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The morning after graduation, Mike wakes up at one pm, reeking of sweat and vodka. An ice-cold shower helps - if only to keep the edge of nausea away - and he stumbles down the stairs, uncaring of the way his t-shirt sticks to his skin or how his hair sticks up in more angles than should be possible or, how even after a shower, the sharp smell of vodka clings to him like the world’s saddest perfume.
He doesn’t think anyone had expected anything different from him.
Everyone had left early last night, all citing miscellaneous plans, real or imagined he still wasn’t sure, but all plain in their desperation to escape the grief he had plunged them all into.
He didn’t have such luck. He’d never had that much luck when it came to her.
He, instead, had swiped the bottle of vodka his parents kept in their bar cart and had drunk in the silence of his room, wishing he couldn’t hear his sister and her friends cheering down in the basement, staring at the ceiling until his tears and the drink blurred his vision. It was easier to imagine and pretend then. He wasn’t alone in his bedroom, wasn’t waiting desperately for a ghost to come to haunt the edges of his periphery because at least that would mean she was near. No, in his alcohol induced haze, he was just waiting for her to call him on the Supercom, waiting for her melodic voice to come in and tease him for how unbearably silly he had looked in his garishly orange graduation robe or how his combed hair made him look like an adult now finally. Any minute now. Any minute.
He had passed out before the fantasy could become even sadder than it already was.
The light in the kitchen pouring in from the window is nearly unbearable, all warm and refreshing in a way that makes his already unsettled stomach churn, and Mike narrows his eyes against the glare as he trudges to the fridge, yanking it open. There’s food, but none of it looks appetizing, all of it horrific, and he reaches for the carton of half-drunk orange juice.
He straightens up to chug straight from the carton and, just as he finishes his first pull, feeling slightly less dead than he had before, someone clears their throat.
Ted Wheeler looks at him with the faintest hint of disappointment coloring his gaze.
At least that was familiar.
“What are you doing, Michael?” Ted asks, shaking his head as he puts his keys on the counter. He’s dressed in his work clothes - a tucked-in polo and a suit jacket - and Mike plainly turns away to take another swig.
The juice tastes sour in his mouth, twisting his stomach even more, and he briefly wonders if he’s about to throw up in the kitchen in front of his dad the day after graduation.
Twelve-year-old Mike Wheeler would be undyingly proud.
He swipes his mouth clean before shoving the carton back in the fridge, slamming the door closed with more force than is technically needed. It rattles ominously and, if he had any luck in the world, it would come crashing down on him and free him from this.
But he doesn’t, so it doesn’t, and he turns to his dad, wishing he hadn’t come down at all.
“Breakfast,” he says, his voice sharp and short. He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. True to his nature, Ted has done nothing at all.
But he’s been doing a lot of things he shouldn’t be doing recently, and he figures he shouldn’t break that streak now.
Ted doesn’t reply, not right away at least, preferring to sigh and look down at the ground. Mike sighs again.
This is the longest conversation they’ve had in years.
“When I was your age, Michael,” his dad starts, and Mike rolls his eyes. Ted, again, true to his nature, does not notice. “My own dad gave me the money I needed to put a down payment on this house. So I could start my life with your mother properly.”
He closes his eyes, leaning his head against the fridge, trying to let the constant hum of the machine rattle his brain in his skull.
“It was the best thing he ever did. Not that he ever did much,” Ted continues, stubborn on his path. “I know it’s been… difficult for you rec-.”
“Difficult?!” The word escapes him in a burst, his anger flaring up hot and fast. He turns from the fridge, storming up to his father. He’s taller than him now, has been for a while, and he looms over Ted, wishing he were taller still. “Thank you, Dad, thank you. I’m surprised you noticed. What tipped you off? What of all of it made you realize?”
His dad doesn’t respond, not right away. He just looks at Mike, gaze steady, face stern. He looks like a dad for once, and that, that, enrages him more than anything else.
“I need to go,” he says before he can do something else stupid like swinging on his own father, moving to shove past him.
Ted nods. “Maybe you do.”
Mike reels back like he’s been slapped.
“When my dad gave us the money, we used some of it for a car. We bought a station wagon, and we just went. Visited Lake Michigan. The cathedral in Fort Wayne. There’s a world outside of Hawkins, Mike. Maybe you should see it.”
“Why?” Mike asks, his voice sounding embarrassingly small.
Ted shrugs, shaking his head. “I don’t understand you, Mike. I don’t understand what happened two years ago. I don’t understand what took Holly, what attacked me and your mother. I don’t understand Hopper’s daughter, Jane or whatever her real name was, or what she meant to you that you have fallen apart without her. I don’t understand you. And maybe I shouldn’t try.”
Tears prick at the back of Mike’s eyes, his heart squeezing tight and sharp in his chest. He wonders if this is what his dad had thought before all of this - that there’s no real point in putting in effort with Mike. “And?”
“And,” Ted sighs, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out his checkbook. He turns away from Mike, leaning over onto the counter as he fishes out a pen. “And your mother’s method of trying to talk to you isn’t working. Your friends aren’t fixing this. You’re drinking, and we’re all pretending to not notice in hopes it goes away and it’s not. Maybe it’s time someone just threw money at the problem.”
A knot tightens in his chest. He watches his father write out a tidy sum on the check, wondering if anyone has ever felt like they’re being punched in the throat while watching someone hand them a check for thousands of dollars.
Ted rips the check free neatly, turning back to Mike to push the piece of paper into his chest, the motion rocking him back. “You’re looking for something, Michael. No one here is helping you find it. Maybe you can find it yourself.” He lets the check go, and Mike only moves to catch it on instinct, snatching it out of the air as it begins to drift down.
Ted reaches for the keys he had just thrown down, grabbing them and turning away, heading out towards the front door. He pauses just as he opens the door, glancing back over his shoulder to look at him. “I won’t tell your mother about this, Michael, not until after you leave. If you leave. She comes back with Holly in about two hours.”
He waits a moment longer, as if he’s debating saying something else. Mike stares back at him, chest heaving, the check clutched tightly in his hand.
Both of them could say something.
Neither of them will.
Ted just turns back to the door, leaving and closing it behind him softly.
Mike is alone in the house. There’s a roaring in his ears, like the fridge but a million times worse, shaking his body down to his very bones.
Like how he’s been for eighteen months now, Mike moves on autopilot, climbing up the stairs, heading towards his room, his body feeling like it’s not his own. His limbs feel heavy, staticky, and he dimly wonders if this is what shock feels like.
It feels familiar.
It feels like the hours after the gate had closed, when his world had ended, and the military had shoved them all into different rooms to interrogate them, and he had said nothing. Not to protect her, not to defy them. He had said nothing because he knew if he opened his mouth, he’d start screaming. He’d start screaming and he wouldn’t stop. They had roared their questions in his face and he had done nothing. They had shoved him up against the walls and he hadn’t even let out a grunt. One particularly angry soldier, yelling about his friend who had gone into the Upside Down after the freak and hadn’t come back, had pulled out a gun and aimed at him before anyone else could stop him.
The other soldiers had jumped on him immediately, pulling him back, ripping the gun out of his hand.
But for the second that the gun had been pointed at him, straight at his chest, he hadn’t moved. The static had become a high, thin tone.
Relief. It had been relief.
It too had been ripped away from him after a breath. Just like -
He sucks in air despreately, the static claiming everything, as he just stands there, stands there alone.
There’s nothing like that here, not in his room, not in her absence. His dad was right. His dad was right, and wasn’t that a kick in the nuts? For Ted Wheeler to be right.
He’s looking for something except it’s not something - it’s someone, and he doesn’t even know if she’s alive. Mike had told the party that beautiful story, about the mage and her waterfalls, except he didn’t know. He could believe all he wanted; they could believe, but belief wasn’t knowing, and if he had to spend his life not knowing… If he had to pretend that his world hadn’t shattered into countless pieces, that she had taken all of him worth keeping with her when the gate had closed even if she hadn’t been on the other side of it…
Mike looks at the check, the ringing fading if only so he could focus enough to read. There were more zeros on it than anything else he had ever held. It was more than enough for a car, for a nice one even with funds left over. He could drive to Lake Michigan, see if he could stare into the water and try to fight back the urge to disappear beneath its surface. Hell, he could drive to New York and sleep on Jonathan’s couch, lose himself in the city. He could go further than that and go to Boston, stay with Nancy, let her fuss over him in that strange Nancy way only she could do. Go beyond even that and go into Canada, see Niagara Falls, try and look for her face in the crowd, pretend this was what he had promised her.
The waterfalls.
The static leaves his body in a snap, cold feeling rushing back into it.
