Chapter 1: THE MAGE
Chapter Text
THE MAGE
Kirkjubæjarklaustur — Iceland
1991
Giselle Ives resided in a small yet quaint apartment on the busier side of town; it was about twenty feet wide, and though not remarkably pretty as she had wished it were, nor extravagantly sizable as she sometimes dreamed it, it was home.
Her home.
There was a small bed, big enough for only her, and that was adorned with a deep maroon blanket she had knitted herself. Her bedside table held a few crumpled American dollars that had collected dust, accompanied by a glass half full of water, a folded image of a dark-haired boy, and a half-worn Icelandic dictionary.
By the circular window, she had a wooden table, second-hand, of course. On top of it sat a lamp, a few scattered GED textbooks, a kettle, a tea box, and an iron.
In the corner of the floor, there was a neatly lined row of her shoes and boots, a basket of her clothes, and an ironing board.
She had been planning to save for a television set so she could pass the time more effectively, but otherwise, she entertained herself in the short amount of time she had after work through knitting, reading, and solving crossword puzzles.
That was it, her home, her lips tilted into a grin at the mere humour of calling a simple layout home, but it was, truthfully, so. With a sigh, Giselle spared a glance at the clock before slipping into a robe.
There was a knock at the door. Persistent and sharp, but she didn’t flinch as she knew who it belonged to. It was expected, awaited even.
“Góðan daginn,” a soft voice sang out, almost sweeter than Kate Bush’s high note in Cloudbusting, “Breakfast is ready. Come down, yes?”
“Já,” she called back almost so quickly that her voice cracked, the word still strange in her mouth, somewhat more effortless than English.
She tightened the belt of her robe and opened the door.
Her landlord — rather, landlady, Sigríður, stood in the hallway in her woollen socks, grey hair plaited and pinned like a crown. Sometimes, when she was lonely or tired enough, Giselle would allow herself to believe the fantasy that she was her grandmother.
She smiled the way people here often did, not wide, but certain. Sigríður’s eyes swept briefly over Giselle, checking in the way Joyce used to, without ever saying it was checking. Giselle dipped her head, the ghost of a nod, and followed her down the narrow wooden stairs.
The kitchen smelled like warm yeast and something sweet, cardamom, maybe, or cinnamon, drifting through the steam curling from the kettle. Outside the window, the morning was pale, Icelandic pale, the kind of light that did not shout but slowly arrived.
On the table sat thick slices of rúgbrauð, butter in a small blue dish, soft-boiled eggs, and skyr, accompanied by a small jar of rhubarb jam. Giselle sat where she always sat, back to the wall, facing the door out of habit. She told herself it was for the view of the harbour. It wasn’t.
“Eat,” Sigríður said gently, the way people spoke to shy children. “You work a long day.”
Giselle did not argue. She rarely did anymore. She split the bread carefully, spread butter edge to edge the way she had learned from watching, not asking. The first bite was dense, sweet, honest. Food still surprised her sometimes — its kindness, its warmth. She closed her eyes for half a second, the way she used to with waffles in another kitchen, another life, someone laughing softly beside her.
She pushed that thought away like a curtain she never wanted to open. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever or anywhere.
“Good?” Sigríður asked.
Giselle nodded, mouth full, then remembered and said, “Yes. Very good.” Her voice was low, rough around the edges as though the years had finally gotten to her. “Thank you.”
They ate mostly in silence, the comfortable kind. Oftentimes, it was just the two of them.
The clock on the wall ticked with stubborn Icelandic steadiness. A radio whispered in the corner about the weather on the fjords and someone’s lost sheep. Giselle spooned skyr into her mouth slowly, savouring it as if she were still making up for years of hunger — not just for food, but for mornings like this.
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The cool air bit at her cheeks until complete numbness overcame them, followed by a warm flush of heat.
Giselle's arms already ached and throbbed, but it was no stranger to her these days; in fact, she'd even welcomed it. She didn't mind this kind of pain — the kind that didn't stem from electric shocks or lashings, or even worse — the kind that seeped from within. No, this sensation was, in fact, a reminder to her that she was alive and well, that she worked hard and earned an honest living.
She slid back the barn door with both hands. It complained the whole way open, a long wooden groan that the animals barely twitched at anymore. They knew her now. Heads lifted: sleepy eyes, steam curling from warm muzzles, soft shifting hooves against straw.
“Morning,” she murmured with a smile, "Or should I say, go-than da-yin?"
A few sheep bleeped in response, and it had earned a slight chucle from her. She had given names to each of them: the cows, the sheep, and the pigs, even though they had little numbered tags pierced into their ears; numbers weren't names, she decided, they deserved something more. Something. . . human.
She worked without hurry. Hay forks, water buckets, and grain were measured out carefully, just as she’d been shown. A sheep nudged her hip, bold and unashamed, and she almost laughed. Almost. Instead, she pressed her palm to its woolly head and let it lean all of its trusting weight against her. It felt like being chosen in a small, impossible way.
