Chapter Text
William and Amanda Byers are born on March 22nd, 1971.
It’s a freezing night. The wind howls through the hospital’s corridors, bending the trees outside the darkened windows.
Joyce Byers is just shy of 29 years old, and delivers her children alone, with only the night-shift nurses to hold her hand.
Amanda is the first to come, a healthy – if somewhat small – baby girl covered in blood and yellow gunk. She comes out shaking her fists and screaming her tiny lungs out, angry at being pulled out into the harsh white lighting of the hospital. William came next, eleven minutes and twenty seconds after his twin at the very end of a 16-hours-long labor.
He’s born smaller than his sister, too small, and comes out silent, his lips blue and fingers purple. When two heartbeats pass and not a single breath has moved his tiny chest, the delivery room bursts into action, the doctor and nurses fearing the worst. Joyce - lonely, terrified and in so much pain – can barely lift up her head to demand answers, tears mingling with the sweat on her face as she whispers over and over through cracked lips to the nearest nurse, demanding the woman to just tell her what is wrong with her baby boy.
Amanda wails, loud in the arms of a frantic nurse, and then -
William breathes.
A loud cry comes from his lips, and Joyce sobs with relief, and then both children are placed in her arms.
Just like that, all the pain, fear and loneliness she had felt in the last sixteen hours is forgotten.
Once the two babies are just little bundles in their matching pink and blue blankets, Joyce manages to convince one of the nurses to call her husband, Lonnie, who had walked out of the room on the 4th hour of labor and hadn’t returned since. He stumbles back to the hospital smelling like sweat and beer, his eyes glassy and his cheeks pink around a dazed smile. He pukes in a trashcan in the entrance hall, and pushes a nurse when she tries to stop him from coming into Joyce’s room.
The doctor that delivered her babies steps in then, and doesn’t let him inside.
Lonnie is only allowed back hours later, this time smelling like soap and shampoo.
Jonathan comes with him this time, the Tom & Jerry backpack he’d taken to stay at the neighbors’ clutched in his four-year-old grip. He jumps onto his mother’s bed, brown eyes wide under his blonde bowl-cut. His knees dig into Joyce’s thigh, but she can’t find it in herself to complain, and simply moves herself so her now eldest child can see his brother and sister for the first time.
“Jonathan, this is your little brother William,” She nods at Will, sleeping peacefully cradled in her arms, then at Amanda, wrapped in a pink blanket in a crib by her bed. “and that one is your little sister Amanda.”
Jonathan smiles, big and dimpled, his chubby hands smelling of rubbing alcohol. He raises a finger and caresses William’s hair, impossibly gentle, as he always is.
“Will.” Jonathan says, a determined frown on his brow as he does his best to memorize their names. He looks over at his sister, a smile breaking out on his face. He reaches to the crib, one pudgy hand curling around its rim to lightly sway it back and forth, rocking Amanda’s tiny form. “and ’Manda.”
Lonnie huffs at the edge of Joyce’s bed, disdainful of his son’s softness. Joyce’s heart twists, but she doesn’t let it show as she continues smiling at her eldest son.
Jonathan is perfect just the way he is, her little love, her little joy.
“I like them. They can sleep in my room.”
Joyce smiles, “They already have their own bedroom, honey, remember? It’s the one you helped me paint.”
“Oh, right.” Jonathan nods, serious. He rocks Amanda in her crib, furrowing his brows. “They sleeped a lot in your belly, why are they sleeping now? Can’t we play?”
“Not right now, baby. They’re really, really tired.”
Jonathan pouts, and scoots over to lay down next to Joyce. She laughs, expertly avoiding being kicked in the stomach as he throws all his weight on her left side. Will gets jostled a bit, but continues to sleep peacefully in her arms.
“But I want to play now. I waited forever.” Jonathan insists, “And I brought my dinosaur.”
“They still have to grow up a little bit for the three of you to play together, baby.” Joyce explains, freeing one of her hands to brush back Jonathan’s fringe, “And then you’re going to play a lot, and be the best of friends. You can teach them how to play with your blocks, you can play with your dinosaurs and your plushies… You’ll have so much fun together. I promise you it won’t take long for that to happen.”
“Really?” Jonathan says, a bit too loud for a newborn’s ears.
Joyce can’t fault his enthusiasm, and shushes him fondly, not actually reprimanding. “Really. ”
Jonathan smiles even wider, smushing his cheek against her arm and looking down at Will pure adoration on his face.
At the foot of the bed, Lonnie grunts and rolls his eyes.
Cold fury ignites her chest. Here she is, after sixteen fucking hours of labor, heart still jumping from the terror of Will almost not making it, and this is how her husband - the father of her children - acts? He hasn’t said a word about Mia and Will, not a single fucking word-
“Mommy look!” Jonathan says, a hand slapping against her elbow and shaking it none too gently. “She’s yawning!”
And so she is. Amanda opens her pink mouth in a large ‘O’, whole face screwing up. Her nose is red, and so are her cheeks. Her eyes, a dark, blind green, open just a sliver, looking around before closing once again.
Joyce’s fury immediately fades.
She looks at Jonathan, at his wide brown eyes and kind cheeks, and all she feels is love in her heart, that has now grown two sizes bigger to accommodate her littlest babies.
There might have been a time when Lonnie was in there too, in a fresh, red space carved out just for him at the tender age of eighteen, but that part has been shrinking for so long and so steadily, that it had barely stung when Lonnie walked out of the hospital’s door earlier that day.
Now, she feels that shriveled up, blackened piece blink out of existence.
Now there’s only space for Jonathan and Will and Amanda – they are and will always be the true loves of her life. The only ones she’ll ever need.
They’re hers, and only hers, and she’s damn well proud of them, even if Lonnie isn’t.
*
Still, Joyce can’t afford to raise three kids on her own.
William learns to smile before Amanda, who then proceeds to stand up before Will has even mastered crawling around the living room rug. Will’s first word is ‘Mama’, and Amanda’s is ‘No’, and soon after their first birthday, Jonathan proclaims them both Will and Mia, the nicknames sticking like the glitter in Jonathan’s colorful drawing of their family that hangs on the fridge.
Their names are too big, too old, Jonathan says, these ones are small and brand new, made just for them.
Joyce loves their nicknames.
Lonnie only calls them William and Amanda.
Will and Mia are two years old and terrible when they move from Indianapolis back to Hawkins, Indiana. It’s June and Lonnie has refused to pay the increased rent of their shitty suburban home on the west end of town, so they all pack their bags and move to the house that had once belonged to Joyce’s mother, which had been sitting empty at the end of a long dirt road ever since Joyce married Lonnie and moved out.
Lonnie hates the house.
He hates how small it is, hates the crumbling shed out back, hates that the house only has one floor, four rooms and a kitchen that was last renovated in the forties. He hates the lack of neighbors, hates the faulty wiring that he has to replace on their first week there, and hates the way the windows freeze during winter.
But most of all, Lonnie hates how much Joyce loves it.
How could she not love it? It’s her childhood home.
She looks at the crumbling shed and remembers the tools she used to keep in it to explore the woods in their backyard; sees the front yard and thinks of her first kiss under the porchlight. She looks at the four rooms and remembers her father’s cigarette-ash smell, the office that was full to the brim with his students’ tests and homework from the high-school that Joyce had graduated in. She remembers the sound of her mother’s sewing machine coming from the room right next to hers. No neighbors around had once meant loud music until the early morning hours, spinning on top of her father’s shoes; and the faulty wiring meant candle-light dinners during the worst summer storms, her mother’s bright smile a lighthouse in the darkness, while outside the winds threatened to shake the house apart.
Now, the empty bookshelves that once held her father’s most cherished books hold Lonnie’s records and magazines. Joyce’s sunflower-yellow childhood bedroom becomes Mia and Will’s, the sounds that used to come from Cynthia Byers’ sewing room turning into the shouts and giggles of Jonathan’s make-pretend games.
Lonnie and Joyce take her parents’ old bedroom, the only one with air conditioning, where her growth spurt from ‘54 is etched in her mother’s chicken-scratch handwriting on the door jamb. She looks at the popcorn ceiling and her heart longs for the nights when she would curl up in bed between her parents, safe and warm in a way she’s rarely felt after they died when she was 17.
Lonnie looks at the ceiling and complains about infiltration.
Lonnie drinks and is always late to his work at night. Joyce works the entire day at local stores, trusting a sixteen-year-old Leah Callahan to watch them while Lonnie sleeps, doing her best to spend what little time she has free with her babies. They grow like weeds, filling her to bursting with pride and love.
(And shame too, because Jonathan’s shirts don’t always fit. Will’s shoes rip wide open while playing in the yard and Mia more often than not gets her brother’s hand-me-downs. Joyce knows how it feels to look like a boy when you don’t want to look like one, knows that ache in the back of the throat whenever looking at summer dresses and sparkly earrings on the shops downtown, because she had felt it too, once, and too often she sees that same ache in Mia’s green eyes, whenever Joyce tells her they can’t buy this dress now, sweetheart, maybe on your birthday, alright?)
Some nights, however, Joyce stays awake in the kitchen, smoking.
She looks out at the dark trees and imagines a life in which there’s no Lonnie lying in her bed, still smelling of beer. Imagines a big house, with a brand new kitchen and no fire-hazards, where she lives, happily with her kids, watching them grow instead of having to slave away at her work for most of the day to pay the babysitter and the groceries and the fucking light above their heads while her husband, the father of her children does nothing at all but sit on his ass and burn most of the money that should be going towards their family and not to his booze and -
But she snaps out of it. She puts out her cigarette, opens the kitchen window to air out the smoke.
The kids need a father, and she can barely afford raising two toddlers and a child on her own, much less afford remodeling the house.
Such dreams bring nothing but heartache.
Two years pass in the blink of an eye, Lonnie loses his job, the babysitter moves to Ohio, and a million other things happen, and before she notices, Joyce’s taking pictures of Mia and Will side by side on their first day of kindergarten.
Jonathan stands impatiently by the front door, squirming on his feet, anxious to show his birthday present, a new toy car, to his best and only friend Steve.
Lonnie barks at him to cut that shit off, already, and a hush falls over the room.
Joyce glares at Lonnie, who glares right back.
Jonathan’s quiet after that, eyes turned to the floor. Joyce lays a hand on his shoulder and steers him to the car, cursing Lonnie inside her head.
Joyce curses him the entire ride to the school, listening with half an ear to Mia and Will chattering about what they think their day will be like, how Mia’s going to show her Big Bird plushie to everyone in the school and how Will is already planning to give their teacher, Mrs. Buckley, the Kermit drawing he’d made just for her last night.
The twins had met Mrs. Buckley last week and the first thing they did, obviously, was ask her which Sesame Street character was her favorite. Much to Will’s happiness, she had answered Kermit. Mia, whose favorite character was Oscar the Grouch, hadn’t been all that happy and had proceeded to pout until Mrs. Buckley told her they had an Oscar plushie in the classroom’s toy box. After that, the little upset had been promptly forgotten about.
Joyce leaves them at the school, and spends the entire day looking anxiously at the clock of the store, hoping to God that Lonnie won’t forget to pick up the twins when 14:40 arrives, because she’s only getting off work at six today.
She arrives home to the wonderful sight of Jonathan and the twins curled up on the couch together, the two four-year olds fast asleep on Jonathan’s thighs while Jonathan reads an X-Men comic over their heads, tracing the words with his fingers. Lonnie sits by the kitchen table, two cans of beer in front of his half-eaten plate of microwaved lasagna. The kids’ plates are piled by the sink, empty.
At least he had fed the kids tonight.
Joyce heats up some lasagna for herself, while Jonathan tries – and fails – to extricate himself from his siblings without waking them up. Mia and Will are wide awake as soon as he moves, and once they realize Joyce’s home, run over on bare feet to stand by her on the kitchen sink, one on either side of her.
They each grip one belt loop of her jeans while they watch the lasagna turn around inside the microwave, and launch into their story of their first ever day of kindergarten.
Mia tells Joyce about a girl in blonde pigtails that had tried to grab her Big Bird plushie, and Will tells about his new bestest friend, a boy named Mike Wheeler that lives on Maple Street, and has the best lunchbox, and can he please, please, please go visit?
Joyce glances at Mia, sees her looking a bit enviously at Will.
She hadn’t said anything about making friends today.
“Of course you can, honey.” Joyce tells Will, taking her plate out of the microwave and shoveling forkfuls of half-hot-half-cold lasagna in her mouth. “Why don’t you take Mia with you? I’m sure she’d love to be friends with Mike as well.”
Will takes one look at Mia’s hopeful hazel eyes and nods enthusiastically.
Will gasps suddenly, bringing up his other hand to grip the hem of Joyce’s jeans, nearly pulling the whole thing down her hip, and hoisting himself up against her side, clinging with all four limbs to her leg and stomach.
Will’s favorite thing since he was six-months old was climbing over Joyce like a little monkey, and despite the bruises he’s sure to leave from how tight he’s squeezing her, it warms her, knowing that this, at least, is something he hasn’t outgrown yet.
“Mommy, mommy, mommy!” Will shouts, “I have three bestest friends now!”
“Three?” She hadn’t heard any other name other than Mike Wheeler and the Sinclair boy that had accidentally kicked Will during nap time.
Will beams at her, bright and dimpled, “Mia and Jonathan and Mike!”
Joyce’s heart just about melts.
When she sits down to eat, Will and Jonathan ask for bites of her lasagna and end up eating half of it. Mia drinks the last of the orange juice. Joyce takes note to buy more food tomorrow, and goes to bed, still hungry.
She’d give her children the world even if it meant she’d have none of it.
*
When the twins turn five, Lucas Sinclair is invited to Will’s birthday party. Lucas, Mike, Mia and Will immediately become the best of friends during a game of tag and afterwards, Joyce adds another address and phone number to her fridge.
Lucas is a sweet, polite little boy that always includes Mia in their plays. He has a little sister named Erica that sometimes comes along and trails behind them all like a tiny duckling in corduroy overalls.
Will colors a cute picture of all of them on a spaceship, with the 120-colors crayon pack that Joyce gifts him as a birthday present. The new puppy that Mia had gotten as a present - named Chester, like the cheese, she had said, probably meaning to say Cheddar - watches dutifully from Will’s lap all the while.
Once it’s finished, Joyce hangs the drawing in the fridge.
Joyce and Lonnie argue that night - what the hell were they going to do with a dog, and was she insane, how could she spend that much money on crayons?
At least she had given them something. He couldn’t even be bothered to show up to his children’s birthday party at his own house.
Lonnie shouts at her. Joyce shouts at him. Lonnie takes the drawing down from the fridge and rips it in half.
The next morning, when Will asks about it, Joyce tells him Chester had eaten it.
When the twins turn 8, Dustin Henderson and his mother Claudia, move into a house on the odd side of Oak Lane. Dustin is a chubby kid, all curly hair and sweet smiles, even though he’s at that age where boys are usually rough and rambunctious. He’s shy too, hanging onto his mother’s hand when Claudia comes into Melvald’s store.
Something in him makes Joyce think he’ll get along well with her babies, and she is not at all surprised when she sees Dustin sitting with Will and Mia, as well as Lucas and Mike, three days later, when she comes to pick the twins up from their first day of 3rd Grade.
That same year, their new science teacher, Mrs. Blackburn, assigns Will and Mia’s class a solar system project, to be done in pairs. Mike had grabbed Will before Mia could do so, and Lucas had grabbed Dustin, so Mia had ended up paired with the Hayes girl, Jennifer, a blonde pigtailed little thing, absolutely covered in colored marker scribbles.
Joyce’s seen her multiple times on the backseat of the Hayes’ car around town, and every week her mother came out of melvald’s with a handful of new art supplies.
Jennifer stops by the Byers’ house on two consecutive Saturdays to do the project with Mia. Which means that on one saturday, the girls throw glitter over a piece of Styrofoam painted indigo blue by Joyce; and on the other, they stick the planets, that Joyce and Jennifer’s mom had also colored, into barbecue sticks, which they stick with a bit too much glee into the Styrofoam space.
Jennifer leaves with half a cup of glitter in her blonde pigtails and their styrofoam Jupiter ends up pink. Mia says it’s an artistic license, mommy. And after that, Jennifer continues to come over on Saturday evenings even when there’s no school project to be done.
She’s Mia’s best friend now, and Joyce couldn’t be happier to see her little girl finally making some friends of her own.
Jonathan, on the other hand, has been too quiet lately. He’s been getting into fights at school, and his previous friendship with Steve Harrington seems to have fallen through after Tommy Hughes sat with Steve in Science, from the little that Jonathan tells her about his days.
Lonnie, as usual, is far from happy.
They fight every day now, over what Lonnie thinks is proper ‘manly behavior’ from Jonathan, over Will’s colorful drawings, over the ‘tomboy’ Hayes girl that instilled a newfound love for softball in Mia, over what Joyce spends her money on, their lackluster sex life, what Joyce wears, what Joyce makes for them to eat.
Nothing is ever good enough for Lonnie: not their kids, not their house, and certainly not Joyce.
And then, one night after a particularly loud argument, Lonnie shoves Joyce against the fridge, his hand curling around her throat.
Before she can process the terror rising inside herself, there’s a yell from the doorway and Jonathan comes running, his fists raised. Lonnie barely looks at Jonathan, before he turns around and slaps him in the face with the back of his hand, throwing him to the ground.
Joyce sees red.
She doesn’t know how she does it, but she breaks out of Lonnie’s grip and strikes the heel of her palm against his nose, just like Jim Hopper had showed her to hit pervs back when they were seventeen.
No one puts a hand on her kids. Much less Lonnie.
She breaks Lonnie’s nose that night. While he’s at the hospital getting it checked out, Joyce packs his things and leaves them by the front door.
Months later, Joyce would regret sending him off with his car and his bags and not on the back of a police cruise.
Because that’s when Joyce begins to question the ease with which Lonnie had just turned around and smacked their kid. That’s when she realizes that Jonathan hadn’t even cried afterwards, had just stood with tears in his eyes and a clenched jaw while Joyce pressed a bag of peas from the freezer to his face.
He hadn’t been scared or confused that his dad had hit him, hadn't even looked surprised.
She realized it then.
It had happened before.
She thinks back on the split lip she had seen on Jonathan when she came back from work one evening (I was playing with Will, Mom), thinks back on the times Lonnie had been called to school because Jonathan – Jonathan, who was such a sweet, caring boy – had been involved in a fight.
Or so Lonnie had said.
She thinks back on every single slur Lonnie had said when talking to her about Will, every pull of shirt collar, every shove to the shoulder, every hard clutch of an upper arm she had ever glimpsed. She thinks of all those times and hates herself for not seeing it sooner.
She’s such a fucking terrible mom.
Joyce officially asks for the divorce and and gets full custody of her kids. Lonnie gets a few court-mandated weekends, but he never comes around to pick the kids up.
Joyce couldn’t be happier.
In the months that follow, Joyce struggles to keep her family afloat, struggles to find a way to talk to Mia, Will and Jonathan about Lonnie.
Jonathan, at first, doesn’t tell her anything, just listening as she asks question after question about his time with Lonnie, with his head ducked down. He starts opening up little by little over the course of weeks. About how rough dad was with him, the backhanded slaps, the punches to the stomach, the hunting trips to the woods to toughen him up and make him become a “real man”.
Will caves in easily on a single afternoon. He cries in her arms, fingers clenched tight on the back of Joyce’s shirt as he tells her everything his father had said to him these past years, the occasional slap to the face whenever he ‘did something wrong’, the rough shoves and shaking. Will sobs and trembles in her arms, saying he doesn’t understand what he did wrong for his father to never love him.
Joyce regrets sending Lonnie off without punching his teeth out. Or ripping out his arms with her bare hands.
Mia, on the other hand, had very little to say about Lonnie.
“Is Daddy ever coming back?” Mia had asked, scratching her freckled cheek.
Joyce had just explained to her again that she and Lonnie were getting divorced and that meant that Daddy wouldn’t be living with them anymore.
Joyce had told it to the three of them at the table that very first morning after kicking Lonnie out on his ass, but while Jonathan swallowed down his tears and Will had started sobbing, Mia hadn’t even seemed to register it, continuing to eat her scrambled eggs as if it was any other morning. Time and time again in these past weeks, Joyce had taken her aside to see how she was taking it.
“No, honey.” Joyce says. She kneels down in front of Mia on the living room couch, pretending not to see Jonathan and Will spying on them from around the hallway corner. She pushes Mia’s bangs away from her face, runs a thumb under her daughter’s hazel eyes. It’s almost the same color as Will’s (the same as Lonnie’s) but her hair and face is all Joyce. “Your dad isn’t coming back.”
“Good.” Mia nods her head, swinging her legs to hit her heels against the couch. “He always hurt everyone. I didn’t like it.”
Guilt spreads down to Joyce’s fingertips, lightening fast and cold. She squeezes her hands into fists, but it doesn’t help. The ache is deep, down in her bones. How did she not see it?
Why hadn’t her children come to her?
“Did he ever hurt you, sweetie?” She asks her daughter.
Mia had always been a moody kid, prone to tantrums and pout fests, grouchy and opinionated. Those moods had always reflected in her eyes and all Joyce ever needed to do was look into them to know exactly what was going on through her daughter’s mind.
Now, the ten-year-old looks up at Joyce, and for the first time, Joyce can’t identify the emotion in them.
“Not really.” Mia shrugs, “Can I go play with Will, now?”
Joyce looks her over for a second more, heart in her throat, but relents, gesturing at her to go. Mia pushes herself off the couch, skips to the hallway where Will and Jonathan are scrambling to hide themselves.
Joyce watches her take Will’s and Jonathan’s hands to drag them outside to play, heart aching in her chest.
Not really. Mia’s voice repeats itself in her head late at night, as she tosses and turns on her bed.
Not really, it echoes, as Joyce smokes cigarette after cigarette on their porch, watching the kids play on the lawn the next morning, trying in vain to figure out what it could mean.
*
On the day Joyce signs the last of the divorce papers, Jonathan, Will and Mia start building Castle Byers in the woods behind their home.
Joyce helps them with supplies and cushions and even with her favorite tablecloth to act as the door. It rains terribly for two straight days, but Will doesn’t want to stop and he has both Jonathan and Mia wrapped around his little finger, so Joyce resigns herself to nursing three sick children once the whole fort is up.
She ends up getting sick too, and Jonathan learns how to make tea, and to mix salt and ginger to hot water to relieve all of their sore throats.
They learn how to heal.
Together.
It helps that they also have other people to fall back on. Joyce had few friends growing up, but now, Joyce has found a friend in Claudia Henderson and in a surprisingly kind Karen Wheeler, as well as Abigail Hayes, who always come over with some new baked goods for Joyce to try. Joyce sees them nearly everyday, when the women stop by the store she works at or when they drop off the kids in the evenings she’s at home. They even come by her house, every odd Sunday evening with wine and cold cuts to talk about their lives and watch mind-numbing sitcoms on TV while their kids play together outside.
She hadn’t noticed how alienated Lonnie had made her feel in her own hometown until then.
But she’s not alone anymore. And thankfully, neither are her kids.
Mia and Will certainly aren’t, what with Mike, Lucas and Dustin calling everyday to see if they can all hang out at the Wheelers’ or at the Sinclairs’. Mia sleeps over at Jennifer’s as often as Jennifer sleeps over at their house. Jonathan has even found a new friend in a boy from his photography club, the son of the owner of the Ice Cream Parlor downtown, Jack Shipman, that every now and then comes to their house to listen to music.
Jonathan doesn’t seem to mind having only one friend. He must have gotten it from Joyce. Her twins are the only social butterflies of the family, Will more so than Mia. Will makes friends fast with his wide eyes and open displays of easy friendship. Mia on the other hand, helps him keep those friends, with her laughter and jokes and her stubborn loyalty. Joyce’s amazed at how well they work together: Will helps draw others into his sister’s bubble, the girl too shy to do it herself, and Mia makes sure Will’s friends don’t run over him because of his willingness to accommodate.
Joyce is so proud of them. So proud. She gets all teary-eyed at seeing the three of them together, so strong, so resilient after all that’s happened.
Jonathan may have become quieter, Will more soft-spoken, and Mia less prone to speaking up what’s in her mind, but they’re still there, doing their best at school, and making friends and living.
And that’s more than enough for her.
Chapter Text
For years, it's been the six of them: Jennifer and Mia to one side; Lucas, Mike, Dustin and Will to the other. On birthday parties, both groups are invited for sleepovers. More often than not, Mom asks Mia to go with Will to the Wheelers’ on the days Jennifer can’t have her over, just like mom asks Will to stay the night at Jennifer’s when Mike is grounded for fighting Nancy or not cleaning his room.
