Chapter Text
The newsroom never slept.
Even late in the afternoon, the air buzzed with the sound of ringing phones, clacking keyboards, raised voices arguing over headlines and deadlines. Cigarette smoke lingered in the corners despite the rules, clinging stubbornly to the walls like an unspoken protest against change.
Nancy Wheeler loved it.
She stood at her desk, papers spread out in front of her, red pen in hand, her brow furrowed in concentration as she reread the same paragraph for the third time. The story was solid—better than solid, actually—but that didn’t mean it would survive the editorial meeting intact.
It never did.
“Nancy.”
She looked up.
Richard Coleman, one of the senior editors, stood a few feet away, arms crossed, eyes flicking—briefly, pointedly—to her stomach before returning to her face.
“You sure you should be working on this one?” he asked. “It’s… demanding.”
Nancy’s jaw tightened.
“I’m five months pregnant,” she replied evenly. “Not incapacitated.”
A few nearby reporters glanced over, pretending not to listen.
Richard cleared his throat. “I just mean—maybe something lighter would be more appropriate. Human interest, lifestyle—”
“I’ve been following this case for three months,” Nancy interrupted. “I have sources you don’t. I’ve fact-checked every claim. And I’m the one who uncovered the discrepancies in the city records.”
A beat.
Richard sighed. “You’re very… passionate.”
There it was.
Nancy forced herself not to roll her eyes.
“I’m doing my job,” she said. “The same way I’ve always done it.”
He hesitated, then finally nodded. “Fine. But don’t overdo it.”
As he walked away, Nancy exhaled slowly, her hand instinctively resting on her stomach. Beneath her palm, there was the faintest flutter—barely noticeable, but unmistakably real.
I’m doing this for you too, she thought.
She straightened, shoulders squared, and went back to work.
Across the newsroom, Jonathan Byers adjusted the lens on his camera, eyes focused, patient. He waited—not for perfection, but for truth. That was always what he looked for. The moments people didn’t know were being seen.
A woman laughing too hard at a joke she didn’t find funny.
A man staring at his hands after a phone call.
The quiet tension between two people standing inches apart.
Jonathan raised the camera and clicked.
Perfect.
He lowered it and glanced toward Nancy’s desk.
She was standing again, arguing quietly with another editor, her hands moving as she spoke, her expression fierce and unyielding. Jonathan felt a familiar swell of pride—and concern.
She pushed herself harder than anyone he knew.
And the world did everything it could to push back.
He crossed the room and stopped beside her, resting a gentle hand on her lower back. Nancy startled slightly, then relaxed when she saw him.
“Hey,” he murmured. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Just… same old.”
Jonathan met the editor’s gaze calmly. “She’s right about the sources,” he said. “I photographed the documents myself.”
The editor hesitated, then shrugged and walked away.
Nancy looked at Jonathan, a small smile tugging at her lips. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know,” he said softly. “But I wanted to.”
They stood there for a moment, the noise of the newsroom washing over them.
Jonathan’s thoughts drifted, as they often did, back to Hawkins.
To Will.
To Joyce.
To the house that had once felt too small, too loud, too full of fear—and now felt impossibly far away.
He missed his brother more than he knew how to say.
That evening, they walked home together, the city alive around them—sirens, voices, footsteps echoing against concrete. Nancy moved more slowly now, Jonathan matching her pace without comment.
“I talked to another editor today,” Nancy said quietly. “He suggested I take a ‘break’ after the baby’s born.”
Jonathan frowned. “A break.”
“Yeah. You know. Stay home. ‘Focus on family.’”
His jaw tightened. “Did he suggest that to anyone else?”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
They stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the light.
“I don’t want to disappear,” Nancy admitted. “I worked too hard for this. I fought too hard.”
Jonathan turned to her. “You won’t,” he said firmly. “Not if you don’t want to.”
She looked at him, eyes shining slightly. “You really believe that?”
“I believe in you,” he said. “Always have.”
The light changed.
They crossed the street hand in hand.
Later that night, in their small apartment, Jonathan developed his photos in the bathroom-turned-darkroom, moving carefully, methodically. He watched the images appear slowly, like memories surfacing.
He thought of Will’s laugh. Of Mike’s intensity. Of Lucas’s steady loyalty. Of Dustin’s endless curiosity.
Of Hopper and Joyce, somewhere in Montauk now, finally—finally—choosing peace.
And he wondered how long peace ever really lasted.
Nancy lay on the couch, one hand on her stomach, the other holding a notebook filled with ideas, notes, unfinished leads. She glanced toward the bathroom door.
“You okay in there?” she called.
“Yeah,” Jonathan replied. “Just… thinking.”
She smiled faintly. “You do that a lot.”
He joined her a few minutes later, sitting carefully beside her.
“Do you ever miss it?” Nancy asked. “Hawkins.”