She wouldn’t be there. No, it was too close, too near to the danger. She is smart, dangerously so, and she knows better.
No, she’d go further than that. She’d go as far as she dared.
But as smart as she is, she’s a romantic to her core. The same girl who had killed soldiers, blended their brains in their skulls and had it leak out their eyes, was the same one who had kissed him in fields of flowers, had sang quietly to him in the nights when he had snuck into her cabin to sleep in her warmth.
She’d run far, so, so far, but she wouldn’t leave behind the dream he had whispered to her. She wouldn’t settle for just one - not if her only objective was safety. She would find her three waterfalls - their three waterfalls.
He could buy a car.
Or he could buy a plane ticket.
When he finally manages to pry the window open, the stupid thing creaking dangerously loud, he hops up to pull himself in, swinging his legs up to catch some leverage. Her bedroom window isn’t high, thankfully, but he still needs to jump to reach even with his newfound height helping. He manages, though, and when he finally pulls himself in, he miscalculates his own landing and completely tumbles in, his legs flailing over his head as he slams to the ground on his back.
El rewards him with a laugh.
A loud laugh.
“Shhh!” He says on instinct, laughing with her despite his own rush of panic. “Do you want Hop to chase me out with a shotgun?”
Her laugh only gets louder as she slides off her bed, landing right next to him, her hand floating over his chest as the other one covers up her grin. “I’d be impressed considering he’s on his ‘midnight patrol’ and isn’t going to come back until three probably.”
Mike makes a face, sticking his tongue out in disgust just to coax another laugh out of her. He grabs her wrist, pulling her down so she lands on top of him, her curls tickling his chin as she settles into the crook of his neck, her legs thrown over him so she’s lying flat on him. “Is that what he’s calling it? He should just save us all time and just say he’s sneaking out to see Will’s mom.”
“It’s cute,” El whispers, turning her face so her lips brush his neck, the sensation making him shiver. “He thinks no one knows, but everyone can just see. He’s lighter.”
He thinks about making a joke about Hopper and being lighter, considering the older man has only bulked up since his miraculous return from the dead, partially from eating better and partially from throwing himself into some hellish fitness regime, but decides against it. He pushes himself up, pulling El up with him, sliding her down so she sits on his lap, facing him.
She smiles at him, leaning forward so her forehead rests against his. “Hi,” she whispers.
“Hey,” he whispers back before pushing forward to catch her lips. They trade kisses, slow ones, sweet ones, and he can feel her smile against his mouth. When they finally pull apart, he leans back, resting himself on the palms of his hands so he can look at her.
Her hair has grown out, curly around her face, so much like it had been when she had first come back to him, and even in the dim light of only her lamp, her cheeks glow rosy and her swollen lips are still pulled up into a grin. She’s beautiful. She’s always been beautiful, always pretty, but somehow, even in the dark of her room, in the middle of a quarantine zone, she shines all the brighter.
“I love you,” he says, hand coming up to tug her back to his mouth and she goes without resistance, giggling just as her lips touch his. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” He breathes into her, punctuating each sentence with another kiss.
She pulls free for a second, staying just close enough that her nose bumps into his. Mike opens his eyes just to meet hers, her brown eyes shining at him brightly.
“What’s gotten into you?” She asks, her hand coming up to caress his cheek, and he pulls away from her lips just to nuzzle into the heat of her palm.
“I just love you,” he murmurs, turning his face so he can speak his words into her hand, laughing slightly when his lips brushing her palm make her jump. “I don’t say it enough.”
El laughs again, loud and carefree, and he grins, eyes flashing back to her. She’s happy. Even with everything, with Vecna lurking in the Upside Down, with the military breathing down their necks, with Max, she can manage to smile with him, manage to trade slow kisses on her bedroom floor.
“You say it every day!” She reminds him, playfully pushing him away with her hand, a snort escaping her when he just swings right back to her, his arms dropping around her waist and pulling her closer until her front half is molded to his chest.
He drops his head to rest on her shoulder, turning his face so he can look at her. “And I’ll say it every day for the rest of our lives. Every single day until you’re sick of it and begging me to stop.”
El shakes her head, arms curling around his back, one of her hands splayed wide across his shoulder blades. “I won’t get tired of it, Mike.”
He smiles at her. “Then I won’t stop saying it.”
She smiles at him, bright and wide, girlish in her joy. “I love you too,” she whispers to him, her sentence fading into a sigh when he surges forward, pressing his lips to her neck in hot, open-mouthed kisses.
The room warms, because of them or something else, he doesn’t know, but he presses her closer, biting gently on her neck when she tugs on his hair, sucking hard as her mouth drops open in a breathless moan.
“Hop’s not coming back until three?” He asks, his voice low and breathy, as he struggles to remember why he should be concerned about pointless details like her dad and how bad it would be if he caught them when she’s in his lap, moving eagerly against him.
El hums in response, tugging his hair to pull him away from her neck, her other hand leaving his back to tug at the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head easily. His own hands immediately move to make their way beneath hers, his fingers splayed wide to spread across her rib cage, his blood burning hot when he realizes she has nothing on underneath. “We have time. I promise, we have time.”
The window still creaks when he opens it, loud and obnoxious in the silence of the woods, except when he pulls himself up to fall in, there’s no sweet laughter waiting to greet him.
Her room is the same. Joyce spends most of her weekends here with Hopper, Will occasionally joining her to sleep on the couch, but none of them have touched her room. How could they? When her sweater is thrown over her chair, her bedsheets still ruffled like she had just left them this morning. There’s a book with a bookmark sticking out of it, some romance that he had swiped from his mom to give to her just so she wouldn’t spend her days worrying and stressing about everything. There are pictures of everyone scattered about, some pinned to a corkboard, others just lying on any flat surface.
She had been working on a scrapbook. She had been so excited about it, talking eagerly about how she would give it to Max when she woke up, so Max could see everything they had done in her absence.
She had never gotten to finish it, the scrapbook in question lying open on her desk.
Mike hasn’t been back here, not since she had slipped into her bath to look for Will. She’d been in that stupid wetsuit, and he remembers being so preoccupied with the curve of her waist, remembers how badly he had wanted to grab her and coax her into relaxation. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t.
And now he can’t.
He stays there, crouched for a moment, his heart beating fast and loud in his chest, his breathing speeding up to match it. He wants to squeeze his eyes shut like it’ll keep him safe from the way even just being in her room feels like someone has shoved a hot knife in his chest. He had forced himself to scarf down a sandwich after he had frantically packed his things into a duffel, and now, he wishes he hadn’t, not with nausea rolling in his stomach.
As soon as the feeling fades, if only the slightest bit, he rushes forward, refusing to look around any longer than he already has. He slams through the door, out into the living room, the frame rattling with the force of his escape. The cabin is empty. Will was probably at the movies, the only one who would be willing to accompany Dustin to whatever slop he had been excited about yesterday. Joyce and Hopper at work. Jonathan with Nancy or Steve or both, more than likely.
The bath is gone.
Thank God.
He thinks he really would have thrown up if he had seen it again.
The living room has changed, more cozy than it had been allowed to be during the quarantine. There are throw pillows and blankets, framed pictures hanging on the wall, a few potted plants scattered about. For a sickening moment, all he can think about is how much she would love it. She would have dragged him to every thrift store she could, would have cooed over all the furnishings and decorations she could find, and he would have told her that this was just a practice run for when they moved in with each other, when they had a space for themselves where they didn’t have to worry about time or doors being left open three inches.
He groans out loud, bending over with his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths, trying to steady himself.
It was fine. It was fine. He wasn’t putting himself through this for nothing.
After a second, he forces himself up, moving towards the back window, to the loose flooring right beneath it. Pulling out a pocket knife, he shimmies it under and, with a quick motion and only a little bit of effort, he forces it up.
Only a few days after the military had rolled into Hawkins and put up their walls and their zones, Hopper had insisted that she have a go bag ready - in case she needed to escape. She had argued with him about it, insisting that she would never abandon Hawkins, not if her family and friends were in danger within it. The fight had dragged on, neither willing to cave in to the other, until Hopper had pulled the unexpected move of asking Mike to talk with her.
He hadn’t approached it like Hopper had, her dad having framed its necessity around the very real present danger. He had told her that it was for after, for when the dust settled and they had won. They’d need a quick getaway, and this could be their ticket.
She had caved then, but had insisted to Hopper she would only do it if he helped Mike make one too.
Hopper, in a nearly overwhelming show of good faith, had done it with little complaint.