By the time she reached the last stall, sweat had gathered at the back of her neck despite the cold, and strands of hair stuck to her forehead. Her shoulders burned. Her hands were rougher than they used to be; she liked that too. They looked like hands that belonged to a person who existed. And that was just it.
She existed.
She existed.
She existed.
She paused, leaning on the handle of the fork, catching her breath. Light spilt in through the slats of the barn, thin gold lines striping the dust. For a moment, with the smell of hay and earth and warm animal breath around her, she felt something like contentment, small, fragile, but as real as the ground beneath her boots, as real as the thunder of her heart against her chest, as real as the lov— Oh God, her stomach lurched. It happened again, the way it always did: a thought she didn’t invite. She didn't finish the thought, but the dark-haired boy remained; the way he laughed at nothing, at everything. The way he had once looked at her like she was not a weapon or a miracle, but a person. The sound of him saying her name — not Giselle, the other one — rising unbidden in her head so clearly that she almost turned to answer.
Her throat tightened. She bent to the water bucket as if it needed adjusting, blinking hard until the barn came back into focus.
Not now.
She finished the last of the feeding and stepped outside. Wind rushed across the open field, tugging at her coat. She closed her eyes and let it move through her, like the world was breathing and she was learning how to breathe with it.
She was tired — bone-deep, back-sore tired — but it was the kind of exhaustion that tucked into her gently, not the kind that chased her to the edges of herself. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and smiled, small and private.
Halfway happy. That was enough for today.
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By the late evening, the wind had picked up, and Giselle was about overjoyed about having remembered to pack a spare coat in her bag. She took slow, ample steps atop the stone pathway of her town. The same she took every evening after working on the farm; she made three stops before making it back to her apartment — to the bakery, to the library, and to an electronics store where she'd eagerly eye the latest thirty-six-inch HDTV as though staring at it would somehow make it hers.
Today was no different, with the exception that the library kept her longer than both the bakery and the electronics store combined, which was altogether strange and unusual but unavoidable. Giselle didn't read much; she had very little time for it, and she enjoyed it less than puzzles, knitting, and working because her mind always seemed to wander these days. But she always had a book or two to better her Icelandic — or, truthfully, search for something she might not even want to find.
She lingered a little longer by the new releases, her fingers brushing the spines of each book on the shelf, her eyes mindlessly searching — hoping — the same way she had for the past two and a half years of her life in this town. But this time, it had almost felt like a dream.
A fat book with a dark grey cover and an illustration of a cloaked monster behind a little blonde girl. Bölvun Vecna, it read, with that name hovering hauntingly on its spine. Oh, God, Giselle felt the world spin. There it was, like a cruel, sick, twisted joke. Or a gulp of cool, fresh air after drowning. Either way, the book she doubted even existed came to be before her eyes in a library so, so far away from home—that place.
She checked it out of the library almost instantly, with hands that trembled even after she placed it in her bag without allowing herself to form another thought.
Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.
She didn't often take this route alone; she had friends, of course — like Anna; the fruit stand lady who always gave her wildberry jam, apples, and a kind fee in exchange for tutoring her young son English, and Jens, the boy — no, man — about her age whom she met when she still worked as a bartender at their local tavern, and . . . and what was her name again? Jóna? The young housewife who'd taken her in when she found Giselle wandering the town aimlessly upon her arrival.
But today, she was alone, and she knew it wouldn't be long until the loneliness permeated her soul again. There was a time, perhaps not that long ago, when she had something that felt authentic — no, she bit her bottom lip as her throat tightened.
'Not now, El', she told herself, not now. But it was already too late. Her back ached, she reeked of sweat, and she was thousands of miles away from Hawkins, and all she wanted was Mike. Her Mike.
“No,” she whispered automatically, as if saying so would stop her tears from brimming down her cheeks, but it held no avail. Giselle let out a suppressed sob in the middle of the quiet bustle of town, but she refused to do anything but keep walking. It didn't matter that her tears drenched her face, and that snot slid down her nose like a running tap of water that refused to turn off.
"No. No. No" She wept as she made it home and walked past Sigríður with the desire to simply be left alone. "Oh, please no." She said again as she made it to her apartment and beckoned the lock open with the flex of her neck.
"Oh God," Giselle — no, El — dropped to the ground before even closing the door behind her. But her hands groped her bag without a second thought, they dove into her bag, shaking, searching, knowing exactly what they were looking for. Her fingers brushed wool, paper, the edge of a comb — then closed around the thin, familiar spine, and she withdrew that book.
She pulled the book free as if it had been waiting for her.
Bölvun Vecna.The title stared back at her in heavy black print: The Curse of Vecna. Beneath it, in smaller letters, neat and almost smug. International best-seller. Translated into over 20 languages. by MICHAEL T. WHEELER.
Her heart hammered once, twice. The room felt suddenly smaller. The air thickened.
All she wanted was Mike. Her Mike Her Mike.
The thought was a wound reopening. It stole the air from her lungs; it made the small lamp in her room flicker just slightly. Her breath came ragged, hitting the back of her throat like it hurt to be in her own body.
She opened the book to the first page; fyrir galdramanninn minn — for my mage.