Will is friends with Jennifer, just like Mia is friends with ‘The Party’ – as Will’s friends call themselves, the idiots – they all see each other every day, at school, at the arcade and at each other’s houses. They get together like “a house on fire”, Mrs. Wheeler says, though Mia can’t see how that is a good thing.
They spend so much time together that it isn’t hard for Dustin to develop a crush on Mia in sixth grade, or for the boys to think Will likes likes Jennifer all the way into eight grade after Lucas catches him talking to her in the Arts classroom alone.
Jennifer knows Will doesn’t like like her, and yet, the blonde girl plays along, giggling and kissing Will’s cheek when bidding him goodbye for dramatic effect – to Mia’s endless amusement and Will’s utter annoyance.
Jennifer says it’s practice, since she will be an actress when she grows up. Jennifer has wanted to be many things while growing up - a teacher, an astronaut, an artist like Will, but ever since she joined the theater class in fourth grade, she’s been dead set on acting.
She details her entire career path to Mia when they’re sharing Jennifer’s bed on a cold spring night of 1983, from which college she’ll get into, to the people she’ll perform with twenty years from now. Jennifer’s hands are cold between Mia’s, her socked feet rubbing against Mia’s calves for warmth
Mia feels a bit bad for Will, all the way down on the floor with only two thick blankets to keep him warm, fast asleep inside a sleeping bag, but she doesn’t really want to pull him into the bed with her and Jennifer.
Besides, Mr. Hayes has already let him sleep in Jennifer’s room, he would never allow him up on the bed.
“So…I’ll begin with Broadway, and then when I’m this big star, I’m gonna move to Hollywood to make movies. I’ve got it all figured out already, and when I’m 26, I’m gonna win an Oscar. I’ll travel the world making movies.” Jennifer whispers, blue eyes near purple under the single yellow light from the lamp by the bed. “And you’re coming with me.”
Like every other life plan of Jenny’s, Mia was included in it.
Mia smiles, burrowing further into Jennifer’s pillow, which smells faintly of bubblegum shampoo.
“I can’t.”
“Can too.” Jennifer widens her blue eyes, glittered nails catching light. “You can bring Will along. He’ll be an artist, a - a painter! He can sell paintings to all the rich people I meet - you know how rich people’s houses are, like, full of paintings everywhere. And Jonathan wants to be in a band right? It’ll be perfect. We’ll all be artists.”
“Yeah but I don’t wanna leave mom.” Mia says, “You know how much she likes it here.”
“My dad likes it here too. Says it’s safer for you kids.” Jennifer mimics her father’s voice, gruff and low, making them dissolve into giggles, even though it’s not even that funny.
For a few moments they’re both red in the face, trying and failing to quiet down in between breathless shushes. One look at Mia’s red face or Jennifer’s bulging eyes has them laughing all over again, until there’s tears rolling down both of their faces.
Their laughter trails off eventually and they lie there limp and sweaty under the covers, hands woven together, Jennifer’s blue eyes piercing even in the dark.
Mia blinks, silent, just knowing that Jennifer has more to say.
The blonde girl doesn’t disappoint. With a sigh, she turns over to her back, voice becoming quieter and more serious. “It’s just boring. There isn’t even a movie theater here anymore and nothing fun ever happens. I just wish something would happen for once.”
Mia doesn’t say anything. Just waits until Jennifer falls asleep before letting go of the girl’s hand. She turns around to lie on her stomach, lets her arm dangle over the side of the bed to brush her fingertips against the hand Will has curled next to his face.
Because the truth is this: Mia doesn’t want to move to Hollywood and travel the world, riding the tail of Jenny’s comet. Mia likes this monotony, likes the routine of living in such a small town like Hawkins. It’s nice, when you think about it. You can predict exactly how your week is going to go based on how blue the sky is on Monday. You know that when the radio says it’s going to rain, it’ll be a bright day, and that when they say it’ll be sunny, to expect rain.
People do the same thing every single day, a routine of work, school and home that never fails to repeat itself. When she goes to town with her mother, the cashiers at the stores know her name, and at the restaurant by the department store, the waitress knows her milkshake order.
It’s amazingly predictable, all of it.
Mia still remembers Jonathan’s terrified face when avoiding Dad’s punches and slaps, Will flinching when Dad yelled at him for ‘acting like a queer’, how Dad would blow up at Mom at any given time, for no reason.
Dad being mean and then nice to Mia, his hands on the back of her knees, heavy on the small of her back, on her neck.
She could never predict any of it. She would never see it coming.
Predictability is grossly underrated.
She never says any of it to Jennifer, though, because Jennifer hates the very word predictable like she hates her English homework. Which is funny, because one of the reasons Mia likes being Jenny’s friend is that Jenny is so very predictable.
Jennifer begs her dad to take her to the theater in Indianapolis every weekend and can be counted on to talk about the one time her family visited New York every time she listens to Simon and Garfunkel. She says she wants to paint her hair a new color every summer and ends up dying the same lock of hair pink. She wears glittery makeup and sneaks her mom’s black eyeliner into her room when Mia’s at her house for sleepovers, but never uses it, because it’s the only eyeliner her mom has and she doesn’t want to accidentally mess it up. She waits for Mia by the bike rack when she arrives at school every morning, and never reads all the books she picks up from the library, though she always takes them back on time. Every summer without fail, she drags Mia and Will to the Community Pool, content to lie down in the sun like a lazy cat until her parents say they’re done for the day.
Granted, Jenny tries to shake things up sometimes, but even then, it’s like clockwork.
To stave off the boredom of Hawkins, she finds a new place to explore in town every two weeks: the Jones’ pumpkin patch, the Old Sill by the Christensen’s farm, or when she’s feeling up to doing something really scary, that abandoned store downtown with creepy, headless dolls, or the Murder House on Morehead. Old, gruesome and strange places that she’ll never admit to being terrified of, where she’ll hold Mia’s hand and play up the part of the explorer, though Mia will see how much more relaxed she’ll be when they finally leave. Usually, though, Jenny and Mia explore the woods to gather cool flowers and rocks. They have spent entire days searching for hidden lakes and rivers in the woodsy areas of Hawkins, sometimes even bringing back some little critter for Dustin, who lives just across from Jenny, to see.
It’s funny how Jennifer fails to see how utterly predictable she becomes in trying not to be predictable at all.
Mia knows herself to be predictable and she likes it that way. She’s boring, and though she doesn’t like that, it’s worth it for how it helps not to draw any attention to herself.
People don’t pick on her much, not as much as they do her brother and the boys. She keeps her hair long, hides behind her bangs and shapeless hand-me-downs from Jonathan. She has a dozen barrettes in her and Will’s dresser but always uses the same three dusty pink and yellow ones. She goes to Jennifer’s house on the same days, bikes home with Will through the same road and always gets the same two scoops of choc-chip mint at the Ice Cream shop downtown.
She’d tried, once, to do something different, and wore a pink lip gloss to school. She took it off half-way through second period because Laura Daniels said she was trying ‘too hard’.
It stung, like all other taunting from the girls in their class do.
Just because she’s not picked on much as her brother and their friends, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen at all.
Mia is not well liked by the other girls in her year. She wears boys clothes, she’s small and skinny as a twig, with knobby knees and two decidedly not popular or “cute” brothers. And her best friend is Jennifer Hayes, the prettiest girl in their year.
It’s hard not to look less than when standing next to her. So Mia usually doesn’t even try. She keeps herself boring and predictable and the girls lose their interest, not entertained by making the same remarks every day.
Jennifer doesn’t like it when the other girls make fun of Mia, and though she keeps her anger contained to insults and shoulder checks in the cafeteria, she once slaps Laura Daniels during lunch and gets detention for it.
Maybe that was the most unpredictable Jenny had ever been. And surprisingly, Mia hadn’t been scared - that slap was meant to protect Mia, not hurt her or those she cared about.
Nevertheless, Mia does believe that Jennifer is serious about her dream of becoming an actress.
And she knows Jenny will be able to do it too.
Jenny’s meant for the big screen and bustling streets. She’s loud and beautiful and the best actress in their school’s theater.
But Mia is meant for the tiny towns where everyone knows everyone, and her friends are within biking distance, she’s meant to be in the audience, applauding Jennifer when the play ends.
She doesn’t think she could follow Jennifer as the girl follows her dreams.
She’s meant for the predictable. The safe. She doesn’t have the money for moving away anyway. She doesn’t even know what she wants to do when she’s older. She’ll leave the artistry for Jonathan, Will and Jenny and stay back here with her mom.
She would like the company, Mia thinks. Maybe Mia will be a clerk at some store downtown, like her mom.
She doesn’t really have a problem with that.
Really, she doesn’t.
Mia sighs, presses her fingertips to Will’s curled palm until it opens like a flower to the sun. She pokes his palm and watches the clock hands turn on Jennifer’s bedside table until Diana, Jennifer’s next-door neighbor’s cocker spaniel, howls.
It’s one a.m., and she hears Mr. Keen coming back to his house.
Mia had spent many nights with Jenny spying on the neighbors and reporting their findings to her mom. It’s how Mia knows it’s Mr. Keen without having to look out the window. Mia once heard Mom gossiping with Mrs. Holloway from the store next to Melvald’s that he’s been cheating on his wife with Mrs. Keaton from Cherry Oak Road, and that they meet together at the Motel at Cornwallis.
It’s the same every Thursday, at 1 a.m. on the dot.
As usual, Mr. Keen’s squeaky garage door falling shut wakes up Mr. Hayes. And exactly ten minutes after they first hear that sound, Mr. Hayes gets up to pee.
And he always checks in on them on his way back to his room.
Knowing that had always saved them from being grounded for staying up too late many times. On the Thursdays when Mia slept over, Jenny and her would settle down as soon as Sussex started barking, and by the time Mr. Hayes checked in on them, Mia and Jennifer would already be lying nice and quiet under the covers, as if they had been sleeping since 9 p.m. as they should have.
Even on the nights Jenny’s already sleeping, Mia waits awake but with her eyes closed until the door creaks open. He never comes inside the room. Mr. Hayes just opens the door a little, and softly closes it again.
That never changes. It’s always the same.
Predictability, Mia thinks again, is grossly underrated.
*
“An army of troglodytes charges into the chamber!”
Mia burrows further into Mike Wheelers’ couch, covering her ear with the quilt she has over her shoulders. She’s so tired and there’s school tomorrow, but she can’t go to sleep because Mike and Lucas don’t seem to know the meaning of inside voices and keep yelling whenever their campaign gets too exciting.
Mia wouldn’t mind it so much if she was participating - whenever she did she yelled just as loudly as them. But they’d decided that Mia wasn’t allowed to participate in this campaign, all because she had sat for an entire week with Jennifer’s other friends, the theater kids, on the other side of the cafeteria.
But ok. Mia wasn’t bitter about that. She wasn’t. She had only spent three weeks building her character, complete with a drawing made by Will, which she never got to use.
No, she wasn’t bitter at all. They could play their little game all by themselves, she didn’t really care.
She just really wanted to sleep, thank you very much.
And push Mike Wheeler off a cliff. He’d been the one to say that she would not be participating in the campaign.
“Troglodytes?” Mia hears Dustin’s voice, surprisingly quiet after Mike’s reveal. Or perhaps not that surprisingly. Nancy had come down the stairs ten minutes earlier to yell at Mike that their yelling was preventing her from hearing Barb talk on the other end of the phone.
Always the gentleman, Dustin had kept his promise of shutting up.
He had the fiercest crush on Nancy a couple of years ago. He’s come a long way since the love letters with hearts all around that he used to slide under Nancy’s bedroom door, but Dustin still has a soft spot for Mike’s older sister.
“Told ya.” Lucas says, chair squeaking under his weight.
“Wait a minute.” It’s Mike again, and something about his voice makes Mia fall still, straining to hear him with instinct born of many long campaigns. “Do you hear that?”
Mia’s eyes widen, heart racing.
“That sound…Boom…Boom – Boom!”
Mia startles under the quilt as Mike bangs his hands on the table. She immediately freezes, hoping they haven’t noticed, but Mike keeps going and she once again turns all of her attention to him.
“That didn’t come from the troglodytes – no. That came from something else.” Mike says, voice soft and dead and Mia’s hair rises just hearing it, heart skipping a beat in anticipation.
“The Demogorgon!”
Oh shit.
“We’re in deep shit!”
Lucas’ chair scrapes loudly against the floor. “Will, your action!”
“I- I don’t know -”
Cast a protection spell, Will, Mia thinks, peeking up from under her quilt at the boys sitting around the table. Lucas has his arms up, Dustin has his hands in his hair, staring wide-eyed at Will, who looks in desperation at Mike.
“Fireball him!”
“I have to roll a thirteen or higher!” Will cries, eyes darting around the board.
Too risky.
“Too risky.” Dustin says, echoing Mia’s thoughts, “Cast a protection spell.”
“Don’t be a pussy!” Lucas urges. He waves his arms around, like he always does when agitated. “Fireball him!”
“Cast protection!”
Mike slams his hands on the table, “The Demogorgon is tired of your silly human bickering! It stomps towards you – boom!”
“Fireball him, Will!”
“Another stomp, boom!”
“Wait, wait –“
“Cast protection!”
“It snarls in anger!”
“Protection!”
“Fireball!”
“And -“
Will gets up and Mia gets out from her cocoon to watch, heart in her throat. He shakes the dice in his hand and throws it on the table. “Fireball!”
The dice rolls over the board and disappears right over the edge of the table.
Lucas, Mike, Dustin and Will scramble to look for it. Mia – who had seen it roll under the shelves behind the stairs – rolls out of the couch to go get it.
“Where did it go?!”
“Did you see it?”
“It’s right –“
“Not now, Mia!” Mike yells, crouching on his hands and knees under the last stair step.
Mia falters, still on her knees by the couch, and points at where the dice had rolled to. “But –“
“Mia!” Lucas and Mike shout at the same time, and Mia doesn’t flinch back, no, she just…sits back on her heels, pressing her back onto the couch.
Will looks at her, wide eyed, then glares – gives an annoyed side-eye really, but that’s downright glaring for Will – at Lucas and Mike’s backs. He frowns at Mia, apologetic, but Mia only rolls her eyes and points to the stairs. She’s used to it by now and it’s not like it’s Will’s fault that Mike and Lucas are complete jerks sometimes. It comes with being friends with so many boys.
At that moment, the basement door opens and Mrs. Wheeler appears at the top of the stairs, frowning with a hand on her hip. She shouts something at Mike that Mia can’t understand over everyone’s yelling. Mike says something back, but Mrs. Wheeler only taps her watch and walks away, leaving Mike to scramble up after her.
“Where did it go?” Lucas repeats to himself, crawling around to try and locate the dice, completely oblivious to the fact that it probably doesn’t matter anymore, because they sure aren’t finishing the campaign today.
Will glances at the door and at the space Mrs. Wheeler had been, but he is still helping Lucas because, well, he’s Will.
Mia looks at Dustin, who wrinkles his nose at her. He’s already picking up his snack packets from the floor and gathering his things to stuff into his bag, much more aware than Lucas when it comes to parents.
Mia follows his example. She takes her book off the floor and shoves it into her backpack, then folds up the quilt she had been using.
“Oh, I got it!” Will says, running back to Lucas, holding the dice out. “Does a seven count?”
“It was a seven?” Lucas whisper-shouts, glancing towards Mia.
Mia picks up Will’s vest and backpack, throws them at his back. Will turns around just in time to catch them.
“Did Mike see it?” Mia asks, lifting an eyebrow at her twin.
“No.”
She takes Will’s hand in hers, curls his fingers around the dice. “Then it didn’t count.”
Lucas nods his head at her and grabs his things, hastily pulling his coat on. He bounds up the stairs, Will hot on his heels. Mia has one foot on the last step when Dustin calls them back, a box of pizza in his hands.
“Does anyone want this?”
“No!” Will and Lucas shout at the same time without looking back.
They always do this at the end of long, unfinished campaigns: run as fast as they can back home as if, should they fall asleep faster, the next day would come sooner. Mia watches them go, amused, but lingers at the top of the stairs, drumming her short nails on the staircase railing.
Dustin gestures with the box to her.
“No, thanks.” Mia replies. Out of all the boys, she thinks she likes Dustin the most. Mike can be a real jerk sometimes. Dustin is a jerk too, but to everyone else but her. “Nancy likes pepperoni, though. Maybe she’ll want the last piece?”
Dustin smiles at her, eyes nearly disappearing above his cheeks. He sways on his toes, curls bouncing around his head, “You’re a genius, Byers.”
“I know. Go, I’ll hold everyone up for you.”
Mia bids Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler goodbye when walking by the kitchen, and Mrs. Wheeler tells her to say hi to her mom and to call once they get home. Mia nods and smiles, and says she will, because she always does. Will is the one who forgets to call.
Outside, Will is already seated on his bike, holding Mia’s by the handles. She bites back a groan, cursing her twin’s readiness. Dustin must have not even reached the second floor yet.
“Will…” She whines, drawing out the ‘L’s, “Can’t I just ride with you? I’m too tired.”
Lucas snorts, flicking on the light on his bike. “Then how are you getting to school tomorrow?”
“I’ll bike us there on Will’s.” She says, shrugging, “Mike can bring mine along in the morning.”
“Me?” Mike steps next to Mia, crossing his arms, “Nuh-uh.”
A glance behind her shows no sign of Dustin, and really, Mia is tired. She doesn’t actually want to go biking back home.
“Please, Mike?”
“No.”
“Please?”
“You can beg all you want, I’m not doing it.”
Oh well, she tried to do this civilly. Time for the big guns.
She leans her elbow on Mike’s shoulder and lays her chin on her forearm so that her nose is less than an inch away from his cheek. Mike gives her an unimpressed look that is blatantly betrayed by the tomato red flush crawling up his neck. Delighted, Mia watches it engulf his cheeks and grins, widening her eyes just to see his face turn that specific shade of lilac-red.
Jennifer had taught her this, when she found out in third grade that boys would do anything if you just looked at them the right way. Over to the side, Lucas makes a noise not unlike a duck choking.
Besides, Mike has little Holly for a sister. Mia’s seen him cave under her wide blue eyes plenty of times before, and she thinks that by now she can copy her puppy-dog eyes with enough effort.
“Please, Mike. Pretty please. I’m tired.” Mia draws out the ‘e’ and lays her head on his shoulder, putting all her weight on his arm.
Mike splutters, hands flying to keep his balance without touching Mia. He fails, his hand slapping harmlessly against her ribs. He pulls his hands away as if burned, and turns frantic eyes to Will.
A split-second too late for it to be genuine, Will laughs.
“Oh, laugh it up, you.” Mike glowers, balancing himself with a hand around her ribs before pushing her away and crossing his arms over his chest.
Mia frowns at her brother, but doesn’t let Mike go far, prying her fingers through his bony arms to curl her hand over his wrist. She’s on a mission after all.
“Are you going to bring me my bike tomorrow?”
Mike glares at the wall, mumbles something that sounds suspiciously like ‘yeah’ under his breath.
Mia beams at him, “Thanks, Mike!”
Dustin’s voice comes from the kitchen as he bids goodbye to Mike’s parents. Mia takes the opportunity to skip to Will’s bike while Lucas laughs at Mike, hunched over the handles of his bike and wheezing so hard he’s barely making a sound. She pulls herself behind Will, plants her feet on the footrests that Jonathan had installed onto both their bikes and wraps her arms around her twin’s stomach.
Will wiggles in place, trying to eel out of her arms. “I didn’t say I was taking you.”
“You didn’t say you weren’t.” Mia replies.
Will sticks out his tongue and Mia sticks hers out right back.
Dustin opens the garage door then, a defeated slump to his shoulders. He catches sight of Will and Mia, both with their tongues still out, and rolls his eyes. “Real mature guys.”
Will pulls his tongue back in and turns to his friend inquisitively, eyeing Dustin’s disappointed face. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. ‘S just Nancy that has a problem. That girl has a stick up her butt since she started dating that Harrison jerk.”
“He isn’t that bad.” Mia mumbles against Will’s shoulder. She had talked to him once, and he’d been really nice.
Lucas scoffs, “Uh, yeah! He is. You’re just blinded by the hair.”
“No, I’m not.” Mia replies, rolling her eyes. Steve’s hair wasn’t really that cool, but it did look very soft. “Steve’s nice.”
“Ooh, so it’s Steve. Someone has a cru-ush.” Lucas sing-songs, kicking up his bike and riding circles in front of the garage. “Later, Mike!”
Mia rolls her eyes, watches Dustin kick up his foot stand and bike after Lucas, both chasing each other in large loops on the street. Will makes as if to go too, but Mia flicks his open vest zipper, warning him to zip it up. Will zips it up, then flicks the back of Mia’s hand in retaliation.
He walks their bike until they’re by the garage door, standing next to Mike, and because her twin has a heart the size of Texas and can’t bear to lie to any of his friends, Mia isn’t all that surprised when the first thing that comes out of his mouth is the number.
“It was a seven.”
Mike glances down at Will, eyes flicking over Mia as if she wasn’t even there, irises dark like the night outside his garage.
His eyes are half-open, heavy with the beginning of sleepiness.
“Huh?”
“The roll. It was a seven.” Will repeats. “The Demogorgon. It got me.”
Mike stares at Will, without saying a thing. Mia can feel Will’s hummingbird fast heartbeat through her fingertips and keeps her mouth shut.
A hint of a smile appears on Mike’s face, a soft look in his dark eyes, but before the boy can say anything, Will pushes the bike forward, pedaling away and almost sending Mia lurching back to the ground.
“See you tomorrow!”
Her brother is so lame.
Still Mia takes pity on him, and instead of complaining about almost falling off the bike, just untangles one of her hands from Will’s stomach and waves at Mike, hair wiping in front of her eyes, “Bye, Mike! And don’t forget my bike tomorrow!”
*
Will, Mia and Dustin ride with Lucas back to his house. Then Will races Dustin to his house. She and Will win, even with Mia’s added weight on Will’s legs, because she makes sure to lean at every curve and make herself as helpful as possible.
Tomorrow, Dustin – who had foolishly betted two of his comics, assuming he’d win because of Mia – will find himself without both his X-Men 134 and 137.
Mia rings the bell on Will’s bike as Dustin swerves into his garage, cackling next to Will’s ear. “Bring the comics tomorrow!”
Dustin yells something incoherent back, right before he disappears into his garage. Mia scoots closer to Will’s back, careful not to squeeze his stomach too hard with her forearms. “That was amazing!”
Will doesn’t answer, his breathing heavy, and lets the bike glide down the avenue without pedaling.
Mia straightens her legs on each side of the bike, feeling the cold night air glide up her pantlegs.
They bike down Cornwallis in silence, which she slowly realizes is more tense than it should be. Mia tries breaking it by pointing a visible star or a flying bat to Will every now and then, with no success.
They turn left where Cornwallis crosses Kerley, taking the road that passes through Mirkwood.
The cold November breeze coming from the trees burns Mia’s cheeks, but she keeps her eyes wide open despite the sting of the wind – the dark trees and pitch-black road never fail to raise every single hair on the back of her neck, and today isn’t any different. Every shadow seems to move when she looks at them too closely for too long, and it doesn’t take much for Mia to see shadows following them through the trees, running as fast as their bike on long, spindly and twisted legs.
She tears her eyes away, shuddering.
“Are you mad at me?” Mia blurts out, trying to distract herself from her own imagination.
Mia can almost hear Will’s jaw clenching.
“No.” He answers, sounding very much mad.
She rubs her chin against his shoulder and keeps her eyes firmly trained on the single beam of light spilling from their bike, a long stretch of asphalt that gleams just as much as the sky above. She thinks over the night, poking and prodding to see what she could have done to make Will upset. She recalls that split-second before he laughed back at Mike’s garage.
She winces at herself, face flaming.
“I’m sorry,” Mia tells Will, despite knowing her twin doesn’t really like to talk about it. “That I was being weird with Mike.”
Will doesn’t say anything. Mia sees his knuckles turn white on the handles.
“I didn’t mean anything, you know that, right?” She presses. “I really don’t like Mike.”
Will takes a while to answer. “Sure.”
“And he doesn’t like like me, I’m sure of it. He just doesn’t know how to act with girls, he’s the same around Jenny. And Holly, I have to say.”
Will sighs, shoulders slumping under Mia’s chin. “I know. I just – I wish –” There’s a moment of silence, the sound of wind loud in her ears. But she waits, knowing that Will wants to say more.
“You saw the way he looked at me, right? Right before we left?” He whispers, at last.
“Right before you ran out of there, you mean?” Mia asks playfully, hoping to lighten the mood.
Will swerves the bike, making Mia slide on the seat and squeal as she struggles to cling to her seat. Will laughs and does it again, because he might seem all sweet and nice when he’s with the Party, but he’s a jerk when he’s alone with Mia.
“I didn’t run.” He says, threatening to swerve the bike again. “I biked.”
A shadow moves ahead of them instead of behind them in the corner of her eye.