Their go-bags were simple - food, water, a change of clothes. The only things that Hop had actually needed to put effort into were the money and the passports. The money he had had to ask Joyce to coordinate with the trust he had set up years ago, the money that they had barely recovered from the half-baked scheme to use it to pay the Russian ransom for Hopper. As for the passports, he’d had to ask Murray to whip up some documents for them both, under different names. The point of a go bag was that it was a quick and easy ‘go, go, go’ in a sheer flight of emergency, and they couldn’t exactly do that if there would be people looking for a Jane Hopper and Michael Wheeler travelling together.
So passports. Several. Under different names, names that she had laughed about, had poured through her books and music for. They’d made their bags together, joking around to try and ignore the creeping sense of dread that the bags invoked. When they were finished, Hopper had shown them the hiding place he had made, showing them his own bag that he had stashed beforehand. They had put their bags there and covered it up, only checking it periodically to swap out the food, to make sure everything was up to date. They had checked it only a few days before everything. She had stashed a Gatorade of all things in it the last time.
There are only two bags left now.
His and Hopper’s.
Her’s is missing.
Mike stares, the only sounds he can hear being his own ragged breathing and the cicadas screaming outside. He wonders if he should scream too.
He pulls his bag out slowly, suddenly petrified that if he moves too fast, the spell would break and her bag would be there. Her yellow knapsack with the red thread, a yellow daisy charm hanging from one of the strings, a purple poppy on the other one.
It doesn’t appear.
Suddenly desperate, he reaches down further, knocking Hop’s bag to the side, clawing around the small hideaway as if it’ll suddenly materialize, as if he’ll feel leather and he’ll finally know, but it doesn’t. His fingers only scratch at dirt and concrete, and he inhales sharply, pulling away and staring down. Hop’s bag lies on its side, lonely in its place now.
She had come here.
Hopper wouldn’t have gotten rid of it. No, not the same Hopper who kept her room like a shrine to his loss, untouched like a museum piece. Not the Hopper who had screamed like a man being ripped apart when the gate had closed. Nancy had told Mike after, months and months after, when they both had been drinking and she had had far too much in a misguided attempt to stop him from drinking more, loosening her tongue more than she would usually allow, that four soldiers had had to hold him back, that he had punched another and kicked two more.
Hopper.
Hopper, who has pulled himself back from the brink. Hopper, who can still smile and laugh. Hopper, who, just yesterday, had told him that there were only two options left for Mike, while being aware all along that that was a lie.
Hopper, who knew.
He’s felt rage like this before, red hot and corrosive, ripping through his body until he’s made of it in his entirety. Last time, though, it had been tempered with relief, with the warmth of her arms still clinging to his body.
Now, there’s nothing. There’s only the fury building, the anger thrashing.
For once, Mike’s luck turns.
He hears a piece of shit Blazer rumble its way up to the cabin.
He snatches the other bag, pushing up to his feet, feeling, for once, like he has absolute control. Through the cabin walls, he can hear a car door open and slam shut, hear Hopper grumble something as he does. Back then, when it hadn’t been his police vehicle but him walking back from his ‘midnight patrols’, this would mean that Mike only had a few scant minutes to dress himself or pull himself away from her a certain Hop-approved distance since the man in question would always take a moment to smoke outside.
She hated the smell. Hopper never smoked inside, not when she would scold him for hours over it.
Seems old habits die hard.
Mike storms through the cabin, barely registering anything other than the weight of the bags in his hand. He shoulders the door open, sending it flying to slam against the wall, and he gets the unique and immeasurable pleasure of watching Jim Hopper jump in surprise.
Hopper coughs and sputters, sending a cloud of smoke in Mike’s direction, his whole body bending over from the force of it. He manages to hold onto his cigarette, flurries of ash falling down and staining his shirt, and he scowls at Mike, face twisting in annoyance.
“What the hell are you doing, kid,” he growls. “What is th-” His voice dies when his gaze trails down to the bags, his eyes widening and his frame freezing.
It would almost be comical if Mike had it in him to laugh.
He tosses it at him, aiming at his head for good measure, and the older man snatches it out of the air, his face still.
“You piece of shit,” Mike starts, his voice trembling under the weight of grief, despair, of rage and hope. “You fucking piece of shit. You knew! You knew, and you didn’t say a thing!”
“Mik-”
“No,” Mike snarls, storming up to him. At some point, he had caught up to Hopper in height. He wasn’t that little boy crashing against a wall, throwing and landing hits that did nothing. He could never match Hopper in strength, not even come close, but in his rage, he can almost delude himself into thinking that he could hurt Hopper. He could claw at him, punch him, kick him, do anything if it meant that Hopper could feel even an iota of the pain that Mike had been carrying with him for eighteen months. “No, fuck you! At any point in these last eighteen goddamn months, you could have said something, anything, and you didn’t!”
“And what then?” Hopper finds his voice, pulling himself up, lording the inch or so he still has on Mike. He’s massive, even now, a verifiable brick wall, someone made to protect except he hadn’t. “You would have shot off like a bullet into the night looking for her!”
“And that would have been my choice!” Mike screams, shoving him, dropping his bag and duffel at his feet in favor of putting all his strength into the push. Back then, Hopper had barely rocked back. Now, he stumbles, either caught off guard or letting him move him, and both options enrage him. “It would have been my fucking choice!”
“And her choice was to leave!” Hopper roars back, pointing out into the woods as if he could point at her. “She knew what she had to do, and she did it, and that was her choice!”
Anger roars in Mike’s ear, loud and overwhelming, drowning out everything until all that’s left is Hopper standing in front of him saying bullshit. “Choice? You want to talk about choices? She didn’t have one, and, even if she did, she never would have chosen anything that would have hurt us, and you want to say that it was ‘her choice’? You’re a goddamn liar, Hopper. A goddamned liar. Not just to me but to yourself. Does that help you sleep at night? Help you wake up, go to work, and live like she never existed? Thinking that it was her choice?”
Hopper surges forward, grabbing Mike by the neck of his shirt and slamming him into the walls of the cabin. He’s seen Hopper angry but never like this, never so completely taken by it. His veins bulge and his lips curl up in a snarl, looking as if he could drive his fist into Mike’s face and not even blink. It would be frightening if Mike’s own anger wasn’t more monstrous. “How dare you say I’ve forgotten her. How fucking dare you.”
“You have,” Mike spits back, shoving at the older man in vain to get away, curling his hands in in hopes that his short nails scratch him enough to make him bleed. “You have because if you think that she’s just happy out there, away from all of us, away from me, you never knew her. You never fucking knew her because you would have never let her go alone. You failed her.”
Hopper’s anger leaves him as quickly as it had come. Like a puppet with all its strings cut, he drops Mike, staggering back to slam into the railing of the porch, chest heaving like air just won’t enter his lungs. He stares at Mike, but not really. He stares at nothing at all.
“What do you think I was coming back here for, Mike?” He whispers after a moment, hands clutching the rail behind his back so tightly that his knuckles turn white. “They took our weapons from us after, before they cut us loose. What do you think I was coming back here for?”
Mike’s chest tightens, not in horror, not in shock, but in recognition. Nancy had beaten him home. She’d told Jonathan to hold him back. It had been easy - he had been blind in his grief, too lost to notice how Nancy had methodically cleared the house of guns and knives, hidden their parents’ old pain medications from past surgeries. He hadn’t noticed until he had broken out of his stupor days later, until he needed something to break - whether it was a wall or a window or himself, he didn’t care, but something needed to break.
He had yelled at her for it - had accused her of not trusting him, of treating him like a baby. He had thrown things around like a child, furious at the lack of faith, and she had watched him unflinchingly, saying in an even tone that she didn’t even want to risk it.
Nancy had been right, of course. He still hadn’t forgiven her for it.
“I drank Jim Bean until I couldn’t see straight, and then I thought well, you tried Jim. You tried and you failed. Again. Maybe some men aren’t meant to be fathers, not to sweet girls who look at me like I could save them. Maybe I’m the… I’m the… I was going to do it,” Hopper laughs, the sound broken and bitter, like each laugh is a shard embedded in his chest and he’s still discovering new ways that it can hurt him. “I was going to do it in the living room, away from her room, so I couldn’t ruin her any more than I already had, and then I… I just thought, you should check. You should check because if she took it… What if she comes back and she finds you?”
That thought had been a leash on Mike too. Not Nancy begging him. Not his mother and Holly pleading with him. It hadn’t even been the party trying to pull him back from the edge of a cliff. It had only been the thought that if he did, what if she came back and he was gone? Her leaving had torn him to shreds - how could he ever dare to put her through that agony too?
“I looked and…” Hopper gestures at the cabin before dragging that same hand down his face. He looks so much older like this, defeated and tired in a way that Mike has never seen in him. There’s gray in his hair and his beard, crows feet at the corner of his eyes, and he looks so undeniably fragile. “She had taken it. She had taken it, which meant she had gotten out, which meant she was running, which meant... She told me in the Upside Down that it was her decision to make and that she needed me to trust her so I… I did.” Hopper says the words like it’ll absolve him, like his sacrifice means anything to Mike.