There it was — the truth she had tried to knit over and bury under Icelandic verbs and sheep with names and maroon blankets. This wasn’t over. It simply couldn't be.
Giselle wasn’t done with being El.
Chapter 2: THE PADALIN
Notes:
Before anyone notices, Mike uses air freight to get his Cadillac around. He can certainly afford it.
Chapter Text
THE PALADIN
HAWKINS — INDIANA
1991
Mike Wheeler felt sick again. Hollow. Desolate. Grief-stricken, yes, that was the word his psychiatrist used. But none of it mattered, not when he picked up yet again another vial of Prozac and watered a dose or two down with a bottle of wine; the expensive type, the kind his mother stashed away in hidden places like beneath the stair drawers and in-between dish cabinets.
He took a small sip first, barely half of a mouthful. The bitter fluid trickled down his throat like thousands of ants swarming his oesophagus in a vengeful fury.
The green, oblong capsules didn't budge.
He took another sip, but this time it was ambitious enough for his bodily functions to reject it and, in place, expel a gravelly wheeze as splutters of wine spilt from his mouth.
There, at least the happy pills made their way down.
Mike shuddered as he took a third sip for good measure, carefully resealed the Merlot with trembling hands, and unhurriedly situated it between the porcelain ceramic plates and bowls of the china cabinet. None of it mattered, on account of the daunting fact that nobody was home to catch him red-handed; Holly was at Derek's, his father was at work, his mom was at the mall shopping for Christmas presents.
In all likelihood, his mom wouldn't even notice, and if she did, she wouldn't approach him about her now half-emptied wine bottle. He was an International best-selling novelist; he had already paid off all his college debts, drove a Cadillac, and owned a loft in San Francisco, a Victorian house in Niagara Falls, and a cabin in. . . He let out a sigh, chased away the thought and indulged in the numbness that overcame him.
None of it mattered.
A high-pitched beep, beep, beep, tore through the silence. Startled, Mike jerked his neck backwards, and his head collided with the wooden cabinet with a great force that earned a curse and a groan out of his mouth.
"Shit, man." He rasped, his fingers stroked at the crown of his skull, "The hell do you want now?" he continued, his eyes flickered over to the glowing pager on the dining table behind him. He didn't need to check it over; it was his pestering mouth-breather of an agent. He wasn't going to answer now, or later, or the day after tomorrow. Mike was aware of the call's objective, but he barely revised his first draft, and he was certain it was absolute trash.
His first two books were works of art; he won't deny it, but his foolishly signed contract and greedy agent insisted he turn his duology into a saga. Demand by popularity, right? He was in a business where he provided high-quality manuscripts of his own stories and controlled the narrative. Yet Michael T. Wheeler was at a dead end because he simply didn't want to resurrect the monster to torment his characters. They were content in their own little world that he had meticulously constructed for them, but it was the nintees — and apparently, happy endings were so out of fashion; people wanted bloodshed, tragedy, and generational hauntings.
'Assholes,' Mike thought to himself. The world (self-proclaimed fans of his) didn't seem to want his Paladin to live a blissful domestic life with his Mage in a small, seaside cottage. They wanted bloodshed, raised stakes, and tragedy. But God, he already killed off three beloved characters to try to appease their bloodlust. His hands were soaked with the blood of those innocent, fictional lives. Simply put, he was exhausted. Mike Wheeler didn't want to slaughter anymore.
He was done with The Curse of Vecna, he decided; it didn't matter what legal consequences he'd face. He was done.
Mike slammed shut the china cabinet in exasperation and took heavy-footed steps through the kitchen, dining room, and up the stairs of his childhood house. He needed a nap before finalising any rash decisions.
Beep, beep, beep.
He heard it again by the time he reached his childhood bedroom. He ignored it again.
Beep, beep, beep.
He heard it again by the time he kicked off his sneakers and fell onto his bed. He ignored it again.
Beep, beep, beep.
Sleep almost claimed him as he lulled in and out of consciousness. He ignored it again.
Mike Wheeler closed his eyes and welcomed the most beautiful dream he had had in months. He dreamt of basking beneath the blazing sun near a misty waterfall, of a small, dark-haired girl playing by the stream, and of a sound so precious that it made his chest ache. It was laughter, loud and distinct, the kind that made him smile like a fool purely for hearing it. The kind that he would recognise anywhere, anyplace, anytime. The kind he hadn't heard in years.
El.
He awoke with his chest caved in, his heart detonated into a thousand little pieces. The sickness returned once more, leaving him no choice but to go down those godamned stairs and call his stupid agent to tell him he'd be done with the manuscript by the end of next month.
𝄪
"So, how's the new book coming along?" Nancy asked as she bit into the roasted turkey off her fork with a graceful precision that had been natural to her since childhood.
Mike raised an eyebrow as he turned to meet her gaze. Nancy sat parallel to him, beside Holly, who quietly hummed the melody to some new TLC song that played through her Walkman.
His older sister had grown into a sturdy young woman with a no-beating-around-the-bush look about her, and she certainly didn't beat around the bush with him. Nancy was an ambitious war correspondent who could perfectly read into any room; she must've known by the look on his face that he was struggling again.
