a bitch.” he tells her.
Holly giggles at him and Steve’s eyes widen as he darts his head over to Nancy, expression saying sorry for the swearing. Nancy doesn’t care in the slightest - her and Mike curse at home all the time, but Steve’s always been sheepish swearing around her parents, quick to realise when he’s slipped up. He’d always wanted to impress them when they were together and that included no foul language in front of baby Holly.
“Okay, but… you won’t be in pain?” Holly checks steadily.
“I won’t be in pain.” Steve confirms, and then Holly is carefully climbing on his back, his arms hooked under her knees and her own arms looped around his neck. She holds on to her bad arm up near the elbow, letting the injured area dangle without any weight on it. Steve adjusts his arms as he stands, “You comfy?” he asks.
“Yep.” Holly responds.
They get out of the lab with comparative ease, taking a back staircase down towards the ground floor that hasn’t been melted through. Steve tries to keep Holly distracted by asking her about Camawhat? and stealthily rotates his body whenever there's something he wants to shield her from. When they get outside, Nancy hangs back with the pair of them, now that she has room to flank them properly. She doesn’t want to take her eyes off Holly again in case the last thirty minutes have been a fever dream from the melted room.
The fight is far from over, but as Nancy looks over at her sister next to her, she can’t help but feel like she won today. Hopefully they can get Holly safely to a hospital and get her checked out, maybe visit her parents whilst she’s there. The absence of Holly should delay Vecna’s plan somewhat, so maybe they have some time to come up with a plan to finally kill the bastard. She feels hope bubbling up in her chest that everything might be okay. She hasn’t thought of a real future for the longest time.
She’s taking Holly out for ice cream as soon as possible, and they’re getting the good stuff. They’re going to watch tv together and discuss their favorite books and spend as much time as possible just hanging out, for no reason. She’s going to learn the name of every single one of her friends and let Holly hear any age-appropriate gossip she has, just so she can feel included with the big girls as she so sweetly calls Nancy’s own friends. She's going to protect her sister with everything she’s got. She will continue to be fierce and headstrong but she will also be softer, kinder, more fun. She’ll say yes to the nail painting and the board games and the ride to the park. She’s going to be a better sister, because that’s what Holly deserves. They just have to survive whatever’s coming next.
When Nancy emerges from her own thoughts, she drags her eyes down from Holly’s face to Steve’s.
He’s listening to Holly babble about A Wrinkle in Time, nodding in all the right places and asking earnest questions. He’s got this quiet smile on his face, eyes cast low as he watches where he’s going.
Nancy has insisted that Steve was just a friend countless times, but she can’t deny how cute he looks, carrying his little sister and letting her ramble on about something he has no personal interest in but holding it to the highest importance. He’d been plenty good with Holly before but seeing him now, as a man instead of a boy, she sees why he wants to be a dad one day. Fatherhood would look good on him, she thinks. It would be one of those things he does so effortlessly. A natural-born protector.
Steve catches her looking eventually and although it’s hard to tell in this lighting, she swears he blushes.
When Holly wears herself out, briefly, thinking over one of Steve’s questions, he catches Nancy’s attention.
“She’s just like you, you know.” he smirks with amusement. It’s meant to come out teasing, she thinks, but he says it with such endearment, like it’s an honour to be Nancy Wheeler.
Nancy, personally, disagrees with that sentiment, but Holly starts beaming like it’s the biggest compliment in the world - getting to be like her big sister - so she doesn’t refute it.
“I’m sorry if I overstepped earlier.” Steve says then, filling the quiet, face apologetic. Nancy doesn’t know what he’s on about - he’s kept Holly occupied whilst they navigate actual hell and hasn’t complained once, despite the fact that he’s been carrying her sister down flights of stairs after being bodychecked by her. He’s undoubtedly in pain.
“Not at all,” Nancy shakes her head. “I really appreciate it.”
Steve’s eyes catch hers and it’s one of those moments again, where they seem to get lost in each other, just for a second. She still doesn’t know what she wants, figures she’ll need some time to figure that out but, if Steve was there?
Nancy doesn’t think she’d mind too much.
In fact, she thinks she might be pretty happy.
“Yeah, you were right, walking barefoot would suck.” Holly points out. It catches them both off guard and they burst into giggles. The only thing that stops them is the sound of the walkie roaring to life - contact from the others who have a plan to get them out of there.
The signal is choppy but they understand enough: help is on the way.