His anger condenses, pulling away from the edges of his being, pushing together until it’s a tight ball in the center of his chest, a weight that he has to carry now with all the other weights he must shoulder. He can’t forgive this - can’t even dream of trying. It’s not fair - not to Mike, not to Hopper, not to her - but Mike is tired of fairness. He doesn’t want it. He wants her.
Mike shakes his head, leaning over to grab his bag and the duffel off the ground. “And what about my decision, Hopper? She wants to run, fine, but I want to go after her. I would have followed her in death. What difference does it make to me to follow her across the globe?”
“You wouldn’t be able to come back,” Hopper warns, pushing himself off the railing, the traces of his grief falling away from his face, morphing him into the paternal figure that Mike had loathed and craved in equal parts. “They’re looking for her. They won’t stop. You can’t be the weak link that gets her caught.”
“I won’t be, and I don’t need to come back,” Mike replies, his voice firm. “Not if I’m with her. She took every part of me that mattered with her.”
Hopper looks at him, his eyes scanning all over Mike as if he could locate the cracks in him, find the holes in his own conviction. Finally, he looks down. “Your friends will go nuts. They’ll try to go after you.”
That, of all things, is what gives Mike pause. They wouldn’t notice, not right away, not with the way he has been vanishing since everything happened. But his mom would surely panic once his dad tells her what he has done. She would call all of them, asking after him, and they’d descend into worry. They’d be furious at him, furious at each other for not noticing or, more likely, noticing and not having been able to stop him anyway. Lucas would be insisting they find him if only so he can kick his ass. Max would argue for her rights to beat him first. Will would try to rein them back in, only to be caught up in Dustin’s storm of frantic planning.
They had forgiven a lot of his behavior in the last eighteen months. They’ve forgiven the drinking, his random bursts of anger that would always find their target on whoever was closest to him in the moment, his bouts of disassociation, and how he’d vanish from them for days on end. He had acted like an asshole to every single one of them, and they had forgiven him regardless.
They wouldn’t forgive this.
He sighs, looking down at his feet, wishing it had never gotten to this point. If he had just been faster… If he could have caught her, given her no choice but to take him with her in the illusion that had been her shield…
“They’ll understand,” he murmurs after a moment. “Not right away. But they will. They understood her.”
They would eventually. They’d curse him for months or maybe even years, but they would understand. They knew him, had seen how he had become a ghost of himself in the past months, a mere shade going through the motions. They’d understand that this outcome, his leaving to find her, was the best of all the possibilities that could have occurred.
“Can you make them understand?” Mike asks, feeling a hand squeeze his heart at the familiar turn of phrase. Is this how she felt? Determined and scared and resolute?
Hopper’s gaze softens. Mike had never told anyone about his last conversation with her in the Void. He guarded those moments with a viciousness he didn’t even know he possessed, refusing to give up any more of her than he already had. Hopper didn’t know about those final words they had shared, would have zero way of knowing it, but he did know his daughter. For all their differences and disagreeances, they both love her with a force that could rearrange the stars in the sky.
Finally, Hopper nods, closing his eyes and ducking his head down. As Mike walks past, however, his hand shoots out, gripping his bicep and forcing him to slow to a stop.
Mike looks at him, waiting for the older man to say his piece.
“When… When you find her again,” Hopper starts, his voice shaky and broken. He wants to cry, Mike thinks, and the thought makes tears prick against his own eyes. “Tell her… Tell her that I meant what I told her last. That she can have it all and more. And that… That I’m sorry.”
Mike only nods, not trusting himself to speak.
El’s curls tickle Mike right under his neck, the sound of her slow, deep breathing threatening to drag him into sleep with her.
Dustin, however, is seemingly allergic to letting that happen.
“I’m telling you that we need to start a D&D group in the school,” he hisses, pacing the cabin and flailing his arms in the air. “It’s what Eddie would want! Us continuing his legacy!”
Mike sighs even as Lucas scoffs loudly. They’ve had this debate before, and, knowing Dustin, they would have it again later. This was supposed to be a chance to just be normal for a night, for all of them to pile into the cabin and watch movies and eat popcorn and pretend that there wasn’t a war about to be waged right outside their door. Hopper had even cleared out for them, making loud and pointed remarks about them all staying in the living room and no one going off on their own (all said while conveniently staring straight and unerringly at Mike) before vanishing to wherever he went on his date nights with Joyce.
Except El was bone tired after her training and had passed out on Mike halfway through Aliens. Will had tried to shake her awake, knowing that she was actually excited for the movie, having seen the original back in Lenora. She had sleepily mumbled back a ‘no, I’m awake’ before snuggling even closer to Mike, softly snoring after only a few seconds.
No one had tried after that, knowing that, if precedent held, she’d wake up in half an hour anyway to try and finish it.
The other precedent that had unfortunately held as well was Dustin’s new inclination to take any lull in conversation as an opportunity to soapbox for the return of Hellfire Club.
“We can honor Eddie’s legacy by not causing problems,” Lucas groans, his hands coming up to cover his face. “He was anti-establishment, not pro-getting our asses kicked at every turn.”
“That’s more Steve’s realm if anything,” Mike says from his spot sprawled on the couch, smiling at Dustin in an attempt to coax him into making a joke.
Dustin, unfortunately, is not willing to be swayed. “We can’t let those assholes on the basketball team win!”
Will sighs, which, considering Will, was as close to yelling as he ever got. “It’s not letting them win if there shouldn’t even be a battle there to begin with. We know where the real fight is, and it’s not with them, Dustin.”
“I know that,” the other boy snaps back irritably. That was all he seemed to do now: argue and be irritable, more prone to biting someone’s head off than holding a simple conversation. “We can do both.”
“We literally can’t,” Lucas cries out, throwing his hands up in the air. “We can’t because if we start all wearing Hellfire shirts and fighting with anyone who looks at us sideways, then we get attention, and if we get attention, we can’t do this!” He gestures wildly around the cabin, at their bowls of popcorn and the blankets and the TV paused on Sigourney Weaver holding a small child in one hand and a rifle in the other. He ends it by pointing at El nestled against Mike’s chest, dressed in one of Hopper’s old flannels, her hair tied up messily out of her face, peacefully unaware of the fight raging around her. “We can’t risk it because we can’t risk her!”
“It’s not ri-” Dustin starts, and Mike scoffs, unable to hold it back any longer. Dustin stills, his eyes narrowing in on Mike, his fists clenching at his side. “What, Mike? What?”
“If you want to honor Eddie’s legacy, then focus on the crawls,” Mike says, keeping his voice low to not bother El, trying to hold back his own temper from surging to meet Dustin’s. “Then, when we beat Vecna and save Max and finish this, we’ll all wear Hellfire shirts and pick a fight with anyone you want. We will. But for now, just… just let it go.”
“Let it go?” Dustin hisses. “You weren’t there - you didn’t see what he looked like at the end. How am I supposed to just let it go?”
There’s no real answer to that. Not one that wouldn’t lead to an even bigger fight.
They all sit there for a moment, all of them wondering how someone was going to defuse or detonate the bomb that was sitting before them, before Dustin rises shakily to his feet.
“I have homework to do,” he says after a moment. It’s a lie - a bad one. Dustin has only been scraping through his classes through the skin of his teeth and the goodwill he had already shored up with all his teachers. He wouldn’t be doing homework - he’d be going to the cemetery.
Predictably, Will is the first to react, jumping to his feet from his spot leaning against the couch. “No, don’t! We haven’t been able to have a night like this in so long. There’s no crawl, Hop actually let us have the cabin. C’mon, Dustin, just sit back down.”
Dustin is already shaking his head when Lucas pulls himself up from the recliner, making his way over to grab Dustin’s sleeve. “Listen, we can talk about it some other time, but for now, let's just… Let’s just sit here, ok? Just sit here and pretend none of that bad shit is happening for the rest of the movie. Just give me the rest of this stupid movie. Give El the rest of it.”
It’s a plea coming from Lucas. If Dustin is haunted by Eddie, then Lucas is consumed by Max. Lucas and El both.
And as mad as Dustin could get, as blinded, he would never dare to do anything to make that pain even worse.
It takes a moment, an agonizingly long moment, but Dustin finally nods and throws himself back in his nest of blankets and pillows, pulling his D&D binder to his lap, plainly planning on ignoring the rest of them.
The room lets out the breath they’ve been holding. Lucas turns to sit back in his recliner, face twisted with the barest hint of grief and annoyance, and Will turns to move back to his spot with his colored pencils and paper.