"Uh," he clicked his tongue, "Superb." He answered, flashing her a tight-lipped smile.
Karen carefully, and rather slowly, inspected her son, an uncertain and inconclusive expression evident on her face. Ted merely nodded his head in approval, oblivious to the intensity of the moment.
"Real proud of you, son. You've really made something of yourself." He said, his hand extended to pat Mike on the back with a firm, fatherly force.
"Thanks," Mike said, his fork sifting through his roast in an attempt to segregate the peas from the carrots. "What are you doing here, anyway?" He turned his eyes back to Nancy.
"Am I not allowed to visit anymore? Is there some kind of rule I'm not aware of that prohibits me from setting foot on —"
"Jesus, I didn't mean it like that. You know what I mean." Mike snapped back, his brows furrowed tightly together.
"I know you're in a pissy mood these days. Moping around the house like a ghost. Mom said —"
"Mom said what? Mom said what?" Mike spat, his jaw clenched hard enough he could've sworn he heard a back molar crack. Nancy flinched slightly, and only for a second, her face was the epitome of pity. It made him feel sick again.
"Alright, enough. Both of you." Ted sighed, his thumb lightly rubbing his temple. "Holly's the only sensible one out of you three, and she's half your age. Christsake."
Mike stood abruptly from the dining chair, his hands still trembling as he reached for his unfinished dinner and half-drank glass of soda water. He couldn't take it anymore. None of this mattered.
"Michael — please, sit down." Karen started, tears threatening to spill from her brown eyes. God, that made Mike sick, too. But not any more than it was being in a place with people who acted like everything was normal, like everything was fine when he'd lost the love of his life barely three — four years ago.
"I'm sorry." He mumbled, "I'm sorry. Thank you for letting me stay here this week. I just — I gotta go back. Write the new book and everything."
"Go back where?" Nancy remarked as she swiftly rose to her feet, too.
"Where? San Francisco, where else, Nancy?" He retorted, a scowl contorted his face in an instant, and he looked more like a boy than he did a young man.
"I don't know — I call your house phone, and you never answer. I'm just assuming you're based in Niagara Falls now, unless you have some secret third house you own that you won't tell us about."
"I don't. . . I don't. I live in the city, alright? I don't answer your calls because you're a pain in the ass." Mike said, his face flushed red. He had to get out. He had to.
"Michael—"
"Language."
Everything else was a blur. He knew he made his way to the kitchen sink, where he left his dishes; he knew he made it past his sobbing mother and infuriated sister in the kitchen; he knew he made it out the front door and into his car, and he knew he made it out of hell when he finally saw the Leaving Hawkins sign.
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The Indianapolis airport was crowded; it always was this time of the year. Mike was well and truly doomed, he was stuck in a hectic building with teeming families, couples, friends, and screeching little toddlers. He'd believed Hawkins was hell, well, this must've been purgatory.
He just wanted a one-way ticket to San Francisco, back to his life. But nothing went right with him, just as it never had. Not when he saw El's perfect — angelic — no, godamn it, he was a writer, yet he was out of words to describe his mage. Well, he saw her face every time he closed his eyes, more now, more than ever.
"Destination?" The woman politely smiled behind the counter.
Mike stood at the check-in counter, his wallet in hand, his mouth slightly agape. San Francisco, he was supposed to say. But something in him stirred as the airport announcement blared out something he didn't focus on enough to comprehend. The words were meaningless, of course, no matter how hard he tried to focus on them, but it was the fact that he hesitated.
Why would he hesitate? There was only one option available for him.
"San Francisco. Business class." He responded, his head throbbing. He made a mental note to buy himself an aspirin if there was enough time.
The woman made a sharp tsk and sympathetically frowned;
"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. There are no seats left in business class for a flight to San Francisco tonight. But there is one available for tomorrow morning at ten-thirty."
Mike drew in a frustrated sigh, though he faced instant regret. He was being a prick.
"Look, just check first class or economy, I don't care, I just need the ticket."
The woman nodded, unaffected by his brashness, but only offered him another frown.
"I'm so sorry, sir. It seems we're all out of any flights to San Francisco tonight. First class, business class, and economy. The next available flight is scheduled for tomorrow morning at ten-thirty, as I said earlier —"
"Niagara Falls," Mike said, almost as shocked as the woman before him as he uttered the words. There was absolutely no correlation between San Francisco and Niagara Falls; she must've thought he was a fugitive. The woman ducked her head and checked the computer again.
"Alright, Niagara Falls it is. The next flight is at nine. We have a few seats available in business." She chirped.
What a joke. Mike Wheeler was well and truly doomed. He'd never really lived in that house; it was just a childish keepsake, something he purchased on impulse — A large, prepossessing Victorian with rooms he'd decorated like an idiot.
"Perfect."