“Idiot.” Mia laughs nervously, gripping Will’s coat tighter. It’s just in your head. “Someone has a cru-ush.”
He swerves the bike again. “Shut up.”
“I’m sorry about Mike, though.” Mia mumbles, ignoring the trees around them.
Will nods his head, taking one hand away from the handlebars to offer her his pointer finger. “I’m sorry I got mad.”
Mia smiles at the gesture and hooks her pointer finger around his. It’s something Mom made them do when they were little and fought over every little thing. Mom talked it out with them and they had to hook their fingers around each other’s and apologize.
Like pinky promises - but different. Just theirs.
Though solving the issue does help settle her somewhat, her nerves don’t go away.
There’s this distinct sensation of weightlessness to her stomach, a prickling on the back of her neck. Something urges her to make them go faster. It’s that same dread that she feels in the second between turning off the hallway light and bolting back to the safety of her room in the middle of the night. That deep, illogical certainty that there’s something right there in the gaping darkness of the living room, watching, waiting to jump out and grab her.
It’s stupid. Just like the living room is always empty, with the front door locked and the deadbolt still in its place, there is nothing in these woods. She's lived here her entire life and the biggest thing she’d ever seen had been a particularly fat raccoon rooting around their trash one morning.
Knowing it, however, doesn’t help calm her down. Instead the anxiety seems to grow, trickling down her spine in cold waves down to her toes. She squeezes them inside her shoes, pressing herself closer to Will’s back.
Will must have sensed her unease, because the lightness in the air fades as if sucked out by a vacuum cleaner, leaving a distinct metallic tang of fear hanging heavy between them both.
“Can we go faster?” She whispers, fearing her voice hasn’t been heard over the rush of wind around them, but suddenly unable to talk any louder.
“I’m trying.” He answers, just as low. His legs come down harder, the dark trees around them a blur of hair-raising shadows.
The light on Will’s bike flickers.
Immediately, they’re plunged into darkness.
Mia’s heart jumps to her throat. She glances at the faint silhouette of the front of the bike, throat closing up. Will reaches forward to tap the light and Mia reaches forward to steady the handlebars for him. The light flickers back to life – illuminating a dark silhouette just a few feet from them.
Mia’s heart stops.
Will swerves his bike, Mia’s weight sending them both toppling onto harsh asphalt. She falls on top of Will, mouth smashing onto the back of his head, knees crashing on the gravel beneath.
Her hands burn red-hot for a moment, before the night air suddenly starts to feel way too cold on her skin and on the flaps of it that she feels hanging out of the wide-open cuts on the heels of her palms.
She tries to sit up, to move away from Will but she can’t, legs unresponsive and tangled around him and the bike. Her hands are numb, fingers lax and heavy as if they weren’t even there. Static runs down all her limbs and all she can do is look up and stare, eyes burning as the - the thing stalks forward.
Mia doesn’t even know what it is, the glaring light of Will’s fallen bike hits her right in the eyes, and she can’t see it properly, but it doesn’t look like someone, it doesn’t even look human, oh God it doesn’t even look like an animal –
Will shoves her off him and onto her back. She doesn’t manage to brace herself and her skull cracks on concrete with a sound so loud that she wouldn’t believe it had come from her, had her head not exploded with pain.
A movement in the corner of her eyes. The thing steps closer, a hissing, wet sound coming out of its joints. Above her lips, the cold air fogs up, the taste of her own fear heavy in it. Yellow-tinted and sour like bile.
The world seems to stop moving.
For a split second, Mia has the familiar certainty that she is going to die.
Will’s hand clamps around her wrist, violently pulling her up from the ground, and the world begins to move as if at twice the speed from before.
Mia goes with her brother, shoulder almost popping out of the joint as Will drags her behind him.
She doesn’t think, feet pounding beneath her before she gives her brain the command to run.
And they run, like they’d never run before.
She trips over roots, over rocks. Tree branches crack under their feet, barely audible over her own breathing and the slam of her heart against her ears. Will twists his ankle, tumbles down a muddy slope, hands reaching back to hold onto Mia.
Mia stops them from falling head over heels by bracing her hand onto a fallen tree and this time pure white agony shoots up her left wrist. It’s so bad she wants to stop and throw up, but they can’t. They can’t stop because the thing is right behind them, getting closer and closer, and Mia can hear its wet walk over the leaves, like the sound of their shoes on the wet marshlands in July, can smell its watery scent of rotten milk. The vomit gets stuck in her throat, her eyes fill up with tears, that spill hot and burning like fire down her cheeks.
They can’t stop, so she pushes herself up, swallowing down a scream, and everything burns, she’s never felt pain like this before, and she’s aware that she’s crying while running, little whimpers and shrieks coming out as the thing behind them growls and gets closer, crashing through the underbrush behind them. Her vision is blurry and it’s dark, too dark for her to avoid the trees and their roots and their branches. Her eyes burn like her lungs burn, the ground keeps caving in unexpectedly beneath her heels and now her ankle burns too, like her left arm burns, like Will’s fingers, tight around her wrist, like the branches whipping around her face that are cutting up her cheeks but they can’t stop so she pushes and pushes and pushes, legs propelling her forward, thighs aching –
A light through the trees.
Their porch light.
They’re home.
They don’t stop running. Will jumps over the laundry basket Jonathan had left out by the clothesline, and Mia can hear Chester barking inside the house as they stumble and slam into the closed door. It’s barely a second before Will throws it open, but it feels like an eternity. It was unlocked, and she can’t help but think, absurdly, of mom telling them to always lock it behind them. They didn’t do that before they left for Mike’s and thank god they didn’t but mom isn’t here to yell at them and where’s mom where’s Jonathan where’s mom –
“Mom! Jonathan!” Will shrieks at the darkened rooms, voice choked, too high. Mia’s heart jumps to her throat hearing it, but there’s no answer, there’s only the sound of her hammering heart and panting breaths in her ears. Her left arm’s burning, but cold, not hot, and crawling with pins and needles as if she’d stuck it into a freezer. “Jonathan!”
Mia blinks, staring at the dark hallway. She isn’t running anymore, but her legs feel like she is. She is just watching Will’s yellow and red vest zipping from room to room, and then she doesn’t know how but she blinks and she’s standing in the living room, latching the metal deadbolt on the door. She falls more than walks towards the window, knees popping as she kneels on the wooden floorboards. She looks out the window, cups her numb hands against the glass, trying to see through her own fogged-up breath –
There It is. Just behind the clothesline.
Her vision blurs. She blinks, tears trailing down her cheeks, and it’s gone.
Mia shrieks with terror, vaguely hears Will picking up the phone (If anything happens you call the police, okay? I have a friend, Hopper, he’ll help) but the thing is gone and there isn’t time.
Mia scrambles away from the window, grabs Will by the arm and Chester by the scruff of his neck. Chester yelps, reaches back to bite her hand, but Mia ignores it, only curls her fingers tighter in his pelt despite the burning agony in her wrist and drags them both outside through the back door and into the shed in the yard, kicking the door closed behind her.
She accidentally steps on Chester’s paw, the resulting yelp so loud and jarring that Mia drops the dog and Will at the same time.
Had she locked the door after coming in?
Will stumbles, falls against the table inside the shed, “Mia, what – what. What are you- What do we do? What do we do, what do we do?!”
Something wet squelches outside the shed’s door. She jumps forward to lock it, numb fingers barely able to work the latch. She’s still crying, bile rising in the back of her throat and turning her mouth sweet and disgusting. Chester is whining, dragging himself on his belly under the table. Mia’s wrist throbs with the beating of her heart.
She looks at Will, his hazel eyes are wide and huge on his too white face. “We have to hide.”
Will shakes his head, glances around him. She sees it at the same time he does: Dad’s gun, sitting high on the shelf above his head.
“No - Will!” Her voice cracks with terror, his name coming out more as a shriek than a shout.
In a blink, Will brings it down, takes the boxes full of unused bullets and loads the gun. There’s blood on his hands, gravel stuck to his wrist, and his fingertips shake, but he doesn’t drop a single bullet.
Mia watches him load the gun, pull the safety off, then realizes with a start that she’s standing between Will and the door and throws herself under the table after Chester without hesitation, scuttling back on her hands and knees to the dark corner behind a crate, under the bottom of a cardboard box that smells like wet dirt, curling into a ball so tight her joints ache and he can barely breathe.
She can only see a sliver of Will from where she’s hiding, his fingers tight on the gun, his red vest and converse shoes. It smells like mold and wet under the box, like - like rotten milk –
There’s a noise that Mia has never heard before, high pitched and rumbling at the same time.
A wet glide of joints.
A clicking that has all her hair standing up.
Will freezes, gun still pointed at the door.
Mia slaps a hand against her mouth in terror, fingers digging into her lips.
Mia doesn’t blink, but something must have happened because suddenly the thing is right there, getting up between her and Will, and she can see it under the harsh white light of the shed, all gray and pink and glistening and porous like the dead pig Mia and Jennifer had found in the Christensen’s farm last year, bloated and waterlogged, drowned in a few inches of brown water.
How is it inside? She had locked the door!
Hadn’t she?
Will turns around, his grip slack on the gun. Mia’s hands dig painfully against her mouth to muffle the sound of her breathing. She can see Will’s face, white and bloodless in the light of the shed.
The single lightbulb in the shed brightens. A buzzing sound fills Mia’s ears, like the electric hum of the tv, and her whole brain buzzes along, and there’s so much pressure behind her eyes – her brain feels like it’s about to pop off through her eye sockets, through her ears and nose. The pressure builds and builds and she squeezes her eyes shut, hands crushing the sides of her head -
The light flickers out.
The pressure’s gone, so suddenly, that Mia jerks forward, her knee digging into her bunched up pant leg, and she loses her balance and then she’s on the floor, forehead bouncing against the dirty cement.
She doesn’t feel it.
The light flickers back on again.
She can’t feel her arms, or her legs. She thinks that hitting her head on the ground should hurt more, but she can’t feel it. Just the coolness of cement beneath her cheek.
The thing isn’t there anymore.
And neither is Will.
An eternity passes with only the sound of her heart in her ear. Mia turns her head, her vision lagging and spinning for a moment.
“Will -” Her throat closes, and Mia coughs, feeling as if she’d swallowed rocks. “Will?”
She rises to her hands and knees, head swimming. There’s a starburst of color in her left eye, a ring of wobbly light like the surface of a soap bubble. Something touches the side of her forehead and she startles, only to realize it’s her own hand.
There’s a lump just above her eye. It hurts, tingling and hot to the touch. Or maybe her hands are just cold. She can cup her hand around it, like a ball. She pokes it with a finger and it’s weirdly soft.
Her stomach roils.
“Will?” She asks again, not recognizing her own voice. “Will!”
He doesn’t answer, the shed is still empty.
Will isn’t here.
Mia groans, and crawls out from under the table. Above her, the lightbulb sways from side to side, lengthening the shadows around her, making them move, like the shadows back at the forest had.
Will isn’t here.
Will isn’t here.
“Will…” Mia sobs, heart hammering in her throat. Her forehead pulses with each beat, pain radiating down to her jaw. She forces herself to her feet, wavering dangerously once she’s all the way up.
Slowly, she puts one foot in front of the other, not knowing where the ground is. The starburst of color spins and twists in her left eye. She reaches forward and her hand touches the door. She doesn’t remember moving towards it.
She fumbles with the simple latch, unable to open it. There’s too much distance between her fingers and the door. Too little distance between herself and her fingers. Her left wrist throbs, distracting her. It’s still locked.
How can the door still be locked when the thing was inside with them?
Above her, the light turns on.
The buzzing comes back, pressure building in her ears.
“No...No no no -” Mia cries, jiggling the latch harder. The clicking sound returns. Above her the light flickers, “No! I wanna get out!”
She feels It looming over her shoulder, a coldness rising behind her leg.
Mia forces the latch, crying. It gives under her fingers, slides to the side, unlocking. Mia throws the door open just as a low, wet growl comes from behind her. Something sharp grazes her ankle, catches the back of her coat but she’s already running, coat ripping and her shoe coming off as she sprints outside and into the woods without looking back.
She runs. And runs and runs.
She runs until her ankle rolls on a hole, making her fall down chin first on the grass. She blinks down at it, grasping it between her fingers, too stunned to properly feel the pain. It’s still dark out.
Too dark.
The trees loom around her, their rustling leaves as deafening as her heartbeat in her ears. Her eyes burn. Her head hurts. The grass is cold under her cheek. She can’t see her own nose, only the soap-bubble ring of light glowing, iridescent, in her left eye.
She twists her neck around. There’s no light behind her, no light ahead either. She doesn’t know where she is.
She pushes herself to her hands and knees, then to her feet. The floor tilts under her. Her head throbs. Something wet slides down her cheek.
A distant sound in the darkness makes all the hairs on her arms stand on end.
She has to run.
She has to find Will.
Notes:
poor bbys they're so little
Chapter Text
“Hey, Mom, did you wake up Will and Mia already? They’re going to be late for school.”
“Not yet, Jonathan. I can’t find my keys!”
“Check the couch!”
“Yes, I check– Oh! Got them.” Joyce Byers fishes the keys from the gap between two cushions, twirls them around her finger to show Jonathan. She walks to the hallway, glances at the twins’ closed bedroom door and shakes her head at her eldest son. “God, they’re sleeping like the dead today.”
Jonathan moves the eggs around the frying pan with a spatula. “They were at Mike’s yesterday.”
“Another eleven-hour game thing?” Joyce rolls her eyes, not waiting for Jonathan to answer before walking to the twins’ bedroom. “You should have already woken them up, Jonathan. I’m late to work.”
“Mom, I’m making breakfast -”
“I know, I know.” Joyce sighs, already walking to the twins’ door while fixing her work vest. She raps her knuckles on the door, swings it open, “Will! Mia! Come on, time to wake up, sweet-“
Joyce halts. The room is empty, Will’s bed neatly made up while Mia’s trundle bed is still pulled out, cluttered with the shirts and coats. The late science homework Mr. Clarke had given her until today to bring in sits on the end of her bed, where Joyce had left it yesterday after giving it a last once over like Mia had asked her to.
“Will?” Joyce calls, already stepping backwards out of the room, “Mia?”
She looks back inside her bedroom, Jonathan’s, the bathroom. All empty.
All of a sudden she's twenty-seven again and taking two-year old Jonathan to the grocery store, letting go of his hand for a moment to grab a can of peaches and reaching back to find him gone.
Fear squeezes her throat, so strongly that it leaves her dizzy.
Jonathan steps in front of the corridor, frying pan in hand. “Mom?”
“I can’t find Will and Mia.” She says, hoping her voice sounds calmer than she feels. “Did they even come home yesterday?”
Jonathan blinks, stirs the scrambled eggs and slowly scoops some of it onto Will’s and Mia’s plates, shoulders around his ears. “I don’t know –“
How -
“You don’t know?” Joyce raises her voice, incredulous. “How can you not know?”
Jonathan’s shoulders climb higher, “I was – I was working. I had to cover for Eric and – and we could use the extra cash. I mean, Mia’s backpack ripped last week -”
“Jonathan!” Joyce waves her hands in front of her face. “You can’t take shifts while I’m working! We talked about this.”
“Mom it’s – it’s not a big deal. They were at the Wheelers all day.”
Joyce shakes her head, points back to the bedrooms. “It doesn’t even look like they slept here!”
“They must have stayed at the Wheelers then.”
Joyce shakes her head, biting her lower lip. “God, Jonathan.”
They stayed at the Wheelers’, she tells herself. They slept on Mike’s basement and are probably biking to school right now in yesterday’s clothes, and that’s okay. It’s not ideal. But it’s okay.
Except that Will wouldn’t stay the night without calling to say goodnight. Mia wouldn’t leave without her homework. She worked so hard to get that grade back.
“I’ll give Karen a call.” Joyce says, already inching towards the phone. She takes it off the hook, dials the familiar number by memory and waits, heart in her throat, for Karen Wheeler’s pleasant voice on the other side of the line.
They stayed at the Wheelers’. She tells herself, but something deep inside her twists, disagreeing. I’m just being crazy.
“Wheeler Residence.” Karen's voice comes from the other side, chirpy as only she can be in the morning.
“Hi, Karen! It’s Joyce.”
“Oh, hi, Joyce! How are you?”
Joyce rolls the phone cord around her fingers, “Oh, I’m fine, you know how it is – but listen, I was wondering if I could talk to Mia and Will? They spent the night, right?”
There’s some bickering in the background, with a voice that sounds like Will, but who answers is very much a pissed off Nancy, so it couldn’t have been him.
“Mia and Will went back home yesterday at about eight.” Karen says and Joyce’s heart jumps to her mouth. Karen seems to sense the tense silence on the other end of the line, “I meant to call you today to check, Mia didn’t call me when she got home yesterday. Is everything okay? Are they not home?”
“Oh, - uh, Jonathan just told me that they must have - have gone over to Dustin’s. They’ve been talking about a sleepover for weeks now. I’ll call Claudia.”
Karen hesitates for a second. “Alright. Call me back once you’ve heard of them, okay?”
Joyce sighs, touched by Karen’s concern for her kids. She has a soft spot for Mia, Joyce knows. Karen had said multiple times how Mia reminded her of Nancy as a little girl. “Sure thing, Karen. I’ll talk to you later. Thank you so much, bye.”
“Bye, Joyce.”
Joyce hangs up and immediately dials Claudia Henderson’s number, because the twins had been talking about a sleepover at her house. But that was…how long ago? Had they even gone to sleep over there in the meanwhile? She doesn’t even know.
There’s the sound of shuffling on the other end, then - “Claudia Henderson.”
“Oh, Hi, Claudia. It’s Joyce, Joyce Byers. I was wondering if Mia and Will spent the night over?” She says all at once, not bothering with much pleasantries.
Like Karen, Claudia says they didn’t and Joyce’s panic flares.
As soon as she hangs up, she calls the Sinclair’s and instead of Linda, Caleb is the one who answers. The man’s calm demeanor does little to bring her panic down.
Because Will and Mia aren’t there either.
She puts the phone on the receiver, heart racing.
Jonathan is hovering anxiously behind Joyce by now, shoulder on the wall next to the phone, listening in. His eyebrows are pinched with worry and he’s biting down on the skin beside his thumb. Joyce taps his knuckle for him to stop and he does, flicking his thumb nervously with his pointer finger.
Joyce breathes in, breathes out.
There’s still the Hayes.
Joyce’s fingers waver on the dial. What’s the Hayes’ number again?
Jonathan recites the Hayes’ number without her prompting.
Jennifer picks up.
“Hi, this is Jennifer Hayes. Who is it?”
“Oh! hi, Jennifer! It’s Joyce, Mia’s mom. Listen, honey, did Will and Mia sleep over there last night?”
“Hi, Mrs. Byers! No, they didn’t. Weren’t they at Mike’s all day yesterday?” Jennifer answers, and Joyce can practically see the twelve-year old’s nose crinkling in confusion.
Mia did the exact same thing these days. She had picked up that habit from Jennifer.
“Yes, they were. It’s just… Are you sure they didn’t sleep over there? I wouldn’t be mad if they’d slept there and forgot to call. I just want to know if they’re okay.”
“I know Mrs. Byers. They really didn’t sleep here, though. Mia left her history textbook with me these days and I was even supposed to return it today, in time for her to study for our History test, under threat of losing all best-friend rights.” Jennifer pauses, voice going tight on the other end. “Did something happen?”
Joyce closes her eyes, leans her forehead on the phone. She taps her foot on the floor, fingers itching for a smoke. “It’s what I’m trying to figure out, honey. I’m sure they’re alright. They might have gone to school early. I’ll – I’ll tell you later, okay?”
“Okay. Call us if you need anything, mom will be here all day!”
Joyce’s heart clenches. She looks up at Jonathan, whose eyes are wide and anxious. “Alright, honey, I will.”
The sound of the phone slamming on the hook has never been louder.
“They could be at Castle Byers.” Jonathan offers.
Joyce nods, wrings her hands together. Yes. Of course.
They’ll be there, huddling together while reading a wonder woman comic. Maybe they got ready for school really early and went there, and lost track of time. It’s happened before. They’re fine. They’re just fine.
They have to be.
*
They aren’t at Castle Byers.
“Will!” Jonathan calls out, hands cupped around his mouth. “Mia!”
“Will!”
Joyce and Jonathan go hoarse from shouting their names into the woods.
No one answers.
Joyce is half out of her mind, but she can’t terrify Jonathan more than he already is terrified, so she sends him off to school, saying that he should look for them there because maybe, maybe they’ve already gone to school.
Maybe they have – she doesn’t know - Slept at someone else’s? Have they made any new friends she doesn’t know about? Maybe they slept at the Castle and already biked to school?
God. Joyce isn’t good at fooling herself.
As soon as Jonathan’s car has disappeared down the driveway, Joyce hops into her car and smokes three consecutive cigarettes before even putting the key in the ignition.
Godamnit, what would Lonnie say if he saw her like this?
He’d call her a crazy ass bitch, going mad just because she hasn’t seen her kids in a few hours. Would probably drag her by her wrist to the house while yelling that she was coddling the twins too much, and not to worry because once they got home he’d be the one to teach them a lesson.
Or maybe he’d yell that this is her fault, them going missing. ’Cause if she had just checked in their room after work last night, if she didn’t let them bike home alone at night, if she hadn’t divorced him, there’d still be someone else to receive them at home, or maybe pick them up from the Wheeler’s and Jonathan wouldn’t have to work to help her with the bills –
“Joyce.” She tells herself, “Stop freaking out. Will and Mia are probably at school – “ She thinks about Mia’s homework, Will’s sweet smile when Joyce kisses his head in the mornings. “- or…or who knows? Maybe they’re playing hooky?”
Joyce glances at the radio as if that would give her some answers.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t.
She slaps her steering wheel. What is she even doing? This isn’t like Will and Mia at all! Mia always calls Karen when they get home and Will knows to always come straight home after a late night at the Wheelers! Her kids are responsible! They’re good kids! Fuck Lonnie and fuck whoever would say otherwise!
There’s something wrong with her kids, there is. She can feel it in her gut, in the hairs raised on the back of her neck. She knows there’s something wrong, she knows it – she just – she knows it. She feels it.
Joyce turns on the car, pulls out and heads straight to the Sheriff station.
Flo is at the desk and, to Joyce’s bad luck, Hopper still isn’t there.
“Well - Can’t I just…Can’t I just wait for him in his office?” Joyce asks, waving her fourth cigarette towards Hop’s closed door.
Flo tilts her head sympathetically. Joyce likes Flo, and Flo likes her kids. She’s always asking how they’re doing when she stops by at Melvald’s.
Seeing her calms Joyce a little bit. Her large square glasses and the puffy hairdo that she’s worn since Joyce was a teen even makes her heart stop racing for a second.
It reminds her that this is Hawkins. Flo has had the same haircut since she was in high-school. Will and Mia will be okay. Nothing ever happens here. She’s not in Indianapolis anymore. She doesn’t have to worry so much.
But she is. Worried, that is.
Fuck that, Joyce is worried as hell.
“Please, Flo. You know how Mia and Will are. They’re good kids.” Joyce pleads, “They wouldn’t spend the night out and then leave for school without telling me.”
Flo hums, taking her little notepad out of the mug acting as a penholder. “And weren’t they with their friends?”
Joyce paces in front of Flo’s desk, shoes squeaking on the slightly sticky floor. “I tried calling, but Karen Wheeler and Caleb Sinclair said they didn’t. I tried Claudia Henderson and the Hayes too, but nothing.”
Flo frowns, writing something down on the notepad. Joyce hopes she’s writing down what she’s saying. Flo looks up, and despite Joyce trying to look as calm and composed as possible, Flo’s frown deepens.
God, she must look unhinged.
“I’ll let you in his office. He should be here any minute now.” Flo gets up from her chair, straightening her skirt. “Can I get you a coffee? Water?”
Joyce shakes her head. Coffee would just make her buzz out of her skin right now. “Thank you so much, Flo. And - ah no, thank you.”
“Don’t mention it, Joyce. Those kids are real sweethearts, I’m sure they just got turned around in the woods and Chief Hopper will find them in no time.”
Flo leads Joyce inside the station. Once Hopper’s door is open, Flo clicks her tongue in the direction of Hopper’s empty chair, frowning disapprovingly at it before walking back to her desk.
Joyce glances around Hop’s office, taking in the papers over the table, the pile of cups in the trash.
She sits down on the chair in front of the desk and settles in to wait.
Five minutes turns into ten, that turns into twenty, and then forty minutes.
Flo comes by asking if she wants water or coffee again, and once again Joyce refuses. Whatever calm Flo had brought her has flown right out of the window. Every moment she spends in this office reminds her that her babies are out there somewhere. What if- what if they got hurt coming back home? Got hit by a – a car from an out-of-towner and are lying on the side of the road bleeding out without anyone to help? What if they were kidnapped?