“Hey Will,” Mike whispers, adjusting himself slightly so El falls between him and the back of the couch, tugging her arm up so it curls around his ribs instead of jabbing him in the stomach. The boy in question freezes as if Mike had yelled instead. “Can you pass me the atlas behind you?”
It takes a moment, as if Will is registering the question, but he does it quickly enough, spinning on his heel to dig through Hopper’s assorted collection of reference books. They had been ostensibly to tutor El with, back when that had been a concern, but now they sit in the back of the living room, collecting dust and only to be used when a chair or table gets wobbly.
He fishes out the atlas, a massive old thing that is probably better suited to be used as a weapon than a book, and carries it over to Mike, holding it tightly with both hands so he doesn’t risk dropping it to the ground in a flurry of dust.
“What do you need it for?” Will asks, eyes locking onto El as she grumbles in annoyance when Mike shifts again to grab the atlas.
Mike doesn’t answer right away, too preoccupied with trying to open the offensively large book without bothering El. He finally manages it, bringing the leg that El isn’t lying on up to serve as a book rest. He flashes a victorious grin at Will, and the other boy returns it easily enough. “I’m planning for the next campaign. I want to get a head start on it while we're waiting for Sleeping Beauty to get up.”
Will furrows his brow. “You need the atlas for that? Are you setting it in the real world?”
“Nah,” Mike replies as he flips quickly to the index, using his finger as a pointer as he scans the ‘W’ section. “Just looking for some inspiration.”
“In the atlas?” Will asks and, before Mike can answer, El yawns loudly, stretching up catlike. This close to Mike, it only serves to smoosh them even more closely together on the already small couch.
Her eyes blink open slowly, looking between Mike and Will blearily. “Did we stop?” She asks, her voice low and gravelly from her nap. She turns back into Mike, pulling herself slightly up to rest her head on his chest, and Mike, like the lovesick loser he is, is too distracted by her to hold onto the atlas. It tumbles out of his grasp, falling to the ground, and Will yelps as he scrambles to catch it.
He doesn’t have to. With a lazy sort of effort that she’s only recently mastered, El raises her head and the book stops midair, its pages fluttering as she lifts it up to look at the cover.
“Are you studying?” El asks, tilting her head like a particularly inquisitive cat, and Mike grins, squeezing her tight against him now that he’s free to actually hold her back.
“Research,” he replies.
El looks at him, her hand coming up to gently direct the atlas to the end table. Her nose remains free of blood, and he’s almost giddy with pride over it. The moment she sets the book down, she drops her hand, resting it on top of his heart. “Research? For what?”
“Happy endings,” he tells her, dropping his head down to press a kiss to her forehead. She yawns in response, a lazy smile pulling at the corner of her lips.
Iceland is cold. Predictably so. Mike is only really armed against the cold with a thick gray sweater that he had shoved into his duffel and a far too expensive puffer he had had to purchase duty free in the airport. Even with the jacket, though, and the truly exorbitant ticket price, he still has plenty left from the check Ted had written him.
Mike had never quite imagined that he’d be so grateful for his father of all people.
In O’Hare, he had ordered the largest cup of coffee he could find and claimed a corner of the baggage claim to look through his old D&D notes. They were written almost lazily, carelessly even, and he wishes he could reach back in time and tell himself that these stupid notes looking into different waterfalls in the world would be the most important notes he will ever write in his life.
There are the Victoria Falls in Zambia, the Angel Falls in Venezeula, the Rhine Falls in Switzerland, and the list goes on and on. All of them were breathtaking. All of them were possibilities. And, if Mike had to, he would go to every last single one and look for her there for the rest of his life.
But Kirkjufellsfoss had just seemed right. It wasn’t the biggest waterfall, not even close, and it wasn’t even the most expansive. There was nothing particularly special at all about it. His hurried research hadn’t even told him if there were three of them there.
But he had looked at the name in his notes, the name that a more innocent Mike Wheeler had written, and had simply known.
Iceland was remote, isolated, with Kirkjufellsfoss moreso. The primary language was Icelandic but, if the friendly lady at the Icelandair gate was to be believed, almost everybody spoke English in the nation after it became compulsory in schools.
She could have come here. She could have hid here.
In Keflavík Airport, Mike feels like a bumbling tourist as he all but jumps the concierge for information on Kirkjufellsfoss, on the small town that rests at the foot of Kirkjufell. The man is nice, if not slightly concerned and alarmed by the intensity of Mike’s questions, and soon enough, he’s on a bus to Grundarfjörður with a neatly printed out invoice for a room to the town’s only hotel in hand.
The bus ride is supposed to take around three hours.
It feels entirely too long.
There’s too much energy coursing through his body and not enough at the same time. It feels like the Snowball again, reminding him of sitting in those uncomfortable plastic chairs and watching his friends take to the dance floor. They had all been smiling, enjoying themselves one way or another, and he had been stuck, waiting and hoping but knowing there was no guarantee.
She had walked through the door the last time, in her blue dress with her doe eyes. It had felt like swimming up through waves, that first sweet breath that reminded you what air felt like, how natural it was to breathe.
There was no guarantee here, but then again, had there ever been a guarantee? If Hopper wasn’t meant to be a father, maybe he wasn’t meant to ever have her, to keep her. Maybe he was made to wait for her endlessly, her Penelope weaving a funeral shroud that he would never finish, eyes always locked on the horizon.
The thought makes him shake the entire drive to Grundarfjörður.
Penelope had been rewarded in the end, hadn’t she? Odysseus had returned to her, her faith had held strong the entire time. He couldn’t waver - not if Penelope hadn’t.
The bus arrives in Grundarfjörður.
He takes a deep breath before getting off with the handful of overager tourists and the tired locals. The town is small - if it can even constitute a town - with all of it geared towards either supporting the local fishing industry or, more cheerfully, the tourism the mountain invites, Kirkjufell itself looming large over the small village. There’s a large map mounted right at the bus station, cartoony and kitschy, listing all of the things that are in the town for people to do.
There’s only nineteen bullet points with a solid half of them dedicated to basic amenities like the laundromat and grocery stores. Hawkins was a verifiable cosmopolitan next to Grundarfjörður.
He stands in front of the map, eyes scanning it all around as if somewhere it’ll tell him that she’s here and that he’s found her again. His eyes skip over the church steeple, the cartoon fisherman waving his catch at any onlookers, settling on the delicately drawn horse in a field. Right next to it, there’s a cheerful paragraph advertising horseback riding tours, written in both English and Icelandic.
She’d always been fascinated by horses, by goats and chickens. She had grown up in a world of syringes and brain monitors, with computers whirring all around her and scientists poking and prodding her for their next great discovery. There was comfort to be found in the pastoral. He had promised her once to take her to a farm, an actual farm not the petting zoo that came in with the carnival. He had never gotten the chance.
She wouldn’t know the first thing about farm animals, not anything that would help her here, but, then again, it’s been eighteen months since he saw her last. Maybe time had made her an expert in them. It had made him an expert in grief, after all.
“Are you lost?” A voice asks him and he turns to see a little old lady, her scarf wrapped so many times around her neck she looks nearer a mummy than a person. Her accent is soft, lilting, and she peers up at him with round glasses that make her blue eyes massive.
Mike takes a step back, shaking his head. “No, I, uh, sorry, I was just…” He looks back at the map, at the horse grazing in the field. “I was just thinking of someone.”
The old lady smiles. “People usually do when they come here. It’s easy to get lost - especially if you’re already lost.”
“Deal with a lot of lost people?” Mike asks her. She’s tiny, barely coming up to the middle of his chest, and she beams up at him.
“Not as many as you think. More than you would expect,” the woman hums. “My name is Hulda. What are you called?”
Mike looks at her. “Dave. Dave Arneson,” he holds his hand out, remembering how his mother had scolded him whenever he didn’t. She was likely furious enough at him right now - no need to add to her anger with this small transgression as unlikely as she would be to ever discover it. “Do you stay here to be the welcoming committee?”
Hulda’s eyes twinkle at him as she takes his hand and, for a second, Mike worries she’s placed the name and thinks he’s being funny. Instead, she gestures at the map, walking closer to tap a finger on the horse. “I own this farm. We’re a small operation, just me and my granddaughters and another lovely young woman, and I do what I must to promote it. Beautiful way to see Kirkjufellsfoss.”
“How far is Kirkjufellsfoss anyways?” Mike asks, his voice tripping over the foreign word in his mouth. “If I were to walk?”
The old lady hums, tilting her head and turning to stare at the distance. Mike follows her gaze, looking at the mountain. It’s just across the water, jutting up proudly, a sharp figure against the bright blue sky. At its base lies the falls. “An hour’s walk. Hilly. Frustrating. But very doable.”