Jonathan thought for a long moment.
“I miss the people,” he said finally. “Not the fear.”
Nancy nodded. “Me too.”
They sat in silence, the weight of the future settling gently—but firmly—around them.
Outside, the city kept moving.
Unaware…
————
Robin Buckley had learned how to breathe again in Florida.
It hadn’t happened all at once. It wasn’t some dramatic moment of clarity, no grand realization under a palm tree with the ocean roaring in the background. It had been slower than that. Quieter. Painfully ordinary.
She stood at the nurses’ station of the hospital, flipping through patient charts, her movements confident, practiced. Her hair was pulled back neatly now—no wild curls falling into her face the way they used to when she was younger, more frantic, more unsure of herself. Her scrubs were clean, her posture straight.
People trusted her.
That still surprised her sometimes.
“Buckley,” one of the doctors called, not unkindly. “Room 214 needs meds in ten.”
“On it,” Robin replied immediately.
She grabbed the tray and headed down the corridor, the familiar smell of antiseptic filling her lungs. Hospitals used to make her nervous. Too many memories of injuries, of blood, of fear. Of watching people she loved hurt and nearly disappear.
Now, though, it felt different.
Now, she was the one helping.
As she adjusted the IV in the patient’s room, her mind drifted—as it often did when her hands were busy—to Hawkins.
To the mall.
To the elevator.
To Steve’s voice, yelling her name like it could pull her back from the edge.
She finished her task, offered the patient a small smile, and stepped back into the hallway, leaning briefly against the wall.
She had left Hawkins to survive.
She stayed in Florida to become herself.
Later that evening, Robin sat alone in her small apartment, windows open to let in the warm, salty air. The TV played quietly in the background, some sitcom she wasn’t really watching.
She stared at the ceiling, arms folded behind her head.
Coming out hadn’t been easy—not in the late ‘90s, not in hospitals where whispers traveled faster than facts. There had been looks. Questions disguised as jokes. Long pauses after she mentioned a date instead of a boyfriend.
But there had also been relief.
No more hiding.
No more rewriting her own sentences mid-thought.
No more pretending parts of herself didn’t exist.
She was tired of pretending.
Still, freedom didn’t erase trauma.
Sometimes, late at night, the memories came back sharp and uninvited. The cold. The darkness. The feeling of being trapped inside something that didn’t care whether you lived or died.
She had escaped.
But parts of her were still there.
The phone rang.
Robin flinched before she could stop herself.
She stared at it for a moment, then picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hey, dingus.”
Her lips curved upward instantly.
“Steve,” she said, warmth flooding her voice. “Please tell me you didn’t call just to insult me.”
“Wow,” Steve replied. “I risk long-distance charges for this?”
She laughed softly, sinking onto the couch. “How are the kids?”
Steve launched into an animated update—Edward refusing to sleep, Jackson throwing food like it was a sport, Kitty threatening to ban baseball equipment from the house entirely.
Robin listened, smiling, picturing it all.
“That sounds…” she paused, searching for the word. “Good. Really good.”
Steve’s voice softened. “It is. But—” he hesitated. “I miss you.”
Her chest tightened.
“I miss you too,” she admitted.
There was a brief silence.
“Lucas called Mike,” Steve said finally.
Robin sat up straighter. “What?”
“Yeah. He and Max might be coming back.”
Something twisted low in her stomach—fear and anticipation tangled together.
“Do you think it’s happening again?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know,” Steve said. “But if it is… I wanted you to know.”
Robin closed her eyes.
Hawkins never stayed buried for long.
“Thanks for calling,” she said softly. “Really.”
“Anytime, Buckley.”
When the call ended, Robin sat there for a long moment, phone still in her hand.
Then she stood up and went to her desk.
She hadn’t written Nancy in months.
Not because she didn’t care—quite the opposite. Life had simply moved. Work. Distance. Time zones. That quiet drift that happened when survival stopped being the only goal.
Robin pulled out a sheet of paper and a pen.
She hesitated.
Then she began to write.
Dear Nancy,
I’m terrible at this, so I’m just going to say it. I think about you more than you probably realize. About all of you. About Hawkins and how we somehow survived it.
Florida is… different. I’m different. I don’t hide anymore. That part feels good. Free. But some nights I still feel like that girl in the mall, pretending not to be scared while everything falls apart.
Steve called today. He says Lucas and Max might come back. I don’t know what that means yet, but it made me miss you more than usual.
I hope you’re okay. I hope you’re happy. And if you ever need me—really need me—I’m only a phone call away.
Love,
Robin
She folded the letter carefully, slipped it into an envelope, and wrote Nancy’s address in neat, deliberate letters.
For the first time in a while, she felt the past and the present overlap—not painfully, but meaningfully.
Whatever was coming…
She wasn’t alone anymore