An hour has passed when she finally hears the door’s bell.
A deep voice comes from the front of the station and a few deputies laugh. She hears Flo’s voice too, steady and no-nonsense.
“She’s already in your –“
“Coffee and Contemplation, Flo!”
God, what if Joyce is being paranoid?
Lonnie would say she was being paranoid.
She hears footsteps coming towards the office and turns around in her chair, only to see Jim Hopper at the door, a coffee mug in one hand and a half-eaten cinnamon-sugar donut in the other.
Joyce has a sudden memory of Hop saying, when they were teenagers and sitting under the bleachers at school, that Cynthia Hopkins’ donuts were the only good thing about Hawkins.
Back then, he only ate the donuts with icing on top, saying that the cinnamon-sugar ones were vile. Then before he moved out to Chicago, he had met Joyce at the grocery store, and told her how ironic it was that the cinnamon-sugar ones were the only flavor of donuts his daughter liked.
Sara would be a little older than Will and Mia now.
“’Morning, Joyce.” Jim says, walking into the office and sitting down on his desk. “Sorry about the wait. Flo told me about your kids – Will and Amanda, right?”
“Yes, they’re missing since yesterday…about eight? They were supposed to come back from the Wheelers’ and didn’t.”
Jim hums, pulls a sheet of paper from his bottom drawer and puts it in his typewriter. He starts writing and every slam against the page makes Joyce’s heart beat faster. She shifts her weight, taps her foot on the floor.
Hopper’s fingers hesitate on the keys. She can feel his stare against the side of her cheek.
She huffs, and turns to glare at him. “I’ve been waiting here for over an hour, Hopper.”
Jim raises his hands, “And I apologize for that, again.”
“Sorry, it’s just – I’m going out of my mind!”
“Look -“ Hopper starts, turning away from the typewriter, “- kids their age, they’re probably just playing hooky. I got a complaint from the Christensens a month ago saying that Jennifer Hayes and Amanda got caught looking into their barn. Maybe they decided to go again. Will must be with her.”
Joyce shakes her head, grimacing. God, Mia and Jennifer got into so much trouble sometimes. “Yes, but it wasn’t like that. It was a Saturday then and they wanted to see the new chickens and – No. I talked to Jennifer already, she was going to school and... Not my Will and Mia. It’s not like them to be like this. They wouldn’t skip class. She has homework due today!”
“You never know. My dad used to think I was in debate team –“
Joyce interrupts him, “But they’re not like you, Hopper. They’re not like me. Mia may get into some trouble with Jenny but she’s a good kid. They both are.”
Jim raises his brows. “You’re saying I wasn’t a good kid?”
Joyce cuts him with a glare. Jim sighs, deflating. He opens his mouth but Joyce continues, suddenly remembering that time when Caroline Baker pushed her down a hill on the way to school in seventh grade just because Joyce had kissed Tommy Daniels.
“They have some friends. Will has a few of them but the kids – the kids are mean. They make fun of him, they call him names. I know the girls make fun of Mia’s clothes and probably Will’s too -“
“Their clothes? What’s wrong with their clothes?” Jim mumbles, shifting in his chair.
“I don’t know! Does that matter?” Joyce asks, patience running a bit thin. God, every minute she spends here is another minute that Will and Mia aren’t home.
“Maybe.”
Joyce frowns. “Look, Will’s a sensitive kid. Lonnie - Lonnie used to call him queer, a – a fag.” She says, lowering her voice. God what if some kids picked on him because of that? Queers were killed every day back in Indianapolis. “And Mia, she’s shy, isn’t the most well liked. I wouldn’t know what would be of her if not for Jenny - Maybe some kids decided to pick on them, hurt them or something.”
Jim nods, leaning back in his chair. “And Lonnie? When was the last time you saw him?”
“Lonnie?” Joyce asks, reeling. Where did that come from? “Last I heard he was in Indianapolis. About a year ago. But he has nothing to do with this.”
“Give me his number, I’ll give him a call.”
No, the last thing she needs is Lonnie hearing about this and coming back to yell at her what a terrible mother she’s been. Or worse – not care at all and abandoning her to fend for herself.
“Oh, trust me, he has nothing to do with this!”
Jim starts saying something about 99 out of a 100 times the kid is with a parent, but Joyce isn’t having it. It’s been two years. Sure, there was a time when Will would have done anything to be loved by Lonnie but Mia would never go to or with him. She really doesn’t care much for her father.
And Lonnie doesn’t care about his kids. He’d made that very clear.
“Joyce, listen. This is Hawkins.” Jim says, echoing Joyce’s own thoughts when she first came into the station. “The worst thing that happened in the last four years is an owl attacking Eleanor Gillespie because it thought her hair was a nest.”
Joyce has to give him that. Even when she lived here as a girl, the only crime she had ever seen at Hawkins had been that family being murdered in that huge mansion on the other side of town, over twenty years ago.
Still – she’d lived in a big town for a while, she can’t push away the worry.
“Fine.” She concedes. “Fine! I’ll call Lonnie, but Hopper, please. Can you look into it? Please, just find my kids.”
Joyce leaves soon after Hopper promises he’ll look into it, starting by asking questions to their friends at school, then rounding up some deputies to search for them in the places they could have passed through. Joyce tells him to ask for Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Mike Wheeler and Jennifer Hayes; then explains to him that they always bike through Cornwallis and turn where it meets Kerley, through that road that cuts through the woods. He tells her that he will see to it, and for her to be careful on the drive back home and to not worry, that soon they’ll find the twins.
He doesn’t tell her that they should be just fine.
She smokes three more cigarettes on the way home.
To her surprise, she finds Jonathan’s car sitting on the driveway and Jonathan on the front steps, head in his hands.
“Jonathan!” Joyce calls out, getting out of the car. “What are you doing here? You should be at school.”
Jonathan takes his head off his hands, gets up on knees that pop and creak. His back is curved, his eyes are down and Joyce hates herself for a moment because he’s not even seventeen yet. He shouldn’t have this weight on his shoulders.
As she walks closer, Jonathan hands open and close at his side, fingers scratching at the sides of his jeans. “I’m sorry, mom. I have to help you look. I should have – have been there last night when they came back. I should have looked in their room. I have to help you look.”
Joyce shushes him, cradles his face in her hands. “Oh, honey, no. It’s not your fault. Look at me.” She tries to catch his eyes, and finally Jonathan lifts his head from the ground. “ Whatever - whatever it is, whatever - it’s not your fault. You hear me? You want to help me look?”
Jonathan nods his head, brown eyes squinty and a little wet. “Yeah.”
“Alright. Well. We’ll start at the Castle again and look through the woods, how about that?”
*
They look and look until they reach the telephone lines on the other end of the forest. They don’t find any sign of Will or Mia.
Joyce herds Jonathan back inside, asks him to start making missing posters despite the twist in her heart.
She tries calling Lonnie. Once, twice, until, finally someone picks up.
A girl. Who doesn’t sound older than Nancy Wheeler. She hangs up on Joyce’s face and doesn’t pick up the phone when Joyce calls again. It’s almost three in the afternoon, and Lonnie isn’t picking up and there’s no news from the station and she just got the phone slammed in her face by a fucking teenager –
“Mom.” Jonathan’s voice is soft, as it always is, but so alarmed that he might as well have shouted.
“What?”
He’s looking out the living room window, and only then does Joyce hear the gravel outside crunching under wheels.
“Cops.”
Joyce nearly trips on the door on her way out. There are two police cruises. Hopper is already out and walking around the back of his truck, pulling something out of the back end.
Joyce’s heart lurches in her throat at the sight of Will’s bike.
Jonathan makes a small noise next to her and she swallows back the urge to cry. She needs to be strong. Jonathan needs her to be strong.
“Joyce.” Jim greets, carrying Will’s bike. God it looks so small in his hands. Will and Mia are only twelve. “I wish I had better news.”
Two other deputies trail behind him. Joyce doesn’t remember their names, but vaguely recognizes them from around town. One of them is a Cal something, the other…she doesn’t really know.
Joyce takes a deep breath in and out. She’s got to stop trying to distract herself. She needs to look at Hopper, at Will’s bike.
She forces herself to look at it, but then she sees it in Hopper’s hands, still so small, and her eyes slide away like oil on water.
“We found this by the woods.” Hopper says, voice soft and low, as if he was talking to a spooked animal. He sets the bike down on the porch. “Our best guess is that he crashed it on the way home.”
Without invitation, Jim steps around Joyce and Jonathan to enter the house. Joyce glances at Jonathan, sees the fear and confusion in his eyes, and follows Hopper inside.
“Wait – it was just lying there?” Something like hope ignites in Joyce’s chest. “You just found his bike? Where’s Mia’s bike? Maybe they went off on it together-”
But Jim shakes his head, dousing the small spark of hope. “We talked to the kids earlier. The Wheeler boy said Amanda left her bike at his house yesterday, and asked him to bring it to her today at school. Will biked with her last night.”
“Was there – “ Jonathan clears his throat. “Was there anything else?”
Jim glances back at Calvin – yes, his name’s Calvin and the other one is Phil, she recalls his name now – and Joyce’s stomach drops.
“Nothing substantial. Just a bit of what might have been blood on the side of the road, we think Will or Mia hit the asphalt on their way down.”
Jim looks back into the house, eyes lingering on the couch and the front windows. He then walks into the kitchen, inspecting the floor, the table, the sink.
Jonathan’s hands are twitching at his sides. “If the bike was out there, why are you here?”
“They have a key to the house, right?” Jim says, pulling aside the curtains, inspecting the backyard. Jonathan nods, and Jim continues. “So…they came back home.”
Joyce splutters, indignant. “You think I didn’t check my own house?!”
Jim walks around the table, eyes falling on a spot on the wall by the back door. “I didn’t say that.” He raises a hand towards it. There’s a dent in the cheap wood, and Joyce is suddenly furious because why is he staring at her walls instead of looking for her babies?
“This always been here?”
Joyce blinks, “I don’t know! I have three kids, look at this place! Mia had a softball phase.”
“But you’re not sure?” Jim says, pulling the door open.
It fits the dent in the wall.
He stalks outside and the four of them follow, Jonathan and the deputies hanging back by the mudroom door while Joyce goes behind Jim out into the yard.
Chester’s outside, barking at the shed, turning around in little circles and whining, one of his paws up and off the ground. God. Chester. She’d completely forgotten about him. They must have locked him out of the house last night. Joyce had assumed he was inside because he usually sleeps in the twins’ bedroom.
She takes him by the collar, leads him inside and leaves him with Jonathan, who is anxiously biting his nails while Cal asks him questions. She tells him to feed Chester, not caring that she’s interrupting the deputy.
Jonathan needs to do something with his hands while he answers the questions, or else he’ll bite off all his nails until there’s blood.
“What happened to his paw?” Cal asks. Oh right, he had a paw off the ground didn’t he?
Jonathan kneels by Chester and touches his paw. Immediately, the dog yelps, snapping his jaw at Jonathan’s hand. Jonathan startles back, falling onto the floor.
Phil says something that Joyce doesn’t pay attention to and walks out into the backyard. The other deputy, Cal, pulls up his sleeves.
“My sister is a vet, and our dog broke a paw slipping on some ice last winter, I can take a look.” He says, kneeling down next to Jonathan, eyes fixed on Chester’s teeth. “Hold his mouth.”
Jonathan does so. Calvin picks up Chester’s paw and the dog starts to trash so much that Joyce has to help Jonathan with keeping him still. Calvin pulls his paw this way and that, moves it up and down, feels in between his toes. He presses the top of his paw and Chester whines. He lets it go and Chester puts his paw down, quickly lifting it up again.
“Doesn’t seem like nothing’s broken. Just hurt.” He looks up at Joyce. “Call him into the living room, let’s see if he puts it on the ground.
The last thing Joyce needs is a dog with a broken paw, so Joyce goes into the living room and calls him over with a piece of the cold, congealed eggs left over from this morning’s ruined breakfast.
Chester comes over quickly, clearly starving, and thank god - he uses his paw.
“Yep, not broken.” Calvin walks over, pats Chester’s head. “Probably just stepped on a thorn somewhere and is still a bit hurt.”
Suddenly, the back door swings open, startling Joyce. Jim comes inside followed by Phil, a shoe in his hand.
“That’s Mia’s.” She points out, mouth numb.
“Was she wearing this yesterday?” Jim asks.
Joyce doesn’t know. She looks at Jonathan, he doesn’t seem to know either.
“Let’s treat it like she was. Which confirms they came home. They may be out in the woods, and if Amanda isn’t wearing a shoe, they can’t have gone far. Phill’s calling Flo, we’re going to organize a search party.”
Jonathan springs up, “At what time?”
Jim sighs, takes his hat off. “Look, kid, the best you can do right now is stick with your mom and stay inside, alright?”
“What? No –“
Jim continues speaking, raising his voice to be heard over Jonathan’s. “You’re both going to stay inside and safe. You need to rest, it’s been a terrible day for the two of you. I’ll get everyone available at Hawkins and my best men to look into this, is that clear?”
Jonathan ducks his head, shoulders hunched. Joyce steps closer to him, puts a hand on his arm to try and comfort him. His head is still low, but his shoulders relax at least.
“Yes, sir.”
Jim nods, and puts his hat back on. He nods at his deputies and after a few “We’ll be in touch” and “Don’t worry ma’am”s, the three of them are out of the door.
“’My best men.’” Joyce repeats, staring at the empty driveway after the police cruises are gone. “There’s only four men in that station.”
Jonathan chokes, and makes a sound in between a snort and a sob. Joyce puts her arms around his waist, leaning her head on his shoulder. Jonathan’s eyes shine, covered by a thin layer of tears.
“We’re going to find them.”
Jonathan raises his eyes to Joyce’s and she can’t read the emotions on his face. Jonathan had become reserved after Lonnie left but she – she had always been able to tell. Now she can’t, and her heart aches in her chest.
When did that happen? When did she become the mom that can’t even look into their children’s eyes and not see what they’re going through?
Jonathan had been working and she hadn’t even known. This is all her fault. She’s not home enough and her kids are paying the price.
“We’re going to find them – Will and Mia, they’re – They’re close.” Joyce says, voice breaking. Her throat goes tight, and she swallows down the urge to just sit down and cry. Jonathan’s eyes shine brighter, his bottom lip trembles, and Joyce finds that she can’t see his face anymore through the blur of tears in her own eyes. “I can feel it in my heart, I – they’re close, Jonathan. We’ll find them.”
She smiles, blinking away the tears with effort. They run down her cheeks and she brushes them away with the back of her knuckles. Jonathan’s brows twist together and he moves as if to put his arms around her. But. He doesn’t. He just stays still under Joyce’s arms, shoulders hunched.
She smiles at him again and leads him inside.
They’ve got missing posters to make.
Notes:
My sweet precious boy Jonathan :(((
Chapter Text
On the night of the day Will and Mia Byers are declared missing, the Wheelers sit down for dinner as if it were any other night.
Mike stares incredulously at his parents over his plate of greens and chicken, rolling the bread bun next to his plate from one side to the other so he doesn’t succumb to the urge to grab his knife and brandish it at his parents.
For a moment, he sees himself doing just that - stepping on his chair and putting one foot right in the middle of the vegetable casserole, pointing the knife like a sword over his head and shouting at his parents’ face that he is going out there to help the search, that he will find Mia and Will no matter what it takes and that no one is going to stop him.
Mike sees himself doing just that, but doesn’t do any of it.
“We should be out there right now.” He spits out anyway, right after Holly drops another chunk of potato on the floor. His mom bends under the table to pick it up, and as soon as she puts it on the increasingly bigger pile of Holly’s dropped vegetables, Mike repeats himself. “We should be helping the search party to look for them.”
“We went over this,” His mom says, “The chief says – “
The chief. Who cares about the Chief!
“I don’t care what the chief says! Mia could be in danger, Will could be in danger!”
“Michael!” His mom chastises, hand hovering over her fork. She breathes in and out, calming herself before continuing. “I want them to be found just as much as you, but that’s more reason to stay.”
“If you really cared then you’d know that we should –“
“Michael!”
“It’s true!“
“End. Of. Discussion.” Mom hisses. “You’re not going out there and neither are we.”
The room falls silent. Nancy isn’t even snickering at him like she does whenever Mom yells at him. Holly isn’t even eating anymore, staring at Mike with wide eyes, and for a moment he does regret raising his voice. Holly scares easily, and she’s just a stupid baby, it’s not her fault that Mom doesn’t want to go out and look for his best friends.
Dad is, of course, ignoring all of them entirely, shoveling forkful after forkful of chicken into his mouth.
“So…” Nancy begins, swallowing a bite of her food. “Me and Barbara are going to study at her house tonight. That’s cool, right?”
Mike turns around at her, incredulous. Really? She doesn’t support him with looking for his missing friends but she will speak up to study at Barb’s? Unless –
He knows she’s dating that Steve guy, no matter what Nancy says. Mike had heard the sounds of him climbing up the side of the house to get into Nancy’s room a couple of times now and Mia had told him Nancy and Steve were dating after Steve “accidentally” bumped into her and Nancy at the grocery store once. Mia had seen them kiss behind the soup display.
There’s no way she’s going to study at Barb’s.
“No, not cool.” Mom answers and Mike feels vindicated.
“Why not?”
“Am I speaking Chinese in this house? Until we know Will and Mia are alright, no one leaves!”
“This is such bullshit – “
“Language.” Oh, now Dad wants to get involved.
“- Are we under house arrest now just because Mike’s friends got lost on the way home –“
Mike feels like taking that knife after all. “Wait, this is their fault now?”
“Nancy Wheeler, you take back what you said right now!” Mom interrupts, “You’re sixteen years old and you know very well what could be happening to them right now.”
That makes Mike turn to his mom. She’s serious, the kind of serious that gets Mike grounded for a month at least, her mouth held in a tight line. But her eyes are wide, brows crinkled - she’s worried about Will and Mia. Afraid for them.
Nancy looks away, and mom deflates.
Of course. Nancy is a girl, and she’s miss perfect, she won’t get into trouble.
“This is bullshit!” Nancy shouts, throwing her fork onto her plate.
Dad frowns, “Language!”
Oh, Mike has had enough. “You’re just pissed off because you wanna hang out with Steve.”
“Steve?”
“Who’s Steve?” Mom asks and Mike ignores his dad completely, talking straight to his mom because she’s the only one who grounds anyone in the house. If Nancy won’t help him find his best friends, Mike won’t let her see her boyfriend either.
“Her new boyfriend.”
Nancy slaps his leg under the table, furiously getting out of her seat. “You’re such a douchebag, Mike!”
He makes a face at her while his mom yells at Nancy to come back to the table right now, enjoying that this time little miss perfect is getting what she deserves.
But Nancy stomps her way up the stairs and though mom just watches her go, not getting up from the table, she has that look in her eyes that tells him she and Nancy will be having words later.
His joy at getting her into trouble is short lived because his dad thinks it’s his fault that they’re even arguing in the first place. His dad, who hasn’t done anything the entire day, and just sat in front of the tv while Mom was making calls to Dustin’s mom, Lucas’ and Jenny’s parents, Mrs. Byers and even that deputy from the station that once let Mike and Dustin turn on the siren in his car. Though not that helpful, Mom had at least been doing something, but Dad hadn’t and it’s stupid that now he comes with the We Care act.
He doesn’t. He never did.
Mia and Will are over all the time. Mia helps his Mom cook, and plays with Holly, and was once great friends with Nancy. Mom says that, out of all of Mike’s friends, Will is the most well-mannered one, the only one who always helps clean up the living room after movie night. Mom has always said it’s a wonder to have them over, and Nancy had always stuck with Mia on their D&D games, but now neither of them will lift a finger to help when Mia and Will need it.
And dad.
A meteor could crash into the Byers house and Dad would probably just say “Well, that’s unfortunate” and carry on with his day.
Will and Mia are his best friends, his first friends. Mike will never abandon them.
That night, after Mom puts Holly to bed and Dad has passed out on the couch, Mike calls Lucas. He’s also worried about Will and Mia.
“I was thinking... Will could have cast protection last night, but he didn’t. He cast fireball. Over.”
Lucas’ voice is clearly confused on the other end of the talkie. “What’s your point? Over.”
“My point is: he could have played it safe, but didn’t.” Mike tells him. “He put himself in danger to help the party. Over.”
He lets the implicit hang in the air: Now it’s our turn to do the same.
Lucas doesn’t even hesitate. “Meet me in ten. Over and out.”
Mike has his backpack ready since coming back from school, and it takes less than two minutes to find his rain coat and hoodie in the pile of clothes in the basement. He’s out through the back door in five and runs into Steve Harrington trying to climb the side of the house to his sister’s room.
Steve freezes when seeing him, turning around and leaning on the side of the house as if Mike was just passing through in the grocery store aisle. As if it weren’t nine p.m and about to rain and he wasn’t standing over the compost bin like a complete idiot.
Steve waves at Mike.
Mike rolls his eyes.
He doesn’t have the time to deal with stupid teenagers. He really doesn’t.
Mike climbs on his bike and pedals towards Lucas’ house. They radio Dustin on the way, and then bike over to his house. Together, the three of them make their way to Will’s house.
He can’t help but think about Will, riding his bike with Mia on his back, the two of them smiling and waving as they pedaled through this same stretch of road last night.
The trees are dark and looming. Mike narrates inside his head, making notes for the next D&D night. Branches like long, spindly fingers reaching their clawed ends down over the road, fading like smoke before they touch the voyagers’ hoods.
A shiver of fear rolls down his spine and Mike cuts himself off.
It’s getting colder by the second, and Mike curls his sleeves over his knuckles on the bike handle. He won’t quit. He’s their paladin, their leader. He has to keep them moving.
They find the spot where the cops found Will’s bike.
Lucas said he had heard his parents saying that the deputies had found blood on the road. Mike doesn’t look for it on the asphalt, suddenly sick to his stomach, choosing instead to inspect the red and white wooden board meant to keep people away from where the bike was found.
The woods are much darker than he expected, but despite his fear and Dustin’s reluctance, Mike leads them all deeper into the trees.
*
The forecast that morning had predicted a clear starry night, so of course, all the rain that hadn’t come down in the entire month hits Hawkins like a flood as soon as they step into the woods.
Mike swallows down his unease, putting on his raincoat. They have to find Mia and Will.
Mike wanders with Dustin and Lucas for what seems like hours. Sometimes they hear other people calling out for Mia and Will and make sure to head in the opposite direction, but that seems like the only decision they’re making as to where they’re going.
Mike is a bit worried about getting lost, but Lucas isn’t, and out of the three of them, he’s the best one with locations. So. If Lucas isn’t saying they’re lost, they aren’t.
It takes them hours, but just when Mike’s unease has reached its peak, when all the hairs on the back of his head are up, when everything in his head screams at him that Dustin is right and they’re alone in the woods without any weapons and there could be monsters in the dark, or a serial killer like the guy in New York, just watching them through the trees –
That’s when they find her.
The girl is weird. And holds onto Mike’s waist way too tight on the ride back to his house.
While Mike thinks of a way to figure out what to do with her, Lucas thinks they should ditch her because she’s a runaway. Dustin thinks she has some kind of medical thing, because of her clothes. Mike just thinks she looks cold and scared and alone.
Mike knows how to handle this.
Will would be nice to her, so that’s what Mike will do.
First: she needs clothes. Dry ones. Then a place to stay.
They bike her back to Mike’s house, smuggling her into the basement. He really shouldn’t, and his mom would be more than mad that he’s hiding a girl in his basement, but he’s mad at her right now and trying not to think too hard about whether she’d approve of this or not. After the girl almost takes her shirt off in the middle of the room and traumatizes Dustin for life, it takes a bit of convincing for Lucas and Dustin to agree to his plan of letting her stay in his house. Dustin helps him set up a fort under the desk while Lucas puts away the things that had been on it, and soon, the girl is sitting on an old blanket with Mike’s sleeping bag in her thin hands, and Mike’s friends are going back home.
Mike ignores their whispers of wouldn’t want her in my house and mental, focusing on the girl’s big brown eyes and shaved head.
There’s a small white scar on her left temple, round like a penny.
Mike thinks back on Lucas saying she’s an escapee from Pennhurst Asylum.
They do things like that there, don’t they? Opening up people’s skulls?
“Hey, uhm…I never asked your name.” Mike starts, in that soft voice he usually reserves for his and Will’s sleepover nights.
Loud voices used to scare Will when they were little, Nancy said it was something to do with his dad, and this girl reminds Mike very much of Will in those days after his parents’ divorce. She’s quiet. Fragile, as if a wind would blow her over. It’s strange, because Mia is a girl and this girl should look more like Mia, but she doesn’t.
Mike can only think of Will.