Horrid. He couldn't spend a single night in that house without regurgitating the contents of his stomach. That house was sick, just like him. It was far too big for him, and he supposed that's why he bought it. It was the perfect house to pick up your wife bridal style at the porch as you carried her to the bedroom. It was the perfect house to spend a lazy Sunday out in the garden. It was the perfect house to settle down in and raise a family. And it was only a ten-minute drive to Horseshoe Falls.
𝄪
Mike found his seat and did what he had been doing for years now — he closed his eyes and thought of her again.
The cabin lights dimmed, and the cool air kissed his cheeks —
No. The cabin lights flickered. His eyes snapped open. Jesus, what was wrong with him? That was normal.
But the moment the plane lifted off the ground, his stomach dropped in that old familiar way—the way it used to when she moved things without touching them.
Mike’s breath hitched. He turned, half-expecting to see her in the aisle like a punchline to a cruel joke. There was only a businessman asleep with his mouth open, a crying baby, and a flight attendant clicking a seatbelt into place. The feeling didn’t fade.
A prickle at the back of his neck. The distinct, impossible sensation of being watched.
Warmth flooded his chest, slow and aching, like sunlight through water.
"El." His voice trembled, "El. Please."
A few heads snapped to him in confusion. He must've looked crazy, but he didn't care. Mike let out a chesty laugh as tears he didn't realise welled in his eyes dripped down his face.
"El. I love you too." He said, lips quivering as the words escaped him. "Did you hear me? I love you. I love you too."
Michael Wheeler might as well have screamed it out; he wanted to scream it out; he wanted to make her listen.
For the first time in three — four years, the silence inside him answered back—not in words, but in the faintest echo of a laugh by a stream, in the smell of rain and something sweet he could never name, in the absolute certainty that she wasn’t gone, not really.
Chapter 3: The Return of Jane Hopper
Notes:
Guys, this is canon. I'm the third Duffer brother.
P.S. Sorry it's all rushed — it's laying ground work for the main plot.
Chapter Text
THE MAGE
Kirkjubæjarklaustur — Iceland
His words echoed in her head.
They echoed as she took a warm bath after another day at work.
They echoed as she made herself a cup of hot tea, dosed with honey.
They echoed as she slid beneath her blanket and nestled her head against her soft pillow.
Did you hear me? I love you. I love you too.
He still remembered that day — the day she made it out, the day she drew him into her mind and kissed him for the very last time. She told him she loved him, but he said nothing back. She didn't blame him; his throat must've burned, his mouth must've ached. He loved her; she knew it. No words were needed between them; they never were.
The clock on the small table clicked far too loudly tonight. The blanket felt too cold, then too hot, then too heavy — just like the ones back at the lab.
El sat up.
It wasn't pitch dark in her apartment; it never was. A warm yellow light seeped in from the cracks of her door — Sigríður always left the hall lights on, bless her kind heart.
“This is stupid,” she whispered, "You're being stupid."
But El Hopper was not stupid. She was stubborn and reckless, and perhaps at times, a little impulsive. Giselle Ives, on the other hand? El didn't know yet. Was she stupid? She must've been if she'd done the one thing she promised herself never to do.
She put her friends in danger. She put Mike in danger.
She didn’t know when she started moving again. One breath, she was in her room, the next, she was tugging on boots over her pyjama pants. She tied back her long, auburn-dyed hair into an unruly ponytail with an elastic band on her wrist. Her thick, brown coat hung heavy on its peg, and she shrugged it on in an instant.
Gently, her hand reached out, and she closed her eyes.
Click.
Her door was unlocked and peeled open exactly the way El Hopper did in her old life, and blood trickled down her nose just as it had then, too.
The floor creaked as she went down the stairs.
Sigríður had fallen asleep on the couch again, the old yellow blanket around her shoulders. Her cat, fat, smug and ancient, was curled on her chest, purring like a tiny engine. The woman’s mouth hung open slightly, soft snores escaping.
For a moment, El stood there in the doorway, hand on the railing, heart suddenly aching with something that wasn’t quite sadness and wasn’t quite love. A life. This life. Warmth. Safety, she had borrowed and pretended was hers. But the truth was that she wasn't her — she wasn't Giselle — the barmaid, the tutor, the farmhand. She was El, Jane, Hopper, Ives—the hero, the daughter, the sister, the friend, the girlfriend. And if she had to choose who she'd rather be, she'd be El, because she was known for her tether to people, not for her services and small talk.
The front door clicked shut very quietly, and she slid out into the night.
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The town was dark, illuminated by only a few street lanterns that buzzed and flickered lightly like small flames. There were very few cars here; most people walked or rode bikes, and so people themselves were hard to find after the sun went down. Good, El wanted it that way. No people, no voices, just the long, low rush of wind and the deeper sound beneath it that had called her here since the first week she arrived.
She walked.
Boots treading lightly on gravel, gravel turning to dirt, dirt softening into moss and wet ground. The moon above her glowed faintly too, guiding her, refusing to go fully dark the way the world never fully let her rest.
She didn’t think of where she was going, but her feet knew. Past the last house of the kind woman who took her in when she first arrived. Through the field that always soaked her hems. Up the shallow slope where the sound grew louder.
Here. She realised. Here.