Mike nods, keeping his eyes locked on the mountain. “How many…” He licks his lips, his throat dry. An invisible hand squeezes in his chest. “How many waterfalls are there? At Kirkjufellsfoss?”
Hulda laughs, delighted, and his gaze snaps to her, baffled. She’s clapping her hands, beaming like he has just presented her the sun as a present. “You know, Dave, you are not the first one to ask me this oddly enough. Kyrie asked me the same thing when she first came.” His heart freezes and, for a moment, the Earth stands still. “There are three. There are three waterfalls at Kirkjufellsfoss.”
Just from the way El trudges up the hill to WSQK, Mike can already tell training went poorly. Hopper is walking next to her, clearly trying to get her to answer him, but she all but shrugs him off, speeding up to try and escape him.
Mike doesn’t even think about it. He races down to her, only luck keeping him from tumbling and falling down the hill. He slides to a stop before her, chest heaving, arms flying out to grab her biceps, and El blinks, stepping back slightly and looking up at him with wide eyes, still staying loosely within his grasp.
“What happened?” He asks without preamble.
El’s eyes shutter and she looks away, bouncing slightly as if she’s still full of energy with nowhere to go. “Went poorly. Wasn’t fast enough. No crawl for me.”
She’s livid. She only ever reverts to broken sentences if she feels her rage is too big for words to explain. He glances behind her at Hopper, sees the older man shake his head as he pulls his rifle up closer to his body, slowing his pace down in a clear bid to give her some space.
Mike sighs, pretending he doesn’t feel the slightest bit of relief at the idea. She can handle it. He knows she can. In a fight between her and Vecna, he’d bet on her every single time without even a glimmer of doubt.
But that doesn’t mean that he wants her remotely near the danger, doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel a flutter of reassurance that Hopper will be the only one entering the Upside Down tonight.
He drops his hands down her arms, snagging one of her hands and pulling her along with him. “You’ll get there soon, El. You’ve already gained five seconds since you’ve started.”
El scoffs, looking away. She doesn’t drop his hand though. She instead uses it like a fulcrum, pulling herself to his side so she can hold up one finger in his face. “Next time? It only takes one time, Mike. One time and if I’m not there…”
“If you’re not there, Hopper retreats and comes back and tells us. We plan for an attack after,” he reasons, already imagining how happy Nancy would be when she would get to pull out her ‘How to brutally murder Vecna and make it back in time for a celebratory party’ binder. “We’re a team - all of us - but you’re our star player! There’s no point in risking you if the game is still in the first quarter!”
“Sports metaphor?” El asks, furrowing her brow at him.
He playfully scowls at her, trying to coax at least a smile out of her. “Yup. Why? Did I do a bad job? I borrowed it from Lucas and his metaphors are confusing even when he’s at his best.”
El shakes her head, looking away, but in the glow of the dying sun, he can see a smile playing at her lips. “Maybe you should leave them to Lucas.”
“Already left sports in general to him,” he replies, starting the slow walk up the hill to the station. “Can’t leave the metaphors to him too.”
“He actually knows what he’s referencing,” El points out, bumping her shoulder into him, quietly laughing when he does it right back. “You’ll get it next time maybe.”
“Hey!” Mike cries, turning to face her with an exaggerated look of dismay plastered all over his face. “Is that not also a sports phrase?”
El smiles, not even trying to hide it anymore. “Joyce says it to Hop when he gets mad at his football games. The Lions are playing even worse than last year.”
Mike wrinkles his nose. “Alright, we’ve gone too far. I don’t know what that is and I don’t want to know.”
She shrugs, glancing back at Hopper. “It’s funny to watch him at least. I messed with the TV one day and he nearly cried.”
“Hop?” Mike asks, glancing back at the man in question in shock. “Hop? Almost cried?”
El nods solemnly, looking as serious as if she were debriefing about a crawl. “They were about to tie the game. Switched it to a Miami Vice rerun. When he switched it back, it turns out they missed and he blames that for them missing the catch.”
“Miami Vice, huh?” Mike hums, tilting his head to look down at her with a smile. “He figured out it was you?”
She shrugs, a laugh playing in her eyes. Mike falls that much more in love with her. “He was mad at first but then, when they kept losing, he just switched back and watched it with me instead. It was the One-Way Ticket episode anyways. He loves that episode.”
She loves that episode. Whenever it popped up on the TV guide, she would stubbornly refuse to put on anything else, always insisting that they needed to watch it. She wouldn’t even be tempted away with kisses or promises of more and he knows it’s because of the bar scene and the song playing in the background.
“Oh yeah?” Mike laughs, letting go of her hand so he can throw his arm around her shoulder, bring her in close. She flails slightly, laughing, but goes easily enough and he leans down so he can sing in her ear: “Kyrie eleison, down the road that I must travel.”
“Stop!” El giggles, squirming in his arms when he doesn’t relent, making no real effort to actually escape him. “You still can’t sing, Mike!”
“Kyrie eleison, through the darkness of the night,” he sings louder, practically pressing his mouth against her ear, his lips brushing her lobe as he continues. “Kyrie eleison, where I'm going, will you follow?”
“A regular George Michael,” Hopper grumbles as he passes them but, when Mike glances over him, the tension has left his face and the older man isn’t quite as good at hiding his smile as he thinks he is.
“Kyrie eleison, on a highway in the night,” he finishes except, to his unending delight, El’s quiet and giggly voice joins in, her cheeks flushing red when he absolutely beams at her. She never likes to sing, only giving in if they’re lying together alone in the safety of the dark. Anytime he can convince her to join in, he swears he can feel his heart grow three sizes in his chest.
“You really can’t sing,” El manages out through her laughs, shaking her head as she straightens up, swinging her arm around his waist to pull him up as well.
Mike pouts at her, noting with satisfaction that her face has been wiped of her earlier agitation. “What happened to oh, I love you Mike Wheeler? Doesn’t my voice count in that?”
“I love you in spite of your singing,” she shoots back, snorting when that causes him to flop down on her again. He feels the familiar feel of her powers lifting him up and, with the bone deep knowledge that she would never drop him, lets go entirely, practically lying on her.
“How am I ever supposed to survive this blow?” He moans, throwing his one free hand up to drape over his eyes dramatically. “That my sweet love would abandon my singing so?”
El grins, pressing herself up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheekbone, right below his eye. “You’ll figure it out, Mike. You always do.”
Hulda, Mike decides, as he leaves his hotel and begins the trek up to Kirkjufellsfoss, would be Hopper’s worst nightmare. The sweet lady knows nothing of discretion, cheerfully informing Mike that Kyrie is possibly the waterfalls’ greatest devotee. She always rides up to the falls to see the sunrise and the sunset, always going by herself and refusing any and all company. She had come to Grundarfjörður only a year ago but, after speaking with her for only ten minutes, Hulda had offered her a hug, a job, and a place to stay.
In that exact order. The old woman had insisted that the order was extremely important to her.
‘She’s a very sweet girl,’ Hulda had said, eying him with a secret dancing around in her eyes. ‘Very sweet but very sad. Very lonely.’
It had to be her. It had to be.
But hope was dangerous. Hope had been all he had had that November night. Hope that they would end this unscathed. Hope that when they ran away, they would run together.
Hope had made his devastation that much sharper, that much more viscious. Hope had been the mocking voice he had heard after: You thought things would work out for you? You thought you could keep her safe? Could love her in peace? You idiot. You absolute idiot.
But, as much as Mike tries to convince himself otherwise, it isn’t logic that moves his legs closer and closer to the shadow of Kirkjufell. It isn’t reason or deduction or anything rational at all.
It’s hope. Undying hope. The undying conviction that he was Mike Wheeler and that meant he would always find her. He’d hear her if he was deaf and he’d see her if he was blind. He’d find her in the dark, in the cold, at the edge of the world and deep in the unknown, because he was Mike Wheeler and anything else was unthinkable.
He walks on.
Hulda had been right. It’s hilly. It’s frustrating. Mike has never been anything resembling an athlete to Ted Wheeler’s undying disappointment but it’s doable and that’s the only assurance he needs.
He keeps walking.
If she was there, she was there and his journey would end. If she wasn’t, that was okay too. He would just keep looking, just keep waiting. Penelope had waited twenty years for Odysseus. He could do that too. He could do thirty, forty, fifty years. He’d wait however long he had to for her.
He keeps going. He keeps going and he does not stop, not even to catch his breath. All he has to do is keep going, keep walking. Penelope’s faith had been rewarded. His would be too.