Mike wonders if Will and Mia are in some stranger’s house just like this girl is in his. Wonders if they’re scared and cold. Mike hopes there’s someone there that’ll give them dry clothes and a blanket.
The girl seems like she’ll ignore Mike’s unspoken question, but she doesn’t. Her big brown eyes flicker towards his face for a second before she pulls up the sleeve of his sweater, to show three dark numbers painted in black ink on the inside of her wrist.
011
“Whoa. Is that real?” Without thinking Mike reaches forward. The girl flinches back and he stares at her with wide eyes.
He has to be gentle, he reminds himself.
Soft voice, slow movements, just like with Will.
“Sorry, it’s just…I have never seen a kid with a tattoo before.” He smiles, trying to make her relax again. “What does it mean? Eleven?”
She points at herself and Mike frowns. Is that –
“That’s your name?”
She nods.
Mike thinks back on the first time he saw Will back in kindergarten. How he’d just come up to him, asking if he wanted to be his friend. How Will had said my name is Will, short for William then he’d pulled a girl by her overall straps and introduced her as his sister, Mia. He had thought their names were weird then, one was a word that Nancy used when she said she was going to do something, and the other sounded a lot like a cat’s meow.
Eleven is a name that is just as weird. But if Mike could accept Will’s and Mike’s back then, he can accept Eleven’s now.
He calls her El, for short. Will, Mia and Mike are all nicknames too.
She doesn’t smile like Will did the first time Mike said his name, but when Mike bids her goodnight, she speaks for the first time, her voice low and thin, softer than he’d expected.
“Goodnight, Mike.”
Something warm and tiny blooms in his chest, just like when he was little and met his best friend for the first time in his life.
Notes:
bby Mike!!!
*strange girl appears in the middle of the woods with a shaved head and a tattoo on her arm*
sweet bby Mike: Will would want me to take care of her *smuggles her into his basement*
Chapter Text
Jim Hopper is having a terrible morning.
Last afternoon had been a shitstorm with the local newspaper and news channel, which got worse as the nearby town started coming in with their journalists too. Then this morning he’d stopped by the Byers’ with empty hands to give Joyce and her son the news that he hadn’t been able to find her children. Then Joyce had thrown Sarah in his face and it had been worse than if she’d straight out slapped him. And then his deputies still had the gall to question a worried mother’s sanity, after her children had gone missing and Jim had almost slapped them.
Of course Joyce Byers is at the end of her rope, Jim would have been too.
God knows he still is.
Amanda and Will Byers are only twelve years old for fuck’s sake.
It’s a terrible morning that changes immediately when, as he’s making his way through the quarry with Phil, Calvin comms him through the radio.
They’ve found Amanda Byers, scared and exhausted, just past Cartersville.
She’s alone and won’t say anything.
There’s no sign of Will Byers.
Jim doesn’t think twice. He tells Phil to stay behind with the search party, and floors it to the city line.
Calvin is hanging by his car, Linda Simpson and Eleanor Gillespie crouching by the open passenger door of the police cruiser, just at the end of the HAWKINS POLICE letters, looking back at him with their hands covering their brows from the glare of the afternoon sun. Their husbands hover awkwardly by the tail lights, one of them holding a tan raincoat streaked with mud in the crook of his elbow.
The Wheeler kid had said Mia had been wearing a tan raincoat and a blue flannel shirt when she’d left his house.
Jim jumps out of his car, opening the door before it has even rolled to a stop.
And there she is: Amanda Byers, sitting on the passenger seat of Calvin’s cruiser, a red and white crocheted blanket over her shaking shoulders. Her legs are swinging over the side of the car, heels kicking the chrome side step next to the tire.
Her eyes are wide, showing too much white. There are dozens of cuts on her face and arms, thin and already scabbed over, but there’s a large one just under her left eye, still open. Her lower lip is bruised and split, but already scabbed over too. A large red lump sits above her left eye, too swollen to be a mosquito bite or something similar.
Her clothes are wet and muddy, and there’s only one shoe on her feet, the other sock almost black with mud. It’s the same shoe Jim had found back at the Byers’ shed.
She’s also holding her left arm close to her chest, the back of her hand yellow and purple, almost black.
But thank god, she has all of her clothes and none of it seems ripped. The blue flannel hangs open but the shirt underneath is intact.
Thank fuck. He knows it may not mean much but, if her clothes were missing or ripped then it’d be a certainty.
Jim nods at the husbands, then walks closer to Eleanor and Linda, taking off his hat.
“We found her laying down next to a tree.” Calvin says, close behind his shoulder. “She was awake but didn’t answer to us calling her name. Kid must be in shock or something.”
Eleanor and Linda step aside so Jim can kneel in front of the girl. He holds his hand out in front of her face, waits for a response, but the girl doesn’t seem to notice. He touches the side of her neck, finds her heart beating like a hummingbird’s under her cold, clammy skin.
Jim looks into her hazel eyes, trying to catch her gaze. It stays fixed somewhere around her knees.
“Amanda.” Nothing. She’s kicking her heels on the frame of the car door. Thump-Thump-Thump, like a metronome. “Hey, kid. It’s Mia, right? You’re okay, we found you and we’re going to take you back to your mom, you hear me? You know Mrs. Gillespie and Mrs. Simpson, don’t you?” He looks back at the women and Mrs. Simpson nods, mouthing I’m her art teacher. “Mrs. Simpson is your art teacher, right?”
Still, nothing. Just the thuds of her heels against metal.
“Mia, was Will with you? Is he nearby?”
At Will’s name, Amanda’s head shoots up, her hazel-green eyes cutting into Jim. She opens her mouth, teeth showing, gums pale.
A flash of Sara’s smile, on those last days at the hospital, crosses his mind.
Her gums had been gray, like the bags under her tiny, almond shaped eyes.
“W- Wi -” Amanda chokes, sobs, tears pooling in her eyes.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay, kid.” Jim soothes, lifting both his hands to rub some warmth on the kid’s shoulders. God, she’s so tiny. “Deep breaths. Do you want water? Did any of you give her water?” He asks looking back at the women.
Eleanor shakes her head. “We tried but the poor darling jus’ wouldn’ take it.”
“Let me try.”
Eleanor passes him the thermos and he spins the top open. Amanda’s eyes are on his fingers, accompanying the movement.
“Mia, you want some water?” He pours some on the cap, tilts it so she can see the clear liquid inside.
She sways forward and almost falls out of the seat, Jim catches her with one hand, the other steadying the cap, preventing her from ripping it out of his hands and spilling it all. “Hey – hey. It’s not going away. Here.” Jim waits until her trembling fingers have stopped clawing at his hand and are instead just holding tight to his knuckles.
Her hands are cold as Jim slowly tilts the cap to pour some water into her mouth. It slips down her chin and throat, taking away some of the mud caked on her skin.
Some of it doesn’t clear up and Jim realizes with a sinking heart it’s probably blood.
“Mia, listen to me.” Jim says, voice low but firm. “We’re going to take you to your mom, but you’ve got to tell us. Is Will around? Was he with you?”
Amanda opens her mouth, shakes her head. The scab on her lip opens, a thin trail of blood trickling out. “He wasn’t – he – he, something got him. It got him. We tried to call,” Her voice is scratchy, as if she’d screamed herself hoarse, “Mom told us to - to – to call the police if some-“ a sob almost like a hiccup comes out so painfully that Jim winces in sympathy. “Something happened and we got home and tried but there was no one and it got him, it got him –“
Jim puts his other hand on top of hers. He hates listening to kids crying, hates that caving-in feeling of helplessness that never fails to follow.
“Hey, kid. Deep breaths. Deep breath in and out. In and out –“ Honey, honey, just breathe - Breathe, breathe, breathe, in and out - “Good, just like that. Now tell me again. What got him? Was it an animal? A bear, a coyote...“
The girl shakes her head vehemently, muddy hair stiff and unyielding in front of her face. “No – it, it, I don’t – It was, it was a monster.”
Jim hears Eleanor and Linda coo in sympathy behind him. Calvin curses softly.
“A monster, you said?” Jim continues. This is a kid, of course whatever got her brother would look like a monster. Sara used to see monsters on the coats hanging behind her door. “And did it get your brother around here? Is he hurt in the woods?”
Amanda shakes her head again, teeth clacking. Her lips are only now turning pink. “Shed. At the – at the shed. It got him - the shed.”
When Jim had inspected the Byers’ shed, he had found small scratches on the door, right by the latch. Then the light had gone out and he’d had to grab a flashlight even though it was the middle of the morning, only to almost get a heart attack from the scare Phil gave him. He’d thought the scratches were made by the dog but his gut twists at the alternative.
“The shed? The one at the back of your house.” Amanda nods and Jim’s stomach sinks. It couldn’t have been a bear or a coyote, then. There would have been blood or tracks if it had dragged Will into the woods. Mia wouldn’t have survived if she had been inside with it. They wouldn’t have found only a shoe. “Were you there with Will? What did this monster look like?”
The sky is a dull blue, a few clouds hanging heavy above the trees. It’s past noon, but Mia shakes like a wheat stalk in heavy winds.
“Tall.” Jim reconsiders the bear. “G-gray.” The bears around here are brown, so…coyote? But coyotes aren’t tall. “Fast, real fast.” Cougars? Are there cougars this close to Hawkins? He should really check with Fish and Game. “It was standing up. Like – like a person.”
Jim freezes, Eleanor gasps behind him. Amanda’s eyes are hard and scared, gaze far away, probably seeing what had happened a day ago.
Jim thinks back on the phone call Joyce had received this morning.
He’d been quick to brush it off as a prank or an attempt to scare the woman, because this is Hawkins. In the four years Jim had been here there hadn’t been anything, much less a kidnapping.
Which is what this might be.
Shit.
“Am I tall? As tall as the monster?”
Amanda stares at his head for a moment. Her pupils are even, at least.
“Smaller. It’s face - I couldn’t see -” She swallows air, her words dying with a hollow gasp. Jim’s veins chills at the sound, and he instinctively taps her back to help her breath better. Amanda chokes, spit trailing out of her open mouth. Jim wipes it away with the sleeve of his shirt, not thinking twice about it.
Okay, so they have a man over six-feet tall, taller than the light fixture in the shed if she couldn’t see his face, probably in a grey parka, or grey cammouflage print.
They have to know more, but.
But.
This is enough for now. They have to get this girl into the hospital and into her mom’s arms. If they split up at the shed and whoever it was got him, and Mia escaped, it’s probable that Will Byers won’t be around here.
He picks his hat from where it had fallen to the ground. “Let’s take her to the hospital, Cal. I’ll call Flo, get her to call Joyce.”
Jim stands up, steps back but the kid lurches forward, hands tight around his wrist.
“Don’t – don’t leave.”
Her hair is brown and dirty, not blonde and not buzzed. Her eyes are green and not blue. She has Joyce’s face-shape, the sharp eyes and lips, the same chin and nose.
She looks nothing like Sara, but Jim sees her in Amanda Byers all the same.
“I’m here, kid.” He says, lips and fingers numb. There’s a high-pitched tone in his ears, the monitor flatlining above the bed. “I’m here.”
“Chief?”
Jim ignores Cal, steps forward and picks the Byers girl up, blanket and all. She’s twelve but she’s still small and he can carry her easily. Girls are still mostly bones and lean muscle at this age.
Jim wonders if Sara would have felt the same in his arms.
“I’ll take her to the hospital and call Flo.” He repeats himself, now to the Simpsons and the Gillespies, adjusting the girl’s weight in his arms. He turns back to Cal. “You call off the search at the quarry, redirect it here or – No, we’ll go to the Byers’, check the house again, and think up if we’ll need to start another search or -” Or look for a body and a criminal.
He doesn’t say it, the girl is right there, but thank fuck, Cal seems to get it. He’s Jim’s oldest deputy and a dick sometimes, but he’s the best for understanding orders before they’re said.
Cal nods, then leads Eleanor, Linda and their respective husbands back to their cars without prompting. He would make a fine Sheriff if he doesn’t retire before Jim.
Mia sighs next to Jim’s ear, lays her head on his shoulder.
“I want my mom.”
Jim nods, hoping his stubble isn’t scratching up the girl’s face. He’s got to remember – Safe and Well check. What are the steps? There’s also the…return interview, he thinks…Do they even have the social workers for this? Do they need any social workers? Should they have already called an ambulance? It’s not like Hawkins has many of those lying around. “We’re going to get you home, kid. We just got to stop by the hospital first.”
Her hand tightens around the blanket and Jim suddenly remembers the left wrist.
“Kid, can you hold out your hand for me?” She holds out her right hand, keeping her left one tight against her chest. “The other one.”
Amanda doesn’t move at first, then slow and reluctant, she takes her left arm away from her chest, wincing. It’s bruised from the middle of her forearm to the start of her fingers, blue and red and purple and yellow. It looks broken alright.
“How did you get that?”
The girl sniffs, “Fell.”
“In the woods?”
She nods. “After we fell from the bike.”
She doesn’t say anything else and Jim doesn’t ask. Not yet. What he needed to know, she said already – not that they’ll stop looking into this area of the woods. If there was someone after these kids and Amanda got away, there’s the possibility that Will managed to escape too, but now, the last place Will Byers was seen was in his house’s shed, being followed by a probable kidnapper.
So far, they’d thought the Byers Twins had gotten lost on the way home. They’ll have to look at this from a different perspective altogether.
Jim opens the passenger door of his car, sits Amanda on the passenger seat and pulls the seatbelt over her, tucking the blanket around and under her legs. He walks around to the driver’s side, pulls out the radio to call Flo.
Before he can do it, to his surprise, the radio crackles in his hand.
“Chief? You there?”
Jim frowns, looking over at Amanda, who has shifted to lean her head on the window. “Yeah, Flo. We just found the Byers girl near Cartersville. Talk to me.”
“Thank God. I’ll tell Joyce. But, Chief, we got a call from over at Benny’s.” Jim’s blood freezes in his veins. Benny? “You should head over right away.”
His heart twists. Benny is his friend but he can’t leave the girl.
“I need to drop Amanda Byers off at the hospital first. Make sure she gets to Joyce. Phil is with the search party, so I’ll send Cal over.”
“Alright. But you should come too. I’ll let Joyce know you found Amanda. Any sign of the boy, Will?”
Jim sighs, crosses his hands over the steering wheel. “Not yet.”
Flo soon hangs up. Jim checks on the girl one last time to see if she’s alright before starting the car.
The good part about being the Sheriff is that you can drive over the speed limit.
It’s a half-hour drive from the spot they found Amanda to the hospital, but Jim makes it in fifteen.
Amanda stays silent the entire way, head tilted to the side, asleep.
Jim tries to distract himself from the radio chatter coming in every now and then. Cal went to Benny’s and the scene wasn’t pretty – a suicide, gun found at the scene and all. Jim fights hard not to tear up at the thought of one of his only friends in this tiny end-of-the-world town offing himself. God.
Benny is dead.
No, it’s best if he thinks about Amanda Byers instead. About the Byers boy.
Cal will swing by the Hospital to talk to him, and help him with the Safe and Well check. The girl must have walked what? Twenty-something miles? That’s a lot of ground for someone who had only one shoe. Will might have walked even more with both, and taken paths they’d ignored, thinking they were after two kids walking together, one without a shoe.
He wonders if he’ll have to deliver Will Byers’ body to his family instead of another cold and scared twelve-year old with pine needles in her feet.
When Jim finally gets to the hospital, Joyce Byers’ car is right in front of it, taking up two parking spots. Jim lets out an irritated breath while parking the cruise, pinching the bridge of his nose, and leans to the side to wake up Amanda, but the girl’s eyes snap to him before he even touches her shoulder.
Apparently, she wasn’t asleep. Shit. Had she heard about Benny’s suicide?
“Hey, kid. We’re at the hospital. Your mom’s inside.”
Amanda continues to stare at him, hazel eyes turned a deep green. The eyebags under her eyes are purple and swollen.
“You want me to call the nurses to get you in a stretcher or do you want me to carry you? Or you can go by foot, but I bet they’re killing you right now.” Jim says, wincing internally at his poor choice of words.
The girl blinks, looks out the windshield to the hospital’s entrance. Then she looks back at Jim and unclips her seatbelt. She holds up her good hand after doing so, turning up two fingers.
“Option two?” Amanda nods. “Carrying you it is.”
Jim climbs out of the cruiser and walks around to pick the girl up. This time he leaves the blanket behind. He’s got to remember to return that to Linda or Eleanor.
Jim has barely got the door open when he hears Joyce Byers’ voice.
“ – here yet? The station just called me to say that they found Amanda – “
At the sound of the opening door, Joyce and the nurse she’d been talking to turn around. Jonathan’s at her side too, and he swivels so fast on his heels that he loses his balance, planting a hand on his mother’s shoulder to steady himself.
“Mom – “
“Oh, god, Mia!”
Joyce and Jonathan rush over to Jim. He’d been expecting the girl to jump into her mother’s arms or at least try to squirm out of his, but to his surprise and confusion, the girl tightens her fingers around the lapels of his shirt, pulling herself higher up in his arms.
Jim holds her closer.
“Oh, honey!” Joyce Byers’ hands are suddenly at her daughter’s face, not minding at all that Jim still has her in his arms. “Oh god you’re okay, you’re okay – ”
“Did you find Will?” Jonathan’s voice cracks at the words find, torn between hope and despair.
Jim knows exactly what he meant.
Jonathan, the one with the hard questions.
Jim shakes his head, noticing that two nurses are making their way to them with a stretcher, “Not yet, Jonathan. Flo didn’t tell you?”
“She did.” Joyce sniffs, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her coat. “We just, we just hoped –“
Amanda clutches his shirt tighter and takes her head away from her mom’s hands.
Joyce and Jonathan freeze, staring wide-eyed at the girl. Jim looks resolutely at the nurses, hoping they’ll come faster.
“Mia, honey, what’s – “
“Hurts.” Amanda croaks, cutting off her mom. This close, her head smells like mud and sweat, and mostly rain. The deep cut under her eye has opened, a drop of blood trailing down her cheek.
Finally, the nurses get to them.
“Excuse us, Mr. and Mrs. Byers. Chief, we’ll take Amanda from here.”
As he lowers the girl down on the stretcher, Jim proceeds to tell the nurses and the Byers what happened, detailing the information Cal had told him, about where they found her, how, the clothes she was wearing, visible injuries, etc. Technically it’s an ongoing investigation, but he tells the nurses about the kidnapping possibility, so they can search for things he’s probably missed.
Jonathan goes pale so fast that Jim fears they’ll need a stretcher for him too. Joyce bites down on her lower lip, furious or about to cry, he doesn’t know which.
He’s as brief as possible as the stretcher leads the Byers girl into a vacant room. The remaining Byers follow it right through the door, but Hopper lingers by it.
It isn’t his place to follow, and while distracted with Amanda Byers, he had forgotten where he was for a moment. As soon as he sees the monitor on the wall, the awareness that he’s in a hospital crashes around him, as fast and sudden as a car crash.
Or cardiac arrest.
Jim scrubs a hand over his face. Takes off his hat.
He wishes he had a beer right now. Or something stronger.
He puts his hat back on, instead, and knuckles his eyes. I’m on duty, he reminds himself.
Jim walks back to the entrance hall, and finds Cal and Phil waiting for him. He remembers that there’s still the scene at Benny’s.
The urge to drink washes over him like a tidal wave.
“They just brought the kid into a room. She’ll be fine.” Jim says, not sure why. Maybe he doesn’t want to hear the inevitable.
Cal grimaces at him, hand scratching his head like he does when nervous. “That’s good chief, that’s good.”
Jim sighs, braces himself. “I’ll go get a coffee.”
Only when the three of them are holding shitty coffee hospital in equally shitty paper cups does Cal open his mouth.
God, this is why he’s Jim’s favorite deputy.
“So, the situation at Benny’s -”
“Suicide, huh?” Jim asks, humorless, cutting him off.
“Afraid so, chief.” Calvin clears his throat, looking straight on at Jim. There’s no pity in his eyes and for that, Jim’s grateful. “Had the gun and everything. They’re getting the place cleaned up now and we got to talk to James back at the station. He was one of the last people to see Benny.”
But Phil is there, and as usual, he makes the worst comments at the worst possible times.
“Kids going missing, a probable kidnapping, a suicide. Must feel like a big city cop again, huh, chief?”
Jim looks down at his coffee, downs it all in two consecutive gulps. It tastes as bad as it smells.
“At least there it was mostly strangers.” Jim replies, tossing the cup in the trash. “You said something about James? James Holloway?”
“Yeah, Flo’s with him at the station. He was at Benny’s yesterday.”
Jim hums, hands on his belt. “Alright, we interview the kid first, then we go to the station. There’s not much we can do about a – about Benny, but the kid – Will might still be out there.”
Jim regrets his decision as soon as he steps foot back in the room and sees Mia, hooked up to an IV and looking oh so small in the middle of the stark white bed.
“Hey, Joyce.” Jim greets, followed by Cal and Phil. “We’re just here to ask the kid some questions, just so we can understand the situation better. Anything can help us find Will at this point.”
Joyce had clearly been crying. Jonathan’s the same, but while his mom hurries to clear her tear tracks with the back of her sleeve, Jonathan pays them no attention. Both his hands are firmly around his sister’s.
Amanda is still awake, thankfully, bloodshot eyes following Jim until he stops at the foot of her bed.
“Right.” Jim says, thinking on what to ask for a moment. On a chair by the corner, Cal clicks his pen to let Jim know he’s ready. “Why don’t you tell us what happened from the beginning? At the Wheeler residence.”
Amanda blinks at him, gaze going out of focus. Joyce reaches over to squeeze her good wrist in encouragement.
“We – Will and our friends, we were at Mike’s. Jenny wasn’t there because she went to her grandma’s yesterday - uhm…the day before.” Amanda begins, voice scratchy. “We went over after school to play DnD. Will and the others did their campaign and I did my homework in the basement. Then I played with Holly to help out Mrs. Wheeler as she made dinner – uhm. After that, we went downstairs ‘cause they still had to finish the campaign. They didn’t finish it because Mrs. Wheeler called Mike up before we – they could. Finish it, that is. Me and Will biked with Lucas and Dustin to Lucas’ house, then we raced Dustin to his house, and then we- ”
She stops herself. Jonathan squeezes her hand, silent.
“Go on, honey.” Joyce says.
Amanda turns her face to the side, eyeing the serum bag dripping into her IV. They’ve cleaned up her face some, most of the dirt and mud gone. Some spots are still tinged brown from iodine, mostly around the paper-thin cuts on her neck, face and hands. They put some tape around her wrist too, while they wait for the x-rays.
“We went home through Mirkwood. That’s uh – I don’t know the road’s name.”
Mirkwood - was that the woods behind the Byers’ house? Jim doesn’t remember the name of the road that cut through it either, to be honest. He glances at Cal and Phil but they shrug too. He tries the Byers, but they don’t seem to know either. Aren’t there any road signs there?
“It’s alright, kid, just keep going.”
She looks down at her hand, scratches the bedding with a finger. Her nails are chipped, broken at the corners. “I thought there was something following us, but I just thought – I mean, it was dark. I thought I was seeing things. We always go through there and nothing ever happened. I thought I was – I didn’t tell Will. But he knew or he saw it too because he started biking faster. The light – the bike light – turned off and Will got a hand off the handle to flick it and – “
She blinks, breathing in and out slowly. Good girl.
“When it turned on, there was something in the middle of the road, right in front of us. I – uh, I don’t know, I think we fell from the bike. The thing was right there so I – he dragged me home. Will. My wrist…I fell on it, I think. We got inside, because we hadn’t locked the door. Will went to find Mom and Jonathan but.”
But they weren’t there rings loud and clear to everyone in the room, despite the girl being kind enough not to say it.
Jonathan ducks his head, Joyce just turns hers to the IV bag.
“But. I went to the living room, and it was just outside.”
“It?” Phil asks.
Amanda nods, whispers, eyes far away, “It was just standing there. Looking at us.”
A shiver goes down Jim’s spine.
“Chester was barking. I grabbed him and – “ She brings up her left hand, the one wrapped in tape. “The nurse said he bit me. I dragged him and Will out to the shed. Chester hid and I told Will to hide too but he – he grabbed the gun. The one Dad left. He loaded it and waited by the door and I – I hid. I hid like a sissy and left him standing there with the gun.”
“Oh, honey, no.” Joyce cries, making as if to hug her daughter, but the girl pulls away, staring at the bed.
So that’s why the girl didn’t want to go to her mom. She’s blaming herself.
“Your mom’s right kid. You were brave to get you and your brother out of the house and into the shed, just like your brother was brave to get the gun. You did a smart thing, to hide yourself. You could have gotten hurt if he decided to shoot with you around.”
Amanda raises her eyes from the bed to look at him. She’s crying, a lone tear dripping down her chin. Jim tries to look as steady and as truthful as possible and that seems to help because she continues to speak, still staring into his eyes.