The waterfall waited for her like it always had.
Cold mist kissed her face. The pool below churned black and restless, catching the faint light and swallowing it again. It should have looked dangerous. It did. And yet something inside her loosened.
Before she could name the feeling, she was unbuttoning her coat. She let it fall on the rock. Then she stripped down with the same practical efficiency she used for everything.
The air bit at her skin, sharp and honest and so, so alive.
El. Please. El. I love you too. Did you hear me? I love you. I love you too.
“I know,” she murmured to the water, to no one, to him. “I love you, Mike.”
And then she went in.
The cold hit like a slap and an embrace all at once. Every inch of her body screamed and woke. She kicked, gasped, surfaced, laughed—an involuntary sound ripped straight from her chest. The waterfall thundered in her ears. Her heart hammered like it was trying to break free of her.
She didn’t think of the lab. She didn’t think of the government. She didn’t even think of Mike.
Her thoughts strayed to that night, and it's thereafter, how she took the tunnels, how she robbed clothes of clothes lines, how she
Water poured over her head. She went under again, curled there for a heartbeat in the black weightlessness, and felt something unhook inside her — fear, guilt, a name she couldn’t even pronounce.
Then everything tilted.
The cold tunnelled in too deep, and her limbs went leaden, slow, disobedient. The churning water spun her violently, pulling at her, turning her breath into halted torture.
Was she dying? Was this death?
"God, help me." She spluttered, a habit she had picked up from her old life, one lived on the run, but she didn't believe in God; she was a lab rat, the product of scientific experimentation. God didn't make freaks like her, he made Mike Wheeler — and his dark freckles that scattered across his face like a paintbrush splattered against a canvas, and his large nose, and his high cheekbones, and his soft brown eyes, and —
When she woke, she was coughing.
Violent, ugly coughs that hurt all the way down her ribs. She rolled onto her side on rough stone and spat water, shaking so hard her teeth clacked. She was wrapped in something scratchy — a coat or a blanket — that wasn’t hers.
An elderly voice barked above her in rapid Icelandic.
She blinked up through blurred lashes. An old man loomed there, thick, grey eyebrows and wool cap, holding a lantern. His face was worn, lined with a lifetime of disapproval. She knew him — or of him — he too had lost his lover in youth, so the townspeople whispered, a wife who'd died in childbirth. He was a shepherd, and though he had a house and many, many children, he slept out in the fields among his flock.
He scolded her again, sharper this time, words tumbling too fast for her tired brain, but she caught enough:
“Ertu að reyna að deyja? Hefurðu misst vitið? Í þessum kulda?" Are you trying to die? Have you lost your senses? In this cold?”
She tried to speak and only coughed harder.
He knelt down with an exasperated huff and adjusted the blanket around her shoulders anyway, muttering the way Sigríður did when pretending not to care while caring very much.
“Fyrirgefðu," she managed hoarsely, in halting Icelandic, “—I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” He threw up a hand. “Fyrirgefðu? Young people. Always sorry. Never thinking.”
He looked at her properly then, eyes softening almost against his will when he saw the tremor she couldn’t stop. “You’ll catch your death like this,” he grumbled. “Do you want that? Do you have a death wish?”
The question hovered.
El stared at the water. At the black pool still roiling, ghostly in the half-light. At the place she had gone without thinking. At the part of her that had wanted to disappear and the part that had wanted to feel absolutely everything at once.
“No,” she said finally. And it was true in a way it hadn’t always been.
He snorted, satisfied enough. “Good. Then stop doing foolish things in the middle of the night. Come.”
He helped her sit up, then stand. Her legs wobbled. She leaned into the blanket and, for a second, into him. He did not comment on it. They walked slowly back toward the path, the lantern making a small, stubborn bubble of light around them.
She didn’t know why she’d gone into the water.
She only knew this: she had come out of it wanting to live, and the first face her mind found, bright and undeniable, was Mike Wheeler’s.
And that, terrifyingly, made sense. She knew she had to fix this; she had to go back to him.
𝄪
"Stupid girl. You could've died out there. Think of the grief it would bring your mother, your father. Have you no shame?" One of the shepherd's daughters — a forty-something-year-old woman with a crooked nose — reprimanded El with a scowl.
"I—" she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
"How old are you, girl?" The woman asked.
"Twenty-seven." She lied, the way she always did when she didn't want to evoke pity out of strangers. But this must've been too far of a stretch. She didn't own a mirror and spent little time worrying about her appearance, but she knew she mustn't have looked a day over eighteen.
The shepherd and his daughter both frowned as they exchanged a knowing look, and beneath the faint, warm lighting of this strange house in a foreign land.
Something in her snapped. El thought of her mother, of her screams as she got ripped away from her — she thought of Hopper, of his boots in the doorway and his rough laugh and the way he made her feel so... so safe, so at home.
She thought of Joyce’s hands on her shoulders, of Will’s gentle smile, of Dustin’s terrible humour, of Lucas' kind encouragement, of Max’s red hair like a warning flare in the dark.
And then of Mike.
Always Mike.