He keeps walking, through the ache in his legs and the hole in his heart, he keeps walking until finally, he hears the first rush of water.
It sounds limitless, impossible, unstoppable, and somewhere in Mike, something snaps lose and he runs. He runs the rest of the way, chest heaving, heart beating impossibly fast, every single muscle in his body focused on one thing. He runs and runs until,
There.
Kirkjufellsfoss is as beautiful as Hulda had promised. Three waterfalls crest and fall over a cliff, each one catching the light of the dying sun behind the mountain. They weren’t particularly large nor particularly impressive, but they shine in the light like liquid gold spilling down the mountainside. Above it, there’s a small stone bridge, a group of tourists all huddled on it, nearly each one snapping photos or pointing things out with their loved ones.
But Mike can’t focus on them. He can’t even focus on Kirkjufellsfoss or the mountain standing behind it.
His eyes lock onto a chestnut brown horse close to the bottom of the falls, to the girl sitting next to it on a rock. Her long brown hair streams in the wind, moving freely with each gust, and she sits facing the falls, legs pulled up to her chest. From here, he can see her yellow knapsack sitting next to her, see the way she presses down on her knees to scribble something down.
From here, he can see-
“El!” The name rips its way out of his throat and he screams it, loud and clear even next to the falls. The tourists don’t even react, too caught up in each other, but the girl freezes. The small piece of paper in her hand flies loose as she jumps to her feet, coming to land somewhere near the horse. She turns.
She looks at him, eyes wide, hair flowing around her. Whatever she says, whatever it is, is lost to the sound of Kirkjufellsfoss roaring next to them, but it doesn’t matter.
He runs.
He runs and El takes off too and then somewhere in the middle, in the shadow of Kirkjufell and its three waterfalls, they collide.
“Mike,” she sobs, her hands scrambling to pull him close, every bit of her as familiar as the day he had lost her.
“El,” he cries, tears streaming down his face as his legs suddenly lose all strength, bringing them crashing to the ground. It’s only the familiar strength of her powers, of the power inherent she carried, that keeps them from injury and somehow, that tears his final strand of control to absolute shreds and he buries his head in her neck, sobbing uncontrollably. He doesn’t know how long it takes for his breathing to come back under control, time completely meaningless to him now. “I waited. I waited, El. I-I-”
“I’m so sorry,” she sobs, turning her face into him, her hand coming up to cradle the back of his neck, her fingers tangling themselves into the longer hair at the back. He had lost this. He hadn’t thought it would ever come back. “I couldn’t risk you. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t lose you, not you.”
He shakes his head, not trusting any words that could leave his mouth, not trusting that worlds could even encapsulate his feelings, could even come close to conveying them. “I know, I know.”
And he does. In the darkest nights, in the nights where the bottles of vodka and bourbon and whiskey had been his only companions, he had blamed so many people. He had blamed Henry Creel. He had blamed Dr. Kay and Dr. Brenner. To his deepest shame, he had blamed Hopper, Max, Will, all of their friends. He had always blamed himself.
He had never once blamed her.
There’s no version of El Hopper, no version at all, that would ever put them at risk, that would ever weigh her life and theirs and find theirs lacking. She would always make the same choice, would always throw her life away if that meant they would all live.
That is El Hopper and how could he hate that? How could he hate the most basic tenet of her very being?
He turns his head, meeting her and pressing his forehead against her’s. He opens his eyes, staring at her own sobbing ones, and his hands comes up to cradle her face. “I love you, El,” he whispers, his voice cracking from the force of it. She sobs harder, leaning into him until their noses brush and he’s breathing his words into her. “I love you. I love you. I love you. I couldn’t- I couldn’t say it, not if it meant goodbye. I’ll never say it if it means goodbye. I love you.”
She shakes her head, her hand moving from the back of his head to his jaw. “I know,” she whimpers, her eyes finally cracking open to meet his. They’re brown and molten, as glimmering as they have ever been, and a smile breaks onto his face. “I know, Mike, I never… I’m so sorry.”
Mike brushes her tears away with his thumb, his smile growing wider until it threatens to split his face in two. “Don’t apologize. You told me to understand and I did. I did. But that didn’t mean I was going to let you do this by yourself.”
She sniffles, her tears finally slowly, finally abetting, and she leans back slightly so she can look at all him, her eyes flitting all over her face and body as if she’s recommitting everything to memory. “I couldn’t ask you to do that Mike.”
“You didn’t need to ask,” he replies, his other hand coming up to hold her face, her hands coming up to grasp his own. “I was always going to chase after you, El Hopper. I wasn’t going to let you go.”
El’s face crumbles but, before she can break into sobs again, he surges forward, capturing her lips with his.
It feels like home.
More than breaking through the waves, it feels like the sun finally shining on him again, like the universe had finally remembered the way things were supposed to be and had finally righted things once more.
It feels like them.
They break apart, their foreheads resting against each other.
“Am I dreaming?” El whispers, softly as if any louder would break the spell. “I’ve had this dream before.”
“Was the horse there?” He whispers back, eyes flitting to her animal companion creeping closer and closer to them.
Her laugh breaks their bubble, loud and sharp, and he thinks he’s never heard so beautiful a sound, so beautiful a song. He’d give anything to hear it for the rest of his life and he will. He will hear it for the rest of his life because now that he’s found her again, he’s never letting go.
“Nanna was there a lot,” she admits. “I thought I’d be riding her when I found you. Like a knight in one of your campaigns.”
“Does that make me the princess?” He asks, grinning when she laughs again, her hand letting go of his to wipe at his eyes, her touch gentle and soothing.
“You’re pretty enough to be one,” she whispers back, her voice still close to breaking, and he laughs, pulling her close to him again so he can nuzzle into her neck.
There’s silence for a moment, as the two of them kneel on the grass covered stone, intertwined with each other as it always should have been.
After a moment, Mike finds the bravery to speak. “How did you end up here, El? When you left?”
She sniffles in response, her breath coming to her fast. He thinks about retracting it, about telling her she doesn’t have to tell them, she never has to tell him, but, when she starts speaking, her voice is soft even from her spot cradled in his arms. “I took the go bag and I just ran. I ran as far as the tunnels could take me and then, when I got out, I hitchhiked. I got all the way to Chicago and I just bought a ticket to anywhere outside of the country. I ended up in the Netherlands.”
“Netherlands?” he hums, sliding himself off his knees so he can sit, dragging her into his lap. It feels so familiar yet so foreign now that the contradiction makes him want to start sobbing all over again. “Was it pretty?”
“Not enough waterfalls,” she says, her voice cracking at the end of it. He pulls her closer, wishing he could do more than just hold her, wishing he could wipe the past eighteen months from their memory entirely. “I went to Belgium, France, Switzerland. It was… It was hard. I was the dumb American asking people where any waterfalls were. I learned how to ask where are the waterfalls? In five different languages,” she laughs like its a joke but there’s something brittle and fragile about it.
El could do anything, survive anything, and somehow, people thinking she was dumb hurt more than near anything else. His blood boils as he imagines it - sixteen year old El, grieving and hurting, roaming countries where she didn’t speak the language, looking for the dream he had promised her so she could least have that comfort at the end of it all. She must have been terrified, mourning the loss of everything she had known and praying that it had been enough, and strangers had likely scorned her for it.
He could rage if it would do anything other than just alarm her.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs into her hair, wishing he could do more than offer plantitives. “I’m so sorry, El.”
She shakes her head. “No, no, it needed to happen. It needed to happen. In Switzerland, in Zurich, in a cafe, the owner had a map of different waterfalls. She was obsessed - like me. She had photos of her next to the locations - polaroids. She had one of Kirkjufellsfoss. There were three of them. Three.”
“Fate,” he tells her, feeling a glow in his chest at that imagining that same heartbroken El, that lost girl, staring at a corkboard of polaroids and feeling comfort for the first time in months.
El laughs, sniffling slightly. “I cried when I saw. I cried and cried. The lady, she only spoke German, but she gave me free coffee because of it. Es wird alles gut she kept saying to me. Over and over.”
She pulls back from him, her entire front still glued to his, looking out to the falls themselves. “I had just enough money left. I didn’t know what I would do when I got here but… But I had to come. And I did. I came and I hiked here and I thought I would just stay here forever, sleeping next to Kirkjufellsfoss. Maybe the grass would grow over me and I could just be here forever. Hulda found me after my third night, sleeping by the river.”
The name sends a jolt of electricity through his spine. “Hulda? The little old lady at the bus stop? Huge glasses? Huger scarf?”
The description makes El laugh at loud. “She’s nosy but…she does care. Cares a lot. She offered me a h-”
“A hug, a job, and a place to stay. In that order,” he echoes to her and El doesn’t even blink, only offering a gentle smile.