“It just – the monster just appeared inside. Will had the gun pointed to the door the whole time, but it just – it was just there. I had locked the door, I swear I did.”
“I’m sure you did, kid. Can you describe the – the monster for me?” Jim asks, playing along.
“It was standing up, it was much taller than Will. I couldn’t even see its head, but – I was under the table, but I could still see the light, so its head must have been above it. Right?” Jim nods, “It was gray and – and strange. Disgusting. It made a weird sound as it moved like – like – like mud? Like stepping in mud. And it smelled terrible like spoiled milk.”
Jim grimaces at the description. “What about the way he was dressed? Did you think it was a coat or –“
“It wasn’t a person!” Amanda cuts him off, “It wasn’t wearing anything. His skin was gray! And it didn’t even have a face. It was, it was -”
“A monster.” Jim finishes, glancing pointedly at Cal. Maybe the guy was wearing a body suit? A mask? “And what happened next?”
Amanda swallows, “The lights flickered and the thing and Will were gone.”
Jim tilts his head. Cal’s pen stops scribbling. “Gone? Through the door –“
“They just – they were just gone. The shed was empty.” Amanda whispers, blinking rapidly. The tears are coming down her cheeks like a waterfall now, and Joyce brushes some of them away with her thumb. Jim looks at the swelling on the side of the girl’s face. Maybe she passed out for a second, or maybe her memory was shot to hell because of that bump. “The door was still locked. I’d locked it with the latch when we came in, and it was still locked. Then when I got out from under the table I heard it coming again. I couldn’t get the latch to open.” That explains the scratch marks. Jesus. “I tried to get out and then – and the lights flickered too. I – tried harder to get out -” She swallows air again, gasping like a drowned thing.
“It’s okay, honey. Breathe, I’m right here. Mom’s right here.”
Daddy’s right here. You’re okay.
“It grabbed my leg but I got out and ran into,” she gasps, crying harder, “I ran into the woods and I just kept running. I just kept running. And then I was leaning on a tree, and it was already sunny out and my feet hurt so much. I didn’t know where I was. I kept walking, I tried calling for Will but, but he didn’t answer and I was afraid the monster would hear me so I stopped calling him.”
“You did the right thing, kid.” Hopper assures her.
“Then I just woke up with Mr. – uh,” She points at Cal, “he was taking me to his car. I saw the police car and then, uh, you were there. I know you ‘cause mom told us to call you if anything happened when we were alone.”
Something warm that Jim hasn’t felt in a long time settles in his chest. He doesn’t look at it too closely, and doesn’t look at Joyce either. “That’s right, kid. You can call me or us at the station if you need help. It’s what we’re here for.”
They ask a few more questions, just to make sure. Could she remember seeing any vehicles when they crashed their bike in the woods? What sort of clothes could the monster-slash-person be wearing, if they were a person? Had anyone strange approached them these last few days? Any other adult they knew who suddenly got too close? Had they spoken to their dad recently? What Will was wearing, what places Will could have gone to if he’d escaped, if there was anything else she wanted to add.
There wasn’t.
Jim and the deputies leave the Byers to themselves as a nurse comes around to put her arm in a splint. It’s an ugly sprain, but there’s nothing actually broken.
Jim’s glad that they found one Byers, but there’s still the other one. Will might very well be in the clutches of some sicko out there.
So Jim wastes no time before directing Phill to organize another search party. Meanwhile, he and Cal will stop by the station to grab something to eat and to interview James.
Because there’s still Benny to see to.
Hours later, Jim and Phil are halfway through the interview with James, and Jim’s still trying to wrap his head around it. Phil has come back from the search party and is seeing to the interview with Jim, while Call munches on a sandwich at his desk, face perturbed.
“When was the last time you saw him?” Jim asks James, watching the smoke come out of the other man’s mouth. He’d kill for a smoke right now.
“Yesterday. Lunch, Same as always.”
“Just you and the boys?”
“Yeah and – well, and this kid.”
Cal’s head snaps to them.
“Kid?”
“At lunch. There was this boy that… He was trying to steal food out of Benny’s kitchen. Can you imagine that?” Jim glances at Phil, who slowly walks back to his desk.
Jim asks him to describe the kid, and with every word that comes out of James’ mouth, Jim’s hope grows.
Phil appears with the flyers – the one Jonathan Byers had made before they found Mia. There are three pictures on it, two of Will’s and Mia’s faces up close but separate, probably from picture day at school, and one with the two of them sitting together on what looks like the Byers’ front porch. Will is smiling wide in both of them.
“Did he look like this?” Phil asks, tapping Will’s portrait.
God, Jim hopes.
James takes the flyer, inspects it for a second before putting it down. “Nah – that’s Lonnie’s kid. This was a different kid – had really short hair. Buzzed nearly to the scalp.”
Jim doesn’t let it deter him. He gets up, picks the flyer from the table and shoves it in James’ face again. Who knows what kind of person got Will. “Forget the haircut. If this kid had a buzzcut, could it be Lonnie’s kid?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at him…but it was the right height. Yeah. Could’a been.”
That’s more than enough for Jim.
Notes:
Benny was such a good person T.T
Chapter Text
Lucas and Dustin have just sat down for dinner with the Wheelers when Mike’s mom gets the call.
“Wheeler residence?” Mike hears her say in the kitchen as he sits down between Lucas and Nancy. Dustin is sitting at the head of the table, fork and knife in each hand already.
Mike snorts, then glances over at Nancy to find her deep in thought. He makes a face at her but she doesn’t notice.
He looks at Dustin, scrunching up his face. What’s wrong with her?
Dustin shrugs. Real helpful.
“Oh, Joyce! Thank God.” Wait – Joyce? Will’s mom? Mike snaps his head around, craning his neck to look further into the kitchen, but only succeeding in seeing half of his mom’s skirt and Holly’s dangling legs by her hip. “I’ll tell the boys right away. Can we stop by tomorrow? That’s wonderful. But what - Oh.” His mom gasps, and Mike freezes. “A man - Oh, that’s... I see. I’m so sorry. Everything will be fine, they’ll find him too. If she’s alright he’ll be too, he’s a smart boy. Yes, of course. Whatever you need, Joyce, just tell me. See you tomorrow.”
“Was that Mrs. Byers?!” Mike shouts, hoping his mom will hear him. Dustin and Lucas turn to him wide eyed.
“Volume, Michael. Use your inside voice.” Dad says.
Use your inside voice, Mike mocks inside his head, careful not to make too much of a face. Finally, his mom appears in the doorway. She’s smiling, but there’s something wrong, her hand is tight against Holly’s side.
“Mom!” Mike urges, waving his hands in the air in front of his face. “What happened?”
Mom sets Holly down in her highchair, taking all the time in the world. Mike fumes, glancing desperately at Dustin and Lucas, who look back just as desperately.
It’s only after his mom has sat down on the table and touched the rice spoon that she finally answers him.
“So, that was Joyce on the phone. Turns out one of the deputies found Amanda this afternoon.”
Oh, god.
Mike’s entire face goes warm, his vision going blurry. Utter relief swims through his veins, so strong and sudden that he has to fight down the urge to just burst into tears at the table.
“Is she okay?” Dustin and Lucas ask, at the same time.
Mike’s mom smiles at them, passing the meatloaf to Mike’s dad. Her eyes are shiny.
“What happened?” Nancy asks, leaning forward on her elbows. Now she’s interested. “Did Mrs. Byers tell you?”
His mom sighs, “The deputies found Amanda wandering the woods this morning, she’d run all the way to Cartersville – “
Dad whistles, interrupting mom. “Cartersville? The girl can walk.”
“Dad!” Nancy yells at Dad at the same time as Mike, surprisingly.
“Michael and Nancy. Have some respect!”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“Sorry.”
“As I was saying.” Mom continues, putting some mash onto Holly’s plate. “She was scratched up, had a bad sprained wrist, but was fine all things considered. But...Will is still missing. She wasn’t with him.”
Mike’s mouth falls open. Will wasn’t – what?
“They didn’t find Will?” Lucas asks, quiet.
“I’m sorry, honey.” Mom says, hand reaching towards Lucas and gently squeezing his wrist. “I’m sure they will find him soon. He’ll be fine, just like her, alright?”
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Her voice is high, too, like it always is when she exaggerates something. She’s afraid. There’s something she isn’t telling them.
While Mike is debating whether to ask or not, Nancy speaks up.
“Mom, there’ll be this assembly tonight, at the football field. You know, in support of Will and his family.”
Mom stops putting gravy on her potatoes, and stares at Nancy. “And why is this the first time I hear about this?”
Nancy widens her eyes. She’s lying, the liar. “I…thought you knew about it. Can I go?”
“Nancy…this is serious, it’d be better if you stayed home.”
“But I’m going with Barbara, Mom. And – people don’t know that Mia has been found right? I could tell the principal, I’m sure it’ll bring everyone’s spirits up.”
Holly starts babbling about the mash potatoes, Mom quickly spoons a bit into her mouth. “Alright, honey. You can go. But I want you back before curfew, and you’re not going alone.”
Nancy smiles, the liar. “I’ll go with Barb, she’ll take her parents’ car.”
“And I want you to come straight back home, you hear me? I want you in this house by ten.”
Nancy nods, biting her lower lip to stop herself from smiling. Mike narrows his eyes at her, then decides to try it too.
“Can we go visit Mia, mom? Like right now?”
“We can’t Michael. She’s being kept overnight at the hospital. She had quite the shock, the poor girl.” Mom shakes her head at Dad, who isn’t paying attention to anything but his food. Mom sighs, looking back at Mike. “We’ll go tomorrow, alright? I already talked to Joyce, she’s going back to her house in the morning and you’ll all get to see her after school.”
Mike throws himself back on his chair. Stupid Nancy. She always gets what she wants. She gets to go out and see her boyfriend while Mike has to sneak around to try and find his missing friend
Will is still missing, and he’s stuck inside without being able to help.
Dustin, who had been about to shove a forkful of meatloaf in his mouth, stops with the fork just above his plate. “Wait,” He says, drawing everyone’s (but Dad’s) attention. “Did anyone tell Jenny?”
Mike looks at his mom.
Jennifer Hayes was Mia’s other best friend. Their friend too, he supposes. Though Mike still hasn’t forgiven her for keeping Mia away from them after she started hanging out with those kids that do theater, or for attempting to brainwash Dustin into joining the drama club two months ago, Jenny still was kind of cool. And she cared about Mia, so she had a right to know.
The first thing Jennifer had done when Will and Mia had gone missing was to stop Mike by the bike rack to know what had happened.
At the time, Mike hadn’t even known something was wrong, but apparently, Mrs. Byers had called Jenny before school to ask if she’d seen Mia. Then the Chief of Police had showed up at the school and asked for the four of them, and ever since she had been asking the three of them for updates nearly every hour.
Lucas nods his head along with Dustin, “She’s been super worried.”
Mom smiles at Lucas and Dustin. “Joyce said she’d call the Hayes too.”
Dustin smiles back at Mike’s mom and continues to eat. Mike suddenly remembers to put away some food so he can take it to El downstairs.
She was cool too, he guessed. El, that is. She’d found his supercomm yesterday and hasn’t stopped fiddling with it. It had been fun to show her around the house. It seems like she didn’t have much growing up, because she hadn’t known what the TV was. Her smile when she bounced in his dad’s chair had made his chest flutter, something that didn’t often happen with Mike.
He’d say it was her superpowers, but maybe it was an allergic reaction to girls. The same thing used to happen near Mia and Jenny, until he immunized himself against them. Though he isn’t sure it’s just with girls, because it happens around Will too, sometimes, and finding El on the same day Will went missing can’t be a coincidence. It’s all related, somehow.
Maybe it’s anxiety.
He thinks about it while he’s going downstairs with a tray of food, claiming that he was taking some of the meatloaf to eat later (“Dustin really loved it, mom!”). He thinks about it while he’s explaining to Eleven that Lucas and Dustin had just been scared earlier in his room, and that they hadn’t meant to be rude when they’d yelled at her before she showed them her powers.
“Yeah. We just wanted to find our friends.” Lucas tells her, contrite.
El frowns, ducking her head under the sheets of the fort. “Friend?”
Mike thinks back to her smile when bouncing on his dad’s la-Z-boy, the scared look in her eyes when he’d turned on the tv.
“Yeah, friend. Will and Mia? They’re our friends. Will is the one from the picture.”
“What’s ‘friend’?”
“Is she serious?”
Mike glances back to glare at Lucas, then starts explaining.
“A friend is someone you’d do anything for.”
“You lend them your cool stuff. Like comic books and trading cards.” Dustin adds in, helpfully.
“And they never break a promise.” Mike continues.
Lucas relents, and explains to her the sacred bond of spit vows while Mike continues to stare at Eleven’s eyes. They’re brown and wide, and Mike feels those same flutters beginning in his chest again.
“That’s super important,” Mike says when Lucas has stopped his explanation, “Because friends…they tell each other things.”
Eleven knows where Will is, or she knows how to find him. She had recognized Will from Mike’s science fair picture, but when he’d shown her the one where he and Mia were pointing their purple tongues at the camera, El hadn’t recognized Mia. It means something. Will and Mia hadn’t been found together, which could only mean that they split up at some point. Will is still missing, Mia isn’t. Mom had mentioned a man on the phone, and El had showed up just as Will and Mia went missing, she’d said something about bad men too.
It’s connected, somehow.
“Friends tell each other things.” Mike repeats himself, thinking, tell me how this is connected. “Things that parents don’t know.”
That does it.
Determination seeps into El’s brown eyes. She gets out from under the fort, and walks around, until her gaze falls on Mike’s still open D&D board. She sits down at the table, putting both hands just on the edge of the board.
“What’s the weirdo doing?” Lucas whispers. Mike ignores him.
“El?”
Eleven closes her eyes, opens them again. She picks up a figurine – the wizard.
Will’s figurine.
“Will.” She whispers, finger trailing down its tiny staff.
“Superpowers.” Dustin says, awed.
“Did you see him? On Mirkwood?” Mike tries, sitting down next to El. “Do you know where he is?”
She pushes all the figurines off the table, flips the board. Places Will right in the center of it.
“Hiding.”
“Hiding? Will is hiding?”
El nods. Mike’s heart squeezes. He thinks of El’s scared eyes.
He doesn’t want to see them on Will too.
“From the bad men?” He asks.
El frowns, shakes her head. Mike feels his face go weirdly numb. He has felt fear before in his life, fear of the dark, of horror movies, of the mind-flayer’s description in his D&D manual. This is different, heavier. Maybe this is what terror feels like.
“From who?”
El looks resigned as she picks up another figurine. The Demogorgon.
Will staring up at Mike, Mia’s hands laced together over his ribs as she sat behind him on the bike.
The Demogorgon, Will had said, It got me.
*
The next morning before school, they’re ready.
Lucas has his dad’s stuff from ‘Nam, and a slingshot that Dustin thought was ridiculous. But Dustin only brought snacks, and dropped Mike’s Millenium Falcon two times just so he could see El use her powers, like a dog trick. So. He doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
“Boys!” Mike’s Mom yells from upstairs. The three of them jump up, caught in the act. “Come up here!”
Lucas and Dustin scramble for their backpacks, darting up the stairs immediately. Mike lingers, not wanting to leave El alone so abruptly.
She stares at him, brown eyes impossibly wide. She’s not scared. There’s something soft in the corner of her eyes that had stayed there after Mike told Dustin off for making her use her powers like a dog.
“Stay down here, don’t make any noise and don’t leave. Eat Dustin’s snacks if you’re hungry. And meet us at the powerlines after school.”
She tilts her head a bit, like a bird. “After…school?”
Oh right, he doesn’t think the bad men ever put her in a school before.
Yeah,” he says, happily. He doesn’t like being made fun of when he doesn’t immediately get something, so he won’t do the same thing to her. “at three fifteen.”
She continues to stare at him.
Oh right.
“Michael!”
“Coming!” Mike shouts at the basement’s door, turning back to El.
He takes out his watch, puts it on her wrist. She seems to know numbers at least.
“Three fifteen. Meet me there when these numbers –“ he points at the display, “read three one five.”
“Three one five.”
“Yeah.”
El smiles. The fluttering in his chest grows and he smiles back.
Mike’s cheeks are warm as he climbs upstairs. Dustin raises his eyebrows at him.
“What?” Mike whispers.
Dustin shakes his head. “Nothing.”
His mom, who had been fixing the collar of Lucas’ sweater, straightens up then.
Holly is twirling around the kitchen, in that old pink tutu that used to be Nancy’s. It’s ridiculous, but, dare he think it, a little bit cute.
He still cackles when she trips and falls against the cupboards.
“Michael.” Mom hisses, giving Mike the look. She just isn’t yelling at him for laughing at Holly and for yelling at her from downstairs because they have company. “So now that you’re all here, how about this. I called your parents and Joyce, and they all have agreed to let me take you to see Mia today. So, instead of school, how do you think about going to the Byers’?”
Mike’s face breaks out in the largest of grins. He glances at Dustin and Lucas, finds them staring at him with the same expression, Dustin’s eyes nearly disappearing above his cheeks.
“Yes!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Wheeler!”
“Thanks, mom!”
Mom smiles at them, and gosh she looks so pretty. Mike loves his mom so much.
“Great! We’ll pick up Jennifer on the way, I called her parents too.” Mike, Lucas and Dustin nod. “Now, help me with the snacks, Joyce hasn’t had the time to cook anything later – I could barely make these cookies without thinking of poor Mia and Will, so I can only imagine how she’s feeling. Now chop chop, grab those plates and take them into the car.”
Mike grins, runs to the kitchen aisle to pick up the cookie plate. Dustin grabs the sandwiches and Lucas takes both Juice jars. All that’s left is the casserole for Mike’s Mom to carry. Excited, the three of them run out of the kitchen and into the car, kicking each other’s shins to fight for the front seat.
Mike, of course, wins.
“Hey, boys! Be careful with those! And no eating! We’re taking them to Mia, Jonathan and Mrs. Byers!” Mom yells from the door.
“Yes, Mom!”
“Yes, Mrs. Wheeler!”
Lucas is the only one who manages to sneak some cookies while on the road to the Hayes’ house. Mike’s mom loves Lucas - sometimes Mike thinks she loves Lucas even more than she loves him. Whenever she catches movement out of the corner of her eyes – Lucas sneaking cookies – all Lucas does is smile at her and she turns around, without even questioning anything.
Even if he wasn’t sitting at the front, right in his mom’s line of sight, Mike doesn’t think he’d be able to eat anything anyway. Holly keeps bouncing in his arms, and the nerves are eating away at his stomach.
He hadn’t been this nervous when leaving home, but as they drove through town, his stomach seemed determined to twist itself inside out.
Was Mia alright? Does she know what happened to Will? What had made them split up? Was she really okay? Did she see the monster? What had happened to her?
Mike’s mom parks in front of Jennifer Hayes’ house. It’s only across the street from Dustin’s and Jenny is already sitting outside on the doorsteps, pink backpack, covered in glitter and silver puff-paint stars, on the ground between her white chuck taylors.
She jumps up as soon as she sees them, waving at the car. She has a striped shirt on today, long sleeved, under tan overalls. Her hair is up in a ponytail, tied off with a pink puffball.
She looks like the lovechild of a gardener and a carebear. Puked on by a kindergartner. It’s ridiculous.
“Hi, Mrs. Wheeler!” Jenny says, all smiles. She looks at the passenger seat and gasps, “Holly!”
Jenny, besides Mia, might be Holly’s favorite person in the entire world. Holly doesn’t even run to Nancy anymore, but whenever she sees Jenny, she just squeals and does her best to get to her, no matter what.
Like she’s doing right now.
Holly shrieks, and kicks Mike everywhere while trying to climb out the window.
Mike swears Jenny did it on purpose.
In the end Mike lets Holly go, glaring at Jenny, who just grabs Holly through the window and smiles at him before making her way around the car to the backseat.
Dustin opens the door for her and Jenny slides inside, Holly set firmly on her lap and her backpack once again relegated to the floor between her feet.
“Hi, Dustin, Lucas.” Jenny greets, smiling. Then she turns to Mike, eyes turning sharp and evil, “Hey, Mike.”
“Jenny.”
His mom gives him a look.
It’s a betrayal if he’s ever experienced one - his mom had listened to many of his speeches about why Jennifer Hayes was a friend-and-sister-stealing witch, who was most certainly out to get Mike. Mom should be on his side here.
Mike puts on a fake smile, puts as much fake enthusiasm in his voice as he can get away with, “Hi, Jennifer, how have you been?”
Lucas snorts. In the rearview mirror, Mike sees Dustin wheezing silently on Lucas’ shoulder. Jennifer doesn’t even look offended, a wide smile splitting her face apart.
“I’m doing very well, Michael. How is your morning so far?” Jenny replies, as haughtily as an English lady.
“Very good, Lady Hayes.”
“Very good.”
Yeah. He kind of likes her. She’s cool. Whatever.
“We’re wearing overs!” Holly yells all of a sudden, sitting cross-legged on Jenny’s lap.
Jennifer’s brows furrow for a moment before her whole face clears like the sky on a sunny morning, “Oh, overalls! Yes, we are! Isn’t that exciting?”
Jenny puts up with Holly’s nonsense blabbering about trees and clouds until they get to the Byers’, leaving Mike, Dustin and Lucas free to talk without Holly screeching every two seconds to get their attention. Somehow she manages to both entertain Holly and get into Dustin’s discussion of Marvel characters, debating over who she would like to be, She-Hulk or Scarlet Witch.
Yeah, Jenny’s kind of cool. Plus, she used to make a wicked bard whenever she came around the house to play D&D.
Mike slowly tunes out of the conversation, the nerves starting to come back as they pass through Mirkwood, skyrocketing when they bend around the dirt road towards Will‘s house.
What if the monster that took Will never left? Will Mia be safe here? Will Will be safe there, wherever it is he’s hiding?
The car rocks under him as they shift from dirt to gravel, making Mike slam his head on the closed window.
His hand darts out to his forehead, rubbing it furiously. “Mom!”
His mom looks over, one hand darting out to fuss at his forehead. “Aw, I’m sorry, honey. Are you hurt?”
“Are you hurt, honey?” Mike hears Lucas whisper behind his head, followed by high-pitched giggles.
He turns around in his seat, glaring murderously at Dustin and Lucas, who just laugh.
“Here we are!” Mike’s mom says, smiling at the closed front door. “C’mon kids, let’s go see Mia. Don’t forget the plates – and Jenny, dear, can you take Molly to the door for me? I’ll have my hands full with the casserole.”
So they make their way to the door. Mike once again holding the cookie plate, Dustin the sandwiches and Lucas the juice pitchers. Jenny is holding Holly’s hand and carrying her backpack and Mom is at the front, knocking at the door with the casserole in her hands.
Joyce swings the door open on the second knock.
Her striped shirt has some white dust on it, and her jeans don’t look any cleaner, for some reason.
“Karen! Hi!” Mrs. Byers almost shouts, eyes wide. “Come in, come in.”
“Hi, Joyce, we brought food. I know how much Mia loves my cookies so I brought some of that too –“
Mike rolls his eyes, tapping his foot on the ground. At this speed, they’re only going to see Mia by the time they’re twenty. He can’t forget to meet Eleven behind his house at three fifteen, and it’s already nine thirty.
He has, like, just six hours.
As soon as they step inside the house, the first thing Mike notices are the lights.
There are lights everywhere, covering the whole ceiling like some demented Christmas-themed vomit.
Mike gapes at them all.
How did Mrs. Byers even get that one to stay up? It’s hanging on by a stripe of tape -
Dustin pokes his side hard. He’s also looking at the lights, open-mouthed.
“Dude! What in the – “
“Dustin.” Lucas whispers, stepping on Dustin’s foot. “Shut up.”
Mike blinks at the ceiling, then at the walls. Then he shakes his head.
He doesn’t have the time for this.
“Sorry, mom, but – Mrs Byers, where’s Mia?” Mike cuts his mom off while she’s talking to Mrs. Byers, siding up to Mia and Will’s mom.
She looks down at him, a bit confused. Her eyes shine for a second and Mike fears that she’ll cry. He wouldn’t blame her because he also misses Will a lot, but it’d be weird.
“Oh, right. Uh – she’s in Jonathan’s bedroom. Third door to the –“
“I know! Thanks, Mrs. Byers!”
Mike tunes the women out, elbowing Dustin and Lucas so that they’ll follow him. Jenny looks divided, glancing between Holly’s hand in hers and the boys. Mike may think she’s stupid sometimes, but he isn’t that cruel. Besides, he does like Jenny more than he likes Nancy, so – he turns on his heels, walks back to his mother and pokes her side.
“Mom?”
His mom does a double take, “Yes - Mike?”