"Twenty-one." She answered again, truthfully this time, as she braced for outrage.
She didn’t argue. She let them scold her, wrap her in towels, press something hot between her hands. Inside her, something had already turned and locked into place.
She was done hiding, she was done running.
Papa had hurt her first, when he put a claim on her as though he had a right to her creation. And then Dr Kay, with her sickening scheme to drain her of her blood to recreate her abilities in the wombs of more innocent women.
She dried her hair. She pulled on her semi-dry clothes. And then left out through the front door and back to Sigríður's place, up those stairs, and she did something she never believed she'd do. El packed the life she had built into one small bag, and the picture of him went on top, face down, because she couldn’t stand to look at it and not move.
She did not know what would happen to the government, or the lab, or the people who had made her.
She only knew this: She was going to Mike Wheeler. She was going to Hopper. She was going home.
And whatever came first, she would meet it head-on. But even if it meant abolishing an entire faction of government, she was going to get her happily ever after.
THE PALADIN
NIAGARA FALLS
Mike tried to take deep, steady breaths to contain the sudden outburst of feelings he submitted to, but it was as helpful as a broken hammer. Part of him revelled in it, but more of him urged him to focus on devising a plan to understand what this had meant.
She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.
He didn’t smile. He didn’t trust himself to. If he started, he wouldn’t stop.
He picked up the phone at the Niagara Falls International Airport. He'd been there for hours, unable to fully bring himself to leave. He took another deep breath, trying to compose his thoughts.
He always believed El was out there; everyone who knew him knew this — El was out there, somewhere, because the kryptonite couldn't have possibly allowed her to wield her powers at such a strenuous degree, because she came to him in his mind and bid him farewell, because the more he remembered, the more he realised her nose never bled and her wrist tattoo was unaccounted for.
He only ever told the party once, at a D&D campaign the night of graduation, and they tearfully smiled at the prospect of such a hopeful outcome of a tragic event. But they'd moved on. All of them.
Lucas had joined the Air Force after college and was stationed somewhere in Texas, while Max had left for California again, where she worked between mechanic repair and retail — they were still together, though petty break-ups were common occurrences between them. Dustin had enrolled in postgrad at MIT for Quantum Physics, and he made the most effort out of everyone to check in on Mike at least twice a week. Will had moved in with Johnathan in Manhattan and gotten a job as an Illustrator.
They probably thought of El on the rare occasion when they ran out of thoughts and had nothing left to do but reflect on their shared, painful past.
Robin was working as a radio host in Colorado. Steve, still in Hawkins, had gotten married earlier this year and welcomed his first child.
They moved on, of course, they did. Mike thought bitterly. He knew Hopper certainly did with Joyce; they were married now, with two dogs and a cat. They moved to New York, too, conveniently enough for Joyce, but a little further out — Montauk, or something — fortunate enough for Will.
His fingers dialled Nancy's number; he knew she'd listen, no matter how much of an asshole he was to her or how much of a pain in the ass she was to him.
"Nancy Wheeler speaking," She answered on the third dial, half-groggy.
"Nancy. It's me." His voice shook as he spoke.
"Mike. . . What's wrong?"
“Nothing,” he said too quickly, then winced at himself. “I mean— not nothing, but not… bad. I don’t think it’s bad. It’s—”He cut himself off because the word alive was burning the back of his throat, and he was suddenly terrified of saying it wrong, of jinxing it like a kid blowing out candles.
Nancy sat up; he could hear it in the change of her voice.
“Mike.”
“I need you to listen and not…Just listen.” He swallowed hard.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m listening.”
He closed his eyes. The airport announcement boards flickered above him, departures and arrivals ticking over while his whole world narrowed to the plastic phone pressed to his ear.
“I think she's alive,” he said, softly enough that it felt like a confession to God. The silence that followed wasn’t disbelief, not entirely; it was something else.
“You think,” she repeated carefully.
“I know,” Mike said, “I’ve always… believed it, yeah, but this isn’t just belief. It’s the same feeling as when she’d be in my head. It’s—”He laughed weakly, ran a hand through his hair. “It’s her,” he finished.
He braced himself for logic. For slow, careful words. For the gentle dismantling of hope. Instead, Nancy simply exhaled.
“Okay. What do you need?”
The breath he’d been holding left him in a rush. He had to sit down or he might fall over.
“I need you to come to the house,” he said. “Niagara. Today if you can. I’ll pay. I don’t care how much it costs, or if Jonathan can’t— I mean, bring him, but if he can’t I don’t— just you, then. Or everyone. Hopper, get Hopper, and Joyce, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max. Please, call them." His words slurred together the way they did when he was nervous. He made no sense, but Nancy understood.
A beat. Paper rustled. She was already moving.
"Look, I'll see what I can do about the rest, alright? But I'll be there," she said. “And Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
Chapter 4: The Hunt
Chapter Text
THE PADALIN
NIAGARA FALLS
Mike Wheeler was well and truly pathetic. He surely felt it as he drank in the sight of the — his — house, and he steadily comprehended it by the mere thought of Hopper having to take it all in too within the matter of hours.