“She… I… I told her about you, Mike,” she says, softly like she’s confessing a secret. She is, he supposes. She had told someone about him. Even thinking about it makes his heart race in his chest uncontrollably and it throws all his interactions with that sweet but strange old lady into sharp clarity. “It was… It was November 6th. I couldn’t… I’m always supposed to go feed the horses before sunrise, clean them and tend to them. Mind the chickens. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t even get up. I couldn’t breathe. She didn’t push me. Hulda sent the girls to go do my chores and sat with me, brought me tea and cookies. She didn’t ask me to explain but I… I told her everything.”
She sucks in a deep breath, dropping her head on his shoulder. She shakes her head for a moment before stilling when he turns to rest his cheek on top of her head. Her hair is smooth, its curls having calmed into waves that flow endlessly down her back. She smells like soap and linen and he wants to stay there forever, breathing her in.
El finally sighs. “She believed me. She didn’t have a reason to but she believed me. Hulda was the first person to call me El in a year.”
Something in Mike threatens to break and the fact that things could still hurt him, could still cut something inside of him, even with her in his arms threatens to swallow him whole. “I didn’t say your name until… Until just now. When I saw you. I couldn’t. I thought… I think I thought that if I said your name and you weren’t there, it’d be like admitting something. Admitting that I can only remember you and I can’t see you, can’t be with you. Everyone tried to get me to talk about it. To try and remember the good parts except I couldn’t think about the good I had with you because it ended. It ended and it’s like everything that made me me just… Just left. Just vanished. I had it and it was gone and I was just a shell and you were a ghost and I couldn’t say your name. Couldn’t even mention you.”
She’s crying again. He can feel her tears soaking through his sweater, saturating the wool, and she’s doing those short hiccups, the ones that mean she’s trying to hold it together, trying to keep her cool. He wishes she wouldn’t. He thinks they need to break right now, need to show each other the jagged edges of who they had become.
Mike wishes they didn’t have to. He doesn’t want to cry anymore. He doesn’t want her to cry.
But now that he’s started, he can’t stop.
“Nancy, she tried the most, I think. She wanted to push off college but they wouldn’t let her, told her she’d lose her spot, and I couldn’t… I just… pretended that I was breathing to get her to go. So I didn’t have to add ruining her life to everything else. Dustin and Lucas split doing my homework. Will convinced all the teachers to cut me some slack. They dragged me to graduation and I… I didn’t want it. I didn’t want any of it. They were all hurt but they were healing and they were putting their life back together, slowly but they were doing it, and I didn’t want to. I couldn’t.”
“Mike,” El whispers, her hand coming up to curl around the back of his neck again, her fingers playing with the strands of hair. It makes him shiver. “Mike, I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head immediately, his very being rebelling against the mere thought of her apologizing. “No, it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”
Her fingers tighten in her hair, a habit she’s never quite been able to shake when she gets nervous or tense. She would always squeeze as if to hold him there, as if to ground herself.
“Mike, I could have- could have told you. Called you. I…” She sucks in a breath, pulling herself away from him completely, standing up. The loss of her warmth against him makes the chill of the cooling air that much worse. He watches, still sitting on the ground where she left him, as she runs to Nanna, still patiently waiting.
El pats the horse on the side a few times, saying something to her that he can’t quite hear, before ducking towards her knapsack, rustling around until she pulls out a bundle of papers. She stoops to the ground slightly further away, snatching something off the ground, before rushing back. Her hair flies in the wind, longer than she’s ever had it before, only held at bay with a few braids at her temple. She’s dressed cozy in an oversized knit sweater, a thick green jacket layered on top.
She looks at peace. She looks content.
And for a moment, Mike suddenly fears that he’s come to ruin it. Maybe she likes it away from everyone with no reminders of the battles she had fought. Maybe, he thinks with a rising sense of dread, that she’s come to prefer her life with Hulda and her granddaughters, with Nanna and all the other animals she took care of.
He thinks more and more about it, letting it consume him, and, just as he thinks he’s about to fall completely to pieces again, she slides to a stop in front of him, all but falling to her knees, thrusting her bundle into his hands.
They’re postcards. On top, there’s a shiny picture of a cold beach, ‘Hallo from Zandvoort!’ plastered on it in cheesy, bright font. The stack is thick, thick enough that he has to stretch his hand wide to hold it in its entirety. They’re all differing sizes, some small, some oversized, all sharing that familiar glossy feel. He can spot a cathedral’s spires, the blue and black swirls of ‘A Starry Night’, the pointed tip of the Eiffel Tower.
His heart stops.
He reaches for the top one, pulling it loose from its spot in the tied up bundle. His hands shaking, he flips it over.
Dear Mike,
I used to be so excited to see you that I couldn’t breathe. Now I can’t breathe because you’re not here. I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know if everyone is safe, if everyone is okay. I’m scared to look. Scared to find out. I hope you’re okay. I hope everyone forgets me and how I ruined everything
There are no waterfalls here. I hate it here. I want to go home.
Love, El.
He grabs the next one, a postcard of a tulip field with all the colors of the rainbow.
Dear Mike,
The postcard has purple flowers. Yellow ones too. But they’re all dead right now. No, they’re growing. They’re growing and they’ll come back. I won’t be here to see them - I have to keep going - but it’s nice to think that even when I’m far away, the flowers will always bloom again.
I asked a woman if there are any waterfalls anywhere in the country. She says Holland is a flat country and their biggest one is manmade. I’ll keep looking.
Love, El.
He flips again, pulling them out, eyes scanning frantically, phrases jumping at him in a jumbled mess.
Dear Mike -
Your birthday passed -
I think Max would like it here. There’s so many parks and skateboarders -
I wish I was home. I wish this wasn’t it -
The Rhine Falls are beautiful but not what I want. I’ll keep looking -
I passed a game shop and they had D&D in the window and I couldn’t breathe -
Love, El.
Love, El.
Love, El.
Finally, as his movements become more despreate, just as he thinks he can’t bear it, she drops a final postcard in his lap. She had been writing it when he had found her, he realizes.
It’s Kirkjufellsfoss but it’s not quite a postcard. It’s a polaroid - one she’s taken. She’s framed Nanna in the shot, the sun cresting over the her back.
Dear Mike,
Hulda insists you’ll come soon. She says I must be patient. The girls agree with her but they still just think you’re just a prince in their bedtime stories. They don’t know the truth. I want to tell them but they’re still in school. They shouldn’t be scared of the world right now - they should just be children and study. They’re graduating grade school soon anyways. Hulda and I are planning a party for them.
You would have graduated already, right? I bet you looked so handsome in your robe. Dustin would have made valedictorian. I’m sure his speech made the parents gasp and all of you laugh. I wish I could have heard it.
I miss you, Mike. I miss you every day, every minute, every second. I miss you.
I just have to be patient.
Lov -
He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe and he looks up at her, tears already streaming down his face, and El smiles sadly at him.
“I told myself if I could convince myself that you were safe, that there was no threat, I’d send it. I’d send it and… and hope that you’d still want to come. But I didn’t… I was- I am so scared. I can’t be the reason you get hurt, Mike.” She says, looking down at her lap, her hands twisting endlessly. “I didn’t… I didn’t want to be the reason you give up Hawkins, give up everyone, give up your home.”
Mike lunges forward, one hand grasping the bundle to his chest, right on his heart, and the other grabbing her hand. She looks up, eyes wide, and he can’t believe he didn’t have this, didn’t have her, for so long.
“El, it wasn’t home,” he says, the words spilling out of him in a rush. “It wasn’t home. It could never be home if you aren’t there. I-I… You’re my home, El. You’re my home and we could be anywhere. Anywhere and as long as you were there, I would be okay. We could be in Zandvoort, in Grundarfjörður, in Hawkins, in the Upside Down, and it would be okay because you would be there. It doesn’t matter if people call you Kyrie or if they call me Dave because, at the end of it, you’re El and I’m Mike and that’s all that matters. That’s all.”
El looks at him, eyes wide, tears falling down her face. Even with the only twilight sky to light her, she shines with a light all of her own. She was everything, all that mattered, all he needed, all he loved.
She leans forward, pressing her forehead against his, sighing so deep it’s like he can feel the tension leave, feel the stress and anxiety melt away from her.
He feels it leave him too, feels the light and the warmth returning to his body, reminding him that it had been like this once - simple and soft and warm - and it will be like it again.
They stay like that for a moment longer, breathing as one.
“I bet Hulda is waiting for us. Do you want to go home, Mike?” El asks softly, her hand floating over his face, fingertips dancing over his cheekbones and jaw.
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. He pushes forward, pressing his lips to hers, and letting that be his promise.