“Can Holly stay with you? Jenny wants to come see Mia –“
“Oh right!” Mom interrupts him, walking over to Jenny and picking up Holly. “Thank you, honey. You tell Mia hi for me, I’ll pop over in just a bit. Give you some time to talk.”
Jenny smiles, taking the backpack from her back to hold it in her hand. Unlike Mike and the boys she doesn’t seem affected by the lights weirdly arranged all around, from the living room to the hallway, and even in the kitchen.
“Thanks, Mrs Wheeler!” Jenny says, skipping past Mike’s mom, only to grab him by the wrist with her free hand. “C’mon, Mike.”
She starts to drag him to the hallway, but Mike pulls her back by planting his feet on the ground.
She turns around to look at him, blonde hair whipping back to hit him in the face. “What?”
Mike blinks at her, looks back at Dustin and Lucas incredulously. Lucas shrugs and so does Dustin. The traitors.
Mike turns back to Jenny. “Don’t you think the – uh, thousands of Christmas lights are a bit weird?”
Jenny frowns at him. “Oh, honestly. People are weird, Mike! I’m not going to enter someone’s house and mock the decoration. Much less when they’re sick with worrying about their missing family member. You never heard me complaining about the dozens of toys you keep in your basement.”
She huffs, cutting off his following reply of those are not toys, they’re action figurines by turning back around and continuing to drag him past the bathroom and Mrs. Byer’s room, over to Jonathan’s bedroom door.
But she stops there, doesn’t move a hand to open it. The energy from before is gone, her hand lax around his wrist.
“What?” Mike asks again, annoyed this time.
“It’s just – “ Jenny shakes her head, eyes fixed on the door. “It’s stupid.”
Against his wishes, her voice ignites a (small) spark of worry in him. It’s not often that Mike sees Jenny looking serious, or worried.
He remembers seeing her like this only a handful of times: during the Byers’ divorce, that time that Mia came to school in fifth grade and cried through recess; and that time that Dustin’s mom got pneumonia and everyone thought that she’d die. Jenny, living the closest to Dustin, had given him a ride to school every day, and had always swung by his house in the afternoons to see how he was.
Mike had been there plenty of those times and had seen how serious she’d been when handing Dustin another list of home remedies for pneumonia.
“You’re nervous, right?” Mike asks, trying to be nice. He doesn’t like seeing her like this. “I’m nervous too. But it’ll be fine. It’s only Mia.”
Jenny looks at him, blue eyes wide. Somehow, there’s glitter on her eyebrow.
“Yeah.” She agrees, finally, shaking her head and smiling once again, a fake, fragile thing, more bravado than emotion.
“Uh, guys? Can we do this, like, today?” Lucas asks, passing his hand in between Mike’s and Jenny’s faces.
“You two are so dramatic.” Dustin rolls his eyes and reaches forward to open the door.
The first thing they see is Mia, curled up on Jonathan’s bed, her eyes on the door.
“Mia!” Jenny shouts, crossing the distance between the bed and the door in two strides and launching herself at the bed.
Dustin does the same, shamelessly, the two of them piling over Mia like a pair of puppies.
“Guys! She’s hurt! No jumping on her!” Lucas shouts, ignored by Dustin and Jennifer.
Mike trades an exasperated glance with Lucas.
Lucas rolls his eyes and the corner of Mike’s mouth twitches, fond.
He closes the door and sits down on the bed, watching as Dustin and Jenny slowly peel themselves away from a shaky, but smiling Mia. Mike tries not to look at the picture framed by Jonathan’s bed - of Mia, Will, and Jonathan standing in front of the newly built Castle Byers - but he can’t quite make it.
Mike still looks at the picture, and it hurts to see Will’s wide smile.
He really, really hopes that Will’s okay.
But they will find him soon. Eleven will help them.
“Hey, guys.” Mia says, voice scratchy, like she had caught a cold and coughed for a week straight.
While seeing her once they stepped into the room had relaxed some part of Mike he hadn’t known to be tense, Mike hadn’t really seen her yet. He’d just put together the green eyes, brown bangs and the freckles and thought Mia.
This close, however, he’s forced to look. Forced to look at her round eyes that are so like Will’s, her brown hair and bangs, and that line over her nose that Will doesn’t have. He’s forced to look and see all the cuts on her face and neck, the blue and yellow ring of bruises around her lip. The dark red and purple mess above her left eye, which chills him down to his bone.
It seems more real now. That they had been missing.
That maybe they could have never been found.
Jenny crawls over Mia’s legs, shifts over to sit on Mia’s left side. Mia raises her arm from under the blankets to avoid being trampled and only then Mike notices the tape around her wrist.
“What happened to your arm?” He blurts out.
Mia looks down at it, as if she’d forgotten about it. “I sprained my wrist.”
“Why isn’t it in a cast?” Dustin asks, and he would know all about broken and sprained bones. Mike had lost count of how many bones Dustin had broken and sprained during the last three years.
“’Cause Chester bit my wrist and until that heals they can’t, like, wrap it under the plaster.”
“Does it hurt?” Jenny asks, one hand hovering over it as if to poke it.
Dustin quickly bats it away. “Of course it does, genius! Don’t touch it.”
Mike pulls his legs up on the bed. On the other side of Mia’s legs, Lucas does the same, toeing off his shoes first. Dustin inches closer to Mia’s right shoulder, pulling his hat off and putting it on the nightstand.
Silence hangs awkwardly between them for a moment.
No one wants to be the first to ask.
“Mia…” Lucas decides that it’s going to be him, thank god. “What happened?”
Mike had planned to ask the questions but he couldn’t, his eyes have gotten stuck on the bruises on Mia’s face, the cut on her bottom lip that’s surrounded by red. There’s a gash high up on her cheek too, the scab on top of it a dark brown.
Mia clutches Jonathan’s blanket, knuckles turning white. “Did your mom tell you anything?”
“We only heard you were found last night.” Dustin says, Jenny nodding in confirmation on Mia’s other side.
Mia nods. Gulps. “We – when we biked home…there was something in the woods with us. It – he followed us home and got Will when we went to hide out in the shed. It took Will and it tried to…tried to - but I ran. The sheriff said it could be a person that was after us. Jonathan thinks that whoever it was, they were wearing some mask or something, that’s why – I, uh.”
“Could be a person?” Jenny asks, “You mean you don’t know?”
“You don’t think it was a person, do you?” Mike says, thinking back on El and the Demogorgon figurine.
He glances pointedly at Lucas and Dustin, seeing his thoughts reflected on their eyes.
“What else could it be, Mike? A bear? In Hawkins?” Jenny argues, glaring in that are you dumb way that immediately makes Mike bristle.
“I don’t – “ Mia starts before Mike can reply to Jenny, jaw working, then using her good hand to cover her eyes. Her nails are cut really short, on that part that makes it painful to even stretch out the fingers. Mike knows it, he had been a nail-bitter for some years until Mom put that pepper nail polish on his hands. “I don’t know. It didn’t look like a person – it, it was wrong, you have to believe me. It didn’t look like a person.” She takes her hands away, voice trailing off, “I don’t know what it was.”
“What did it look like then?” Jenny asks, much more gentle now that she’s talking to Mia. “If not like a person.”
Mia doesn’t look up from her hands. “It looked like – Like – “
“A monster.”
Mia’s head snaps up to Mike.
“It looked like a monster, right?” He repeats himself, glancing pointedly at Dustin and Lucas again.
They have to tell Mia and Jenny about the Demogorgon. About Eleven.
Lucas’ hand shoots out to his arm, squeezing it in warning. “Just a moment, ok?” With the other hand, he beckons Dustin along and gets the three of them out of the room and on the hallway outside, the door firmly shut behind them.
“What the hell, Mike? I thought we weren’t telling anyone about this.” Dustin whispers-shouts, gaze darting to the kitchen where Mike can hear Joyce and his mom talking.
“Guys, this is Mia. She’s part of the Party, she’s Will’s twin – and she saw what took him.” Mike reasons, counting on his fingers, “She could help us find Will.”
Lucas shakes his head. “Mike, she almost got killed and walked like twenty miles in the woods. Alone. Without food and on foot for an entire day. She can’t go out there looking for Will right now! And you know that if she hears that we’re searching for Will, she will want to come too.”
“Yeah, dude.” Dustin agrees, “You can’t exactly stop Mia. Besides, you said that Jenny’s not a Party member anymore, and Mia will tell her.”
Mike’s about to answer when Dustin’s face suddenly lights up with green.
Mike steps back, confused, and looks at Lucas, who’s turning blue.
What –
“Guys, look.” Dustin points up.
The lights in the ceiling are turning on, one by one.
Like a moth lured by the pretty lights, Holly appears at the end of the hallway, coming to a stop just behind Lucas’ back.
“Pretty!” She says, hands twisting the sides of her coveralls.
“Yeah, Holly.” Mike says, half-listening. Christmas lights are a single circuit, they shouldn’t be lighting up one by one. “Real pretty.”
It’s strange, it’s what it is. The lights are coming on like a bread crumb trail, continuing past the four of them and turning right into the last door on the right.
Will and Mia’s room.
The light above the door flickers on once, twice, a bright cherry red, then dims, followed by a series of loud clicks inside the room.
Holly smiles, makes as if to go towards it, but Mike grabs her by the hand.
His hairs are all up. This isn’t right.
There’s something wrong, lights don’t just do that.
“Should we – “ Lucas whispers.
Dustin makes a choked noise. “Dude, no.”
He’s got to look. What if it’s something to do with Will?
He hesitates, looks down at Holly.
He has to know.
“C’mon guys. C’mon, Holly, it’s ok. Dustin you go first.”
“Why me?”
“’Cause I’m with Holly.” Holly holds his hand tighter. It’s sticky, for some reason that he doesn’t want to know.
Dustin grumbles, but goes in anyway. The red light at the door flickers on and off, on and off, ominously, stopping when Dustin pushes open the door.
There are dozens of lamps inside the bedroom, dozens, all turning on and off by themselves, one by one, like fireflies.
Why are there so many lamps?
“Is it just me or did Mrs. Byers go mental?”
“Dustin, shut up.” Mike says, letting go of Holly’s hand. He steps closer to one lamp, finger touching the nearest light bulb.
At once, all the lights turn on. Mike flinches back, taking his hand away and just as suddenly, all lights turn off with a soft whoosh and the smell of burning.
“What the hell, guys.” Dustin croaks out, voice shaking with fear.
Mike’s hand shakes, his finger tingling as if he’d stuck his finger in an outlet.
“We should go.” He whispers, but his feet seem glued to the floor. “There’s something wrong. We should go.”
“Mike.” Mike hears someone whisper behind him, and he nearly breaks his neck twisting his head around, because he could swear that it had been Will’s voice.
But there’s just Dustin and Lucas, both of them staring at the lamps with wide eyes.
A cold trickle of fear slides down his arms.
There’s something wrong.
He notices his hand’s empty then, whips his head around to find Holly by the wall, staring up at it.
His heart jumps in his chest, stomach lurching. There’s something wrong. They have to leave.
He steps towards Holly.
And then the wallpaper melts out of the wall.
No, it doesn’t melt – something is melting out of it, as if trying to come out from behind the wallpaper, something long, pointy. Something shaped like fingers, or claws.
Way too large to be a human’s hand.
Mike grabs Holly by the back of her overalls, pulls her behind him so harshly that she trips and stumbles into the sidetable, knocking over a hand-shaped lamp.
“Holly?” Mike’s mom calls from the kitchen.
Mike is frozen, staring at the clawed thing coming out of the wall, and a buzzing fills his ears. He barely notices the lights in the hallway flickering again.
It’s the monster. It has to be. The monster that took Will, the monster that El had pointed out to them. It’s the demogorgon. Mike had faced it many times in their campaigns but this was real, there was a monster coming out of the wallpaper, claws reaching out for them and if mom came here it’d will kill her, it would kill them –
“She’s here, Mrs. Wheeler.” Jenny’s voice comes from the doorway.
Mike whips his head to it, Dustin and Lucas whirling around with their arms up, ready to fight.
Jenny jumps back from the door, frowning at the four of them. “What’s wrong?”
Mike snaps his head to the wall again.
There’s nothing there anymore, just smooth wallpaper.
Lucas inhales sharply. “Was that – “
“The Demogorgon.” Mike blinks at the wall, voice breaking.
He’s sweating, but his hands feel cold, his knees weak. He remembers Holly then, still sitting on the ground, and turns around to help her up. She pouts at him, face scrunching up as if she was about to cry.
Mike panics.
He grabs her by the waist and lifts her up, settling her on his hip. “Don’t you dare cry.”
Holly makes a face, but doesn’t start crying. What she does is lie her head down on his shoulder and it’s somehow worse, especially because she does it in front of Jenny. Thankfully, Jenny doesn’t seem inclined to tease him about it now.
“The demogorgon?” She asks instead, staring at Mike, eyes hard as ice.
He turns to the boys. “We have to tell her.”
Lucas and Dustin shout at the same time.
“Mike!”
“No!”
“Tell me what?” Jenny asks again, demanding. She glances at Dustin and Lucas, eyes narrowed.
Jenny can always sense when someone’s lying – she just knows it.
Mike ignores Dustin and Lucas, and stares unflinchingly into Jenny’s cold blue eyes. “We know what took Will.”
*
“A Demogorgon?” Mia whispers, eyes fixed on her blanket.
“Prince of demons and dweller of the abyss.” Dustin recites, shoving the last of his piece of casserole into his mouth.
Right after Jenny had demanded Mike to tell the truth, Mrs. Byers and Mom had appeared in the hallway, saying that the casserole was ready. Mrs. Byers had seemed a bit freaked that they’d entered Will’s room, but Mike – always an expert at dodging parents’ attention – had quickly steered her attention away by shoving Lucas forward and dragging Jenny and Dustin back to Mia’s - or rather, Jonathan’s - room.
Lucas had come a few minutes later with a tray of food for them all, grumbling about being left behind.
They had barely sat down on the bed before Jenny had tattled to Mia that they were hiding something from them, something about Will, and then Mia had turned her big green eyes to Mike, and well, he’d had no other choice really.
She looks so much like Will. He had folded like wet cardboard.
Mike told her the truth, in between bites of cheesy chicken: going out to look for Will in the rain. Finding Eleven. The bad men. El slamming the door of his room with her mind. The flipped board, the demogorgon figurine.
“But what I saw didn’t have two heads.” Mia says now, hesitant.
“Well – We don’t know if it’s an actual Demogorgon.” Mike says, ignoring the way Jenny’s glaring at the side of his head. “A real one, I mean, but El said it was a monster. And she pointed out the demogorgon figurine so, it’s the name we have so far.”
“El…” Mia looks up at Mike, lost. “You found her in the woods the night after we went missing? With a tattoo on her arm?”
“And powers, apparently.” Jenny adds drily, voice dripping with sarcasm. She stares at Mike as if he’s gone insane. “Let me guess. Is she a mutant? Or maybe she’s a government experiment. You know, like area 51 – oh wait, is this Demogorgon thing an alien? Ooh, Did he abduct Will and take him to his home planet or something?”
Mike narrows his eyes at her, “This isn’t a joke, Jenny.”
She raises an eyebrow at him. After a few seconds of them staring angrily at each other, Jenny glances away, but doesn’t say sorry.
“Chaos, corruption…Demonic and Evil, right? Those are the Demogorgon’s domains. One head for deceit and strategy, the other for chaos and destruction and…” Mia’s voice trails off in a whisper as she pulls the blanket closer to herself. Back with El, Mike had hoped he’d never see her looking like El, but here is Mia, green eyes wide, scared, brimmed with tears. “And I let it get him.”
Dustin shakes his head, curls bouncing. “You didn’t let it do shit.”
“Yeah, you chose protection over attack, which is smart.” Mike agrees, “Besides, we have a plan to bring Will back. Eleven – we told her to meet us behind my house in – “ He glances at his wrist, remembering he’d given his watch to El. He takes Lucas’ wrist, and sees that it’s almost two o’clock. “An hour and fifteen minutes. She’s going to tell us where Will’s hiding.”
Mia puts her plate on the bed next to her hip, “I wanna go too.”
“Told ya.” Lucas shoots at Mike.
“Your mom won’t let you.” Jenny says, ignoring Lucas and getting up to stack all their plates together. “Even if it’s just to walk around the neighborhood to try and find Will. You just got out of the hospital, you can’t go.”
“I want to find Will.” Mia grits out, “Jonathan’s out there doing god knows what and mom… She can’t even look me in the face. She and Jonathan had a huge row last night about it, he thought she was going nuts.“ Mia stops, swallows whatever she was about to say. “I’m fine, but mom is acting weird and Jonathan isn’t here. If we are going to find Will, I want to go.”
Lucas throws a pointed look at Mike, as if to say See!
“Mia, you can’t be seriously considering this!” Jenny scoffs, waving the pile of dirty dishes up and down in her hands. “I mean, seriously?! It’s an imaginary monster - demogorgons aren’t real.”
Mia’s jaw tightens. “I know what I saw.” She grits out, green eyes hard. “And I’m telling you, it wasn’t human.”
They stare at each other for a moment, jaws tight and eyes flaming, but finally, Jenny sighs. She sits down at the edge of the bed.
“Look, let´s - let’s pretend it really wasn’t human for a moment. That Will was grabbed by the - the demogorgon. What is even the plan here? Are we just going to walk into the woods, banging some pots and pans together and telling it to come get us? Are we going to try and kill it? With what? You said so yourself, Mia, the thing was huge, it had claws and it disappeared with Will. What’s stopping it from doing the same to us the minute we step into the woods?”
“I mean…We went into the woods and nothing happened.” Lucas pipes up. “We spent our entire lives entering those woods and nothing ever happened until now.”
“There has to be a reason for it, right?” Dustin frowns, “Why now? Why did it go after Will and Mia?”
“That’s not my point.” Jenny all but stomps her foot.
“We have Eleven.” Mike says, “She knows who Will is - she recognized him, and she said he’s hiding from the demogorgon, which means that Will isn’t around the monster. She’ll lead us to Will. And she has powers, we can use her to fight off the demogorgon. If we meet it.”
“Even then! Mia, do you really think that your mom would just let you out when you literally went missing and spent a night in the hospital? If a monster came for us, would you even be able to run? I don’t know if I can -”
Jenny cuts herself off, staring at the Aladdin Sane poster on Jonathan’s wall.
She’s worried sick about Mia. Mike knows how she feels. He’s worried sick about Will.
“We’ll be careful.” Mike tells her. He’s also worried about Mia, just like Jenny, and both her and Lucas were right, unfortunately. Mia had just come out of the hospital. However, he stands by what he’d told Lucas and Dustin earlier: it isn’t fair to leave her out of this. It’s Will. They have to go after him and Mia has to go with them. “We’ll get El to show where he is and if it even looks like the demogorgon is near us… We’ll come back here and think of a new plan, okay? We just need to find Will.”
Jenny works her jaw for a moment, but nods her head.
It’s like a weight has lifted off Mike’s shoulder. A new energy fills him, making his hands clammy and his heart race. Maybe they can do this. Their first ever real life campaign.
He’s not DMing this one.
Still, it’s his job as their paladin, their leader, to come up with a plan.
“Okay. Jenny, you ask Mrs. Byers if Mia can stay at your place today – tell her that… that she and Jonathan have to find Will and she can’t do that if she’s worried about Mia staying alone at home, right? So, your parents offered to let her stay over.” Jenny nods again and hope ignites in Mike’s chest, making him giddy. They’re going to find Will today, he knows it. “Mia, you do your best to look as normal as possible – no offense, but you look terrible. ”
Mia sniffles, rubs the sleeve of her sweater against her eyes, but nods.
“Lucas, Dustin… Mom said she’d take you home right after lunch, right? When she drops you off, you get inside, act normal, then pretend you forgot something with each other and have to get it quick – then you bike over to my place. Jenny will bike with Mia there too – we’ll need the bikes to look for Will. Dustin, see if you can find any more weapons.”
Dustin and Lucas nod. Mia exhales shakily, wipes her eyes with her palms and shoves the blankets away from herself, determined. Mike watches her scoot to the edge of the bed, pull out a pair of shoes from under Jonathan’s bed and pull them on. “I’m ready.”
She’s wearing black sweatpants and a striped sweater that Mike’s certain belongs to Will. Her eyes are red, eyelashes dark and wet, her hair a rat’s nest above her head.
She still…doesn’t look good.
“Here.” Jenny reaches for her bag, rooting around one of its pockets and fishing a scrunchie from it. She takes a look at Mia’s tapped wrist. “I’ll do it for you.”
Jenny gets up and comes around the bed to stand behind Mia. She tilts Mia’s head back, detangling her hair with her fingers, before pulling it all up in a high ponytail. Mia’s eyes have glazed over, far away. She looks tired and scared, nothing like the girl that had sat behind Will on his bike and waved at Mike as they left his house a day ago.
Mike’s stomach twists.
“We’re going to find Will, Mia.” His mouth moves before he’s conscious of it.
Lucas and Dustin look at him. Mike glances at them, before getting up and stepping in front of Mia. Her eyes focus on him, almost piercing in their intensity.
He tries a smile at Mia. “He’ll be fine you’ll see.”
Jenny glares at him from over Mia’s head, but her voice is light when she speaks, “Yeah, he’ll be just fine.”
When even pulling back her hair doesn’t make Mia look any better, Mia heads to the bathroom to throw some water at her face to try to look alive. When she comes out, she does look slightly better, or at least good enough that she can pass off as okay.
They go to the kitchen ready to argue with Mrs. Byers, but it turns out that it’s surprisingly easy to convince her.
In fact, she looks downright relieved when Jenny asks her if Mia can stay over.
Mike, Dustin, Lucas and Jenny stare at Mrs. Byers, dumbfounded, huddled around the dinner table. The whole kitchen is silent, save for Holly’s babbling coming from the living room while she plays with Mia’s old plushies.
Mike had expected it to be much more difficult to convince her.
“Are you sure, Joyce?” Mom breaks the silence, looking confusedly at Joyce.
“Karen, this house… It isn’t the best place for Mia to be right now.” Mike frowns, glancing at Mia, who doesn’t raise her eyes from the table. “I mean – we’re so worried about finding Will, and with the deputies over all the time and Jonathan going this way and that to print posters... It’s best if she stays with a friend. Right, honey? What do you think?”
For a second, Mia looks absolutely devastated. But then she blinks, face smoothing over, and Mike wonders if he’d even seen anything at all.
She lifts her eyes up from the table and smiles at her mom.
“Yeah, mom. I’ll be just fine at Jenny’s.”
Notes:
Joyce your daughter just wants a HUG
Chapter Text
Mia doesn’t remember much of that first night she’d spent in the woods, except for the all-encompassing terror, and the feeling that there was always something right behind her, watching her through the trees.
She recalls glimpses of the morning after, fleeting moments when she had been aware of the grass crunching beneath her, when the pain in her wrist was so bad that it made the gray sky overhead fuzzy and too bright.
She also recalls that, in between the constant litany of WillWillWillWhere’sWill, Mia had thought about her mom.
Had thought of Mom picking her up in one of her hugs, kissing her head all over. She had thought that any minute now she’d wake up in Jonathan’s bed and this would all be just a terrible nightmare.
She’d wake up any minute now with his soft voice telling her everything was okay and that it was just a dream.
And then Officer Hopper had been there, kneeling in front of her, a plastic thermos lid full of water in his hands. She was sitting, a blanket around her, with other people standing in front of her.
She didn’t recall how she’d come to end up there.
Chief Hopper had asked her what had happened, and Mia had told him, forgetting the words she was saying as soon as they came out of her mouth.
He’d picked her up, smelling like beer and the shampoo dad used to buy at the store downtown, and put Mia in the passenger seat of his car. For a moment, she’d relaxed. She’d been five years old again, pretending to be asleep with Will’s head heavy on her shoulder while mom and dad fought in the front seat.
It hit her then - Will wasn’t here with her.
She’d get back to her mom alone, because she hadn’t done anything to stop Will from grabbing that gun.
She hadn’t pulled him down under the table with her. Hadn’t found him in the woods afterwards, even after screaming herself hoarse calling his name.
And all she could think about was the door to the shed. Had she ever locked it at all?
It was her fault that Will was gone.
Mom had every right to hate her for it.
Will wasn’t there and it was her fault.
She knew, rationally, that mom would be happy to get her back. She’d cry, and probably say nothing of it was her fault. But she would be wrong.
Mia had been ready for that. Had been ready to fight against her mom in favour of her own guilt. Mom would try to comfort her, to say she wasn’t guilty, and wouldn’t deserve a single bit of it. When she saw that it wasn’t working, and that Mia was still stubbornly certain of her own guilt, Jonathan would try to convince her too.
Would he see it in a way that she hadn’t? Would he tell her it was not her fault and make her believe it?
But that didn’t happen. They were too distracted at Will’s disappearance for that.
Chief Hopper had been the one to try and convince her that she had done the right thing, by hiding.
Mia didn’t believe him.
Mom sat and cried at her bedside at the hospital, after the cops left and when she thought Mia was asleep, but she didn’t do much else besides taking her hand. After hours of silence, she had slipped off of the room and gone back to the house to pick up some clothes for her. Mia had fallen asleep with Jonathan carding his hands through her tangled hair.
She woke up halfway through the night to Mom and Jonathan arguing in fast whispers by the door. Mom curled in on herself, leg jiggling up and down. Jonathan’s shoulders up around his ear.
“You can’t just leave her here. We can’t even afford this.”
“I know, honey –“
“Then why don’t you want to take her home?!”
“Jonathan – There’s something, at the house, I saw – She can’t go back now –“
“You can’t really believe this monster story that she’s telling?”
“Jonathan – “
“Mom, she’s twelve! She just saw Will get, get kidnapped or something by some – Of course she’d think it’s a monster! What she needs right now is her mom and her home, not a hospital and not you going away to – to do what? Buy christmas lights?”
“I know, I know –“
She must have made some noise, because both their gazes had snapped to her. Jonathan had walked to the bed at once, asking her how she was feeling.
Mom had slinked out of the door without saying goodbye.
She couldn’t go back to sleep after that. Mia lied awake with her good hand clutched between both of Jonathan’s until the doctor came to release her in the morning
Mom had been outside the hospital, in the car, smoking, boxes occupying half of the backseat and the trunk. Jonathan had been silent the entire ride home, while Mom anxiously tapped her fingers on the steering wheel.
Mia just watched the trees go by, thoughts flickering through her mind like smoke, nothing tangible enough for her to grasp.
Mom headed straight to Mia’s and Will’s room as soon as they went through the door, arms heavy with boxes. Jonathan had watched her go, eyes full of angry tears.
His shoulders had been so heavy when he’d said Mia could lie down in his room, that she hadn’t even opened her mouth, just nodded and changed into the pajamas Jonathan had laid out for her. Some sweatpants and a shirt that Will had left in his room.
They’d both lay down on his bed, Jonathan hugging her tight – still mindful of her tapped wrist - and had whispered sorry, I’m so sorry, so many times that Mia had lost count. She’d pretended to fall asleep, just so he could stop.
He did, but not too long after, had pulled away and gotten up.
Mia had considered dropping the act just so he would come back, but before she could, he was already out the door, shutting it behind him with barely a sound.
Immediately, the loneliness was too much to bear.
She wanted her room. She wanted her own bed and the Jaws poster on the wall. She wanted the yellow wall, the ships on the wallpaper and that green slime stain on the ceiling. She wanted her books and her bears, and even Will’s plushie frog. She wanted the deep blue bed sheets that smelled like fabric softener. Most of all she wanted Will.
That thing took him and she didn’t even know if he was even alive.
Mia had squeezed her eyes shut, shutting that thought right off.
If she closed her eyes right then, she told herself, all she’d see was the sun reflecting off the yellow wall of her and Will’s bedroom. If she thought it hard enough, she’d be in her own bed, Will sleeping on the bed above her. She could pretend to be somewhere far away really well, always had been. Mom would be getting ready to leave for work while Jonathan made them scrambled eggs. Everything would be okay. The last day would have been just a nightmare.
Mia had done just that, the pale yellow sunlight on Jonathan’s bedroom wall warming her closed eyelids. If she strained her hearing just so, she’d swear that she could listen to Will breathing, right behind her.
She must have imagined too hard.
There had been a shift in the air. She couldn’t feel the warmth from the sun hitting her face anymore. It’d been strangely silent too, like the moment between putting a tape into the deck and the song starting. Will’s breathing was coming from behind her, fast, terrified, then his voice was shaking as he repeated her name over and over, growing louder, screaming, Mia, get up! Mia! It’s coming! Mia! –
Mia had startled awake, sitting up in bed.
The sun warmed her face. She had still been alone in Jonathan’s bedroom.
Then the door had banged open, slamming against the wall.
Mia had sucked in a breath, coughing at the rancid taste of rotten milk that hit the back of her tongue, and whirled around, sure that it was the monster coming to get her too -
But there was nothing there. The door was closed.
Her hands felt cold and Mia had squeezed her eyes shut, the nails of her good hand clawing deep at the side of her head. For a moment, it’s like she was hovering in that space between being awake and asleep – her limbs heavy, her eyes closed but still seeing the room around her. The world shifted jarringly between black and yellow, from gray rot to soft sunlight.
Mia had opened her eyes and Will was right there, she could see him, right inside Jonathan’s half-open wardrobe. His skin pale, eyes wide.
Hide, he had mouthed, lips purple.
Mia had stared at him, eyes burning.
“Will?”
“Mia?”
Mia lurches back to the present.
“Mia, you okay?” Jenny is saying, pedaling harder on the bike beneath them.
Mia’s heart stumbles in her chest, her hand instinctively tightening around Jenny’s tan overalls.
For a moment, she’s confused. She doesn't know where or when she is. The wind hitting her face is cold and smelling of wet earth. Above them, the sky is heavy with clouds. The metal rack on the rear end of Jenny’s bike digs into her bottom, and her thighs ache from holding her legs away from the back wheel.
She wasn’t in Jonathan’s room anymore. They’d left the house entirely, didn’t they?
“Mia?”
Mrs. Wheeler had already dropped everyone off at each of their homes. Her and Jenny were pedaling to the power lines behind Mike’s house.
Mia squeezes her eyes shut, and swears she still sees Will inside Jonathan’s half-open wardrobe, pale, wide-eyed, lips purple, telling her to hide.
He wasn’t there, Mia screams at herself, There’s no monster.
Except Mike had said there was.
“I’m fine.” She tells Jenny, voice rough.
That morning, before Jenny and the others came, Mom was walking over and over again from the front door to Will and Mia’s bedroom, carrying dozens of lamps in her arms. Jonathan had already left. When Mia had asked Mom what she was doing, Mom had just told her to sleep until Mike and the others arrived, and closed Jonathan’s bedroom door. And then -
A single creak of the floorboards had her standing on high alert, ears straining to hear the sound once again.
Another creak.
Mia looked around the room, trying to pinpoint the source. It seemed to be coming from the end of the bed, as if something heavy was shifting its weight on the carpet. Mia froze, every hair on her body standing on end.
She sat up in bed, slowly inching to the foot of it. There were two patches of crushed carpet, a large looming shadow on the floor, as if something invisible stood right on top of it.
The lamp by Jonathan’s bed had flickered.
Mia’s head had buzzed, pressure slowly crushing her eardrums. The room had gone quiet too, except for the sound of her own heart racing in her ears – there should be the sound of the fridge coming from the kitchen, or the sound of the trees swaying outside, but there was nothing, only the creaking of the floorboards and Mia’s own heartbeat beating in her ears like a drum.
The sound of a car pulling up to their house had cut through the silence, shattering it.
Mia had stared at the spot on the end of the bed. The carpet had been normal, no shadows or indentations to be found.
She could hear the fridge again, humming peacefully in the kitchen.
Could hear Mrs. Wheelers’ voice at the front door.
Jenny stops the bike, sending Mia slipping across the rack to bump into her back.
“Sorry.” Mia mumbles, disoriented.
They’re at the power lines already, Mike standing by his bike, a boy with all his hair buzzed off standing next to him.
Mia wonders what happened to her bike, if Mike had taken it to school that morning, if anyone had brought it to her house. She hadn’t thought to ask Jonathan.
Dustin’s and Lucas’ voices come from the distance, the two of them turning the corner on Mike’s street, heading fast as rockets towards their group. Mia’s eyes meet Jenny’s when she looks forward again. Her best friend is twisted around to look at Mia’s face.
“It’s okay.” Jenny says, though why, Mia doesn’t know. Had she said something else? Jenny’s blue eyes rove over Mia’s face, piercing. “C’mon. It’s better if we walk.”
Mia looks down at the bike, then back up at Jenny.
Oh, right.
She feels weird. Her head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton - too full and empty at the same time. Her thoughts keep escaping her when she tries to grasp them, and she’s left adrift, like a leaf on a current.
She quickly dismounts Jenny’s bike, legs numb with pins and needles. Jenny dismounts too and starts walking, guiding her bike alongside her, eyes drifting worriedly to Mia with every step they take uphill towards Mike.
“You guys made it.” Mike says, shooting a nervous glance at the boy next to him - no, not a boy. A girl. The girl Mike had been talking about earlier. El...even?
“This is Eleven.” He says, holding his bike with one hand while the other gestures at the girl, who only stares, wide eyed, at Mia and Jenny.
Her eyes linger on the pink puffball tying Jenny’s golden hair in a high ponytail, and the backpack with puff-paint stars on it that Jenny’s still carrying against her front. She’s wearing Mike’s clothes: grey sweatpants and an indigo blue sweater under a blue windbreaker.
“Eleven, this is Jenny and Mia.”
Jenny takes off one strap of her backpack, twists it around until it sits on her back, passing her arm through the free strap before offering her hand to Eleven.
Eleven just stares down at it.
Jenny lowers her hand, seemingly unbothered, a wide smile on her face. “Hi!”
Eleven nods at her, then her brown eyes turn on Mia. Mia stares back, a nervous thrill shooting through her veins when their eyes meet.
Dustin and Lucas reach them at that moment. Mike glances between Mia and Eleven expectantly. When whatever it was that he was waiting for doesn’t happen, his shoulders slump. He taps the seat of his bike, looking at El.
“El, hop on. We only have a few hours.”
El nods, brows furrowing, before sitting on the bike, hands clutching the shoulders of Mike’s coat.
“C’mon, Byers.” Jenny says to Mia, tapping her elbow. Mia sits on the metal rack again, almost automatically, eyes not straying from Eleven. The coat has ridden up her sleeves, and her right wrist is turned towards Mia.
On it, there’s a small black smudge, 011.
Mia glances up to find Eleven watching her. Caught, Mia laces her arms around Jenny’s stomach.
The side of her head tingles, El’s stare as tangible as a swarm of ants against her skin.
Mike pushes himself down the hill, taking El with him, and the feeling disappears. At Mia’s front, Jenny sighs.
“You sure you want to do this, Mia?” She asks,
Mia nods.
Against her breastbone, her sprained wrist stings, as if reminding her how bad of an idea this is: going back into the woods so soon, where the monster that took her brother might still be.
“Yeah.” She tells Jenny, and herself too, thinking that if she says it out loud she might actually believe it. “I do.”
*
In the woods, there are too many leaves and bumpy pathways for them to safely ride on their bikes, so they walk in pairs, Mike and Eleven at the head of the group, Jenny and Mia in the middle, Dustin and Lucas in the back.
They walk and they walk, until the sun sets and the woods grow dark around them. Mia keeps her eyes firm on the back of Mike’s tan coat, ignoring how every snap from a branch, every owl hoot, every rustling of leaves makes her flinch.
At some point, Jenny had started holding her hand, fingers warm against Mia’s.
Soon enough, they appear at a familiar stretch of dirt road, and Mia’s heart lurches in her throat.
She can feel the cold night air against her cheeks, the dark tree branches whipping at her face, and see the glowing porch light of her house just around the corner.
The same fear floods her veins, making Mia step back, bumping into the front wheel of Lucas’ bike.
“You okay?” Dustin asks Mia. Jenny squeezes her hand.
She’s saved from answering by Eleven.
“Here.” The girl says, voice low as if she wasn’t used to speaking. She nods her head at Mia’s house.
“Yeah.” Mike says, staring at her. “This is where Will and Mia live.”
The girl nods. “Hiding.”
Will’s blue lips. A red and yellow vest inside the closet. Hide.
“No, no. This is where he lives.” Mike insists. “He’s missing from here, understand?”
“Uhm.” Lucas says, panting, throwing his bike on the ground next to Mia. “What are we doing here?”
“She said Will’s hiding here.” Mike answers, looking back at the four of them.
Dustin curses, “If we walked all the way over here, for nothing -”
“That’s exactly what we did! I told you she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about!” Lucas interrupts, shouting.
Mia flinches away from him, masking it at the last second as if she was just turning her head away, stepping closer to Jenny.
“Why did you bring us here?” Mia asks Eleven then, not liking Lucas’ raised voice. The girl's dark eyes turn to her then, wide.
“Don’t waste your time with her, Mia.”
“Lucas.” Jenny hisses. “Honestly, what do you want us to do?”
“Call the cops like we should have!”
Jenny scoffs, “So we had that option? Why didn’t you say so when we crafted this whole plan earlier?”
“We’re not calling the cops.” Mike argues.
“Hey, guys -”
“What other choice do we have?!”
“Guys!” Dustin shouts ahead of the five of them, staring at the slip of the Cornwallis road visible through the trees.
In the distance, Mia hears sirens.
Two cop cars come barreling down the road, lights flashing blue and red. Behind them, an ambulance comes just as fast, its sirens louder, more drawn out.
Mia’s stomach sinks and her knees wobble. Her face feels too warm all of a sudden. Spots fill her vision, as if she was about to pass out.
“Will.”
She doesn’t know who says it, her, Mike, or Jenny.
She doesn’t know how they end up on the quarry either.
She vaguely recalls jumping on the bike behind Jenny, feeling her teeth clack together as they rode over potholes filled with water, Jenny’s blonde hair blowing in her face, the blue and red lights of the ambulance ahead burning into her retinas in the dark.
It feels like in one blink she had been in front of her house, the next, she was jumping off Jenny’s bike behind a firetruck, everyone else doing the same around her.
She only takes in the handful of cop cars, the policemen crawling all around before her eyes zero in on the group of firefighters up ahead, dragging something out of the water and into a canoe-like, floating stretcher.
Her heart beats in her throat. Her vision flashes red and blue. She can’t breathe. Everything’s so far away.
She sees the firefighters drag the floating thing to the shore as if from binoculars, and sees something lying on top of it.
“It’s not Will. It can’t be.” Someone says.
Mia’s lips are numb, the inside of her throat swollen, aching as if stung by a wasp.
“It’s really Will.”
That something lying on top of the canoe is wearing jeans.
A red and yellow vest.
A hand clamps over Mia’s eyes, its fingers cold and clammy.
“Don’t look, Mia.” Jenny’s voice, wobbly and thick behind her ear.
Too late.
Jenny tugs at Mia, but she finds she can’t move. She can’t feel her legs.
Another pair of hands close around the top of her arm. And she can recognize Dustin even with her eyes closed. Jenny lets go of her face, and both her and Dustin lower Mia to the ground, her eyesight level with everyone’s knees.
“Mike -” El starts.
There’s the sound of a slap. Mia registers it a second later, and doesn’t even have it in herself to flinch away.
“‘Mike’? ‘Mike’ what?! You were supposed to help us find him alive!” His voice shifts, wet. “You said he was alive.”
Mia’s cold all over. Maybe she’s about to throw up.
Jenny makes a sound, her voice is thick, as if she’s about to cry.
“This isn’t helping, Mike.” Lucas says, voice thick with tears.
“Why did you lie to us?” Mike continues as if he hadn’t heard. “What’s wrong with you?! What is wrong with you?”
Jenny drops to the ground next to Mia, her arms around her chest. Jenny’s hair smells like wind and sweat. She pulls her knees to her chest and starts crying, burying her face into her crossed arms.
“Mike, c’mon, don’t do this, man.” Lucas says. Mia looks up at him without thinking, sees the tears sliding down his cheeks.
Dustin sniffs. He’s crying too.
Why are they all crying? It couldn’t - it couldn’t have been Will there. She hadn’t seen his face. She hadn’t seen his face.
“Mike? Where are you going - Mike!” Lucas calls out, drawing the attention of the adults nearby.
No, this isn’t happening. Mia looks at the ground. She didn’t see anything, did she? That was just -
Will’s body.
No. It wasn’t.
She didn’t see anything.
Mike climbs on his bike and rides away. Eleven hides her face in her hands. Lucas and Dustin watch Mike go, crying. Jenny’s hands are cold as they cradle Mia’s cheek.
“Hey, Mia! Mia, look at me!”
Mia sees her eyes - their color a dark, slate grey at night - her blonde hair askew and frizzy on top of her head.
“Mia? Look at me!”
“What is this - Aw, shit. What are you kids doing here? Chief!”
“We weren’t. We. We just.” Dustin is crying too much to end any of his sentences.
The deputy steps forward, a hand stretched out to Dustin, but the boy steps back, stumbling away blindly.
Mia lets her thoughts slip away from her, like cold water trickling through her splayed fingers.
Lucas’ hand is cold in hers. He’s kneeling on the ground, one of his arms around Jenny. He is still holding Mia’s hand. Mia looks at the skin of his knuckles, rubs her thumb against it. The flashing blue and red lights reflect off of it and she stares without seeing.
People are talking. She recognizes their voices. Dustin, Lucas, Jenny. Chief Hopper.
Mia looks up and the girl, Eleven, isn’t anywhere to be found.
“Oh, kid.” Chief Hopper is standing in front of her, a shadow so tall her heart stops. For a moment, he looks like the monster that took Will, or worse, her dad. But then a blue light flashes across his face and it’s only him, standing there with a mustache on his face and a hat above his hair. “God, what were you kids thinking?”
Dustin is saying something but he’s crying too much for it to be understandable. Lucas tries, but he’s crying too. Jenny is the one to explain they’d seen the lights from the Byers’ house and decided to follow.
Two large hands fall to her arms.
Her legs don’t work.
“I’m going to pick you up, alright? You’re going to be okay. I’m taking you to your mom.”
The stiff fabric of his uniform underneath her cheek smells like beer. Like sweat. The brim of his hat shades her eyes from the flashing lights.
Her eyes burn, so Mia closes them.
She doesn’t know much about the next few minutes. Or hours.
There’s the hum of a car around her, a cool window against her forehead.
She is only aware of herself again inside her own house, sitting on Jonathan’s lap on the living room couch. He’s clutching her tight, carding his fingers through her hair. Her face and the front of her sweater are wet, whether from tears or sweat, she can’t tell. The shirt underneath is damp too, sticking to her sides and her armpits.
Chief Hopper and Mom are standing in the middle of the living room, Mom staring blindly at the wall.
“...water at the quarry. Our working theory is that the man who had Will...left him there. Or he...managed to escape and accidentally fell in. The earth must have given way. Joyce? Joyce. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No.” Mom croaks out, “Whoever you found...is not my boy. It’s not Will.”
“Joyce…”
“No, you don’t understand - I, I talked to him, half an hour ago.”
Mia watches her stumble to a cabinet, say something else. Mom walks to the couch, points at the wall behind it. Mia twists her head to see over Jonathan’s shoulders.
There are dark letters on the wall, slashes of black paint under strings of Christmas lights.
Jonathan’s arms wrap tighter around her.
“... He was… he was hiding from - from that thing -”
Hiding, Eleven had said. Will’s lips had been blue as he mouthed for her to hide.
Mia blinks, and sees a red and yellow vest being fished out of the water.
“That thing that came out of the wall, that chased you?”
The firefighters had pulled Will’s body out of the lake.
Mia twists around in Jonathan’s lap, fighting off his arms. He lets her go just in time for her to lurch forward and throw up on the floor.
Jonathan’s hand is cold on her forehead. Mom is still talking to Chief Hopper. Mia’s nose burns. She gags around another wave of burning bile, glances up to see Chief Hopper staring worriedly at her, then frowning at her mom, who’s still clutching his arms, not looking at Mia.
“Mom!” Jonathan yells. Mia feels the vibration of it along her side, from his chest. His arm is too tight around her ribs, she can barely breathe. “Mom, you have to stop this. Mia needs help.”
Mia gasps, heaves, but nothing comes out.
A string of bile hangs from her mouth, snot running out of her nose. She thinks she’s crying too. She’s weak all over, Jonathan’s arm around her ribs and his hand on her forehead the only thing keeping her up.
Mom continues talking to Hopper.
“He’s in danger! We have to find him! It had these long arms - and, and….it had no face - “
“Joyce -”
Jonathan moves underneath her, picking Mia up with a sob. His hands hurt under her armpits and around her side as he struggles to shift her up for a better hold. She lays her chin on his shoulder, breathing through her blocked nose. Her mouth tastes sweet, rotten. It reminds her of watery milk and dead, grey skin.
Jonathan takes her to the bathroom, and slams the door behind him.
Their bathroom is small, a shower and a tub to one side, the sink and the toilet to the other. Jonathan puts her down on the closed toilet seat, takes off her sweater and shoes. There’s puke on her jeans, so he takes those off too.
Mia looks at the blue-green tiles on the walls, at the yellow floor, the yellow shower curtain. Watches as Jonathan grabs a towel sitting on top of the hamper and wets it in the sink, hands shaking.
He kneels down at her side, passes the towel over her face, her chin, her hands.
She feels dirty all of a sudden.
The firefighters pulled Will’s body out of the lake, the thought inserts itself in her mind, as if she was reading a passage from a book.
“I want to shower.”
Jonathan is staring up at her, silent tears running down his cheeks, and his mouth hasn’t moved, so she guesses she was the one who said it.
Her lips are numb, her tongue burns from the bile.
“Okay.” He says. “Okay. okay.”
He ducks out of the bathroom and comes back with more clean towels, and a pile of clothes. Mia takes off the rest of her clothes as he turns on the shower for her, too drained to be embarrassed or scared. Jonathan looks away, anyway. He helps her into the tub and closes the curtain halfway through, sitting down heavily on the toilet lid. He buries his head in his hands and soon after, his shoulder start to shake.
After a moment just watching him, Mia remembers that she’s supposed to be taking a shower and scrubs herself down dispassionately with the soap. It smells like Will, because of course it does. She lets the soap fall from her numb hands, takes the shampoo and conditioner from the rim of the tub and decides to wash her hair because she’s gotten it wet. It’s a hassle, detangling all of the knots. Had she washed it since coming from the hospital? She doesn’t know. Mia skips to the conditioner, and mostly lets the water wash away the dirt and tangles, watching it all go down the drain without blinking. She runs her hands through her hair numbly, and once her fingers don’t get stuck anymore, she steps out of the shower without turning it off.
Jonathan wipes away all traces of tears from his face and passes her a towel. She wraps herself up in it while he takes the same towel from before and wets its other end, stepping forward to scrub her neck and face, which only then she realizes are still covered in soap and conditioner.
Mia sits on the toilet as Jonathan takes out his clothes and steps into the shower himself. Her hair drips onto the tiles, and it’s somehow louder than the sound of the shower.
Her head is so empty. She doesn’t know what she’s thinking about. But thinking that she doesn’t know what she’s thinking about is thinking, right?
Then Jonathan starts crying, really crying, and that is all she can hear.
Jonathan turns off the shower, and dries himself behind the curtain, getting out already wearing his boxer shorts. Mia still hasn’t gotten dressed so he helps her, holding the pants open for her to step into and widening the top of the sweater for her head to pass through.
It’s almost like she was five years old again, and Jonathan’s helping her get ready for school.
But then, Will would probably have been in the bathroom too, tripping on his pant legs and begging Jonathan to let him use his jean jacket even though it was too big for him.
Mia goes back to thinking nothing while Jonathan fishes out a comb from the cabinet above the sink and starts brushing her hair. She focuses on keeping her head forward whenever the comb gets stuck in a tangle, tilting her head this way and that whenever Jonathan asks her to.
When they step out into the hallway again, the deputies are gone, but Chief Hopper is still crouched in front of their mom by the coffee table.
Mom’s crying into her hands.
Chief Hopper must sense Mia staring at him, because he looks up, eyes meeting hers. Mia hears Jonathan closing the bathroom door behind them, feels him standing behind her, waiting
Chief Hopper walks over to them.
“Do you kids need anything?”
Jonathan says something that Mia doesn’t hear.
“Okay.” Chief Hopper says, nodding at whatever response Jonathan gave him. “You did good, Jonathan.”
He takes off his hat, opens his mouth as if to say something else, but takes one look at Mia and falls silent. He puts his hat back on, tips it at them in goodbye.
Then he leaves.
It’s so easy for him to leave.
“We should go to sleep.”
Jonathan takes her to his room, locking the door behind him.
Once they’re both lying down, Mia burrows into his side, one of her ears pressed against the bone of his shoulder, the heel of her left hand pressing into her other ear. Like this she can’t hear anything but Jonathan’s breathing and her own, as well as the blood rushing through her veins.
Jonathan moves around a bit, and soon the tiny sound of music comes from above her head.
Mia moves her hand and finds her chin cold and wet. They hadn’t covered her wrapped wrist before her shower, or redone the bandages on Chester’s bite.
She suddenly realizes she hadn’t put on any underwear.
She tilts her head up at Jonathan to ask him to go with her to grab some in her room, but his eyes are squeezed shut, his jaw trembling with how hard he’s clenching it.