The phone rang when Mike was standing in the kitchen, fingers curled hard around the edge of the counter like it was the only solid thing left in the world. The marble was cool beneath his palms, grounding in the way pain sometimes was. He let it ring once. Twice. He answered on the second ring, not the first — because answering on the first would mean admitting how long he’d been waiting, how tightly hope had wound itself around his ribs.
“Nancy?”
There was a pause on the other end. A breath drawn in and held too long. He could hear movement — the soft rustle of papers, the scrape of something being set down, maybe a jacket shrugged on and forgotten. Proof that she hadn’t stopped moving since they’d last spoken. Proof that she’d taken this seriously.
“I’m sorry,” she said immediately, like the words had been burning a hole straight through her chest. “It took… it took hours to get through to Max and Lucas.”
Mike closed his eyes. His forehead dipped forward, hovering just shy of the cabinet door. He stayed very still, as if moving might knock something loose inside him that he couldn’t afford to lose yet.
“They’re okay,” Nancy added quickly, too quickly. “They’re both okay. They just—” She exhaled, slow and controlled, the way she did when she was trying not to editorialize. “They’re worried, Mike. Really worried. Lucas is on base this week and Max’s shop is completely slammed, but neither of them laughed. Neither of them brushed it off. They just… asked a lot of questions.”
Mike swallowed.
That helped. A little. Only ever a little.
“They believe me?” he asked, quietly. Not hopeful. Careful.
“They believe you,” Nancy corrected. “Which is not nothing.”
His grip on the counter loosened by a fraction.“And Dustin?” he asked, already bracing himself.
Nancy hesitated.
“I didn’t get him,” she admitted. “I tried. I called and left a voicemail, which I’m already regretting because I sounded like a lunatic. He’s buried under finals right now, Mike. Like— underground. He probably hasn’t left his dorm in a while.”
A ghost of a sound left Mike’s throat — not quite a laugh.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “That tracks.”
“Will and Jonathan—” Nancy continued, and her voice softened in that way it always did when she talked about them. “They said yes. Immediately. No questions. They’re in. They just… need help covering it. Money’s tight right now, especially with Jonathan freelancing and Will’s lease renewal coming up.”
“I’ll pay,” Mike said without hesitation. The words came out sharp, decisive, like he’d been waiting for the opportunity. “All of it. Flights, hotel, food, whatever they need. I don’t care.”
“I know,” Nancy said gently. “I told them.”
There was another pause. Longer this time. Heavy. Mike felt it settle in his chest before she even spoke again, like a storm pressure drop.
“And Hopper,” Nancy said. Mike’s jaw tightened, bracing for impact.
“I sent Will,” she went on carefully. “I didn’t want to do it over the phone. I thought— I thought that might be worse.”
Mike nodded once, even though she couldn’t see him.
“What did he say?” he asked.
Nancy swallowed. He could hear it: the hitch, the recalibration.
“He got quiet at first,” she said. “Frozen, almost, I guess, taken aback.”
Mike’s eyes slid shut again, and this time his forehead pressed fully into the cabinet door. The wood was solid. Unmoving. Unimpressed by grief.
“And then he snapped,” Nancy continued. Mike exhaled through his nose, slow and controlled, like he was diffusing something volatile inside himself.
“He said you had no right,” she said quietly. “That you shouldn’t have called. That it was cruel — that you were cruel — for even suggesting it without proof. He said—” She broke off, then forced herself forward. “He said he’s buried her once already, and he won’t do it again just because you can’t let go.”
The words landed like a bruise. Deep. Spreading.
Hopper’s words — you have no right — echoed even though he hadn’t heard them himself. Mike swallowed hard. Maybe he didn’t have the right. Maybe loving El didn’t entitle him to reopen old graves, to rip at scars Hopper had barely learned to live with. The man had lost a daughter once already, and then he’d loved El like one, too. Mike had loved her differently — fiercely, foolishly, completely — but he’d loved her alive.
And God, didn’t that count for something?
“But,” Nancy added quickly, “Will said he was shaking, Mike. I don’t think he even realised it. He kept asking where you were. How long you’d been thinking about this. He told Will to tell you—” She hesitated. “He told Will to tell you to get help.”
Mike let out a breath that felt like it scraped his lungs raw on the way out.
“So that’s a no,” he said softly.
“For now,” Nancy replied. “He just— he can’t hear it like this. Not yet.”
Mike nodded again, alone in his kitchen. Alone with the photos on the fridge. Alone with the staircase just out of view. Alone with the locked doors upstairs that held too much hope and too much grief to touch.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice rough. “For trying.”
“I did try,” Nancy said, and there was something fragile and earnest in it, something that reminded him she was tired too. “I’m still trying.”
“I know,” Mike replied. “That’s why I called you.”
She was quiet for a moment.
“I’ll be there,” she said finally. “No matter what.”
Mike’s gaze drifted toward the hallway, toward the bend in the stairs, toward the rooms that had never stopped waiting — for footsteps, for laughter, for a girl who had once changed the shape of his entire life.
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I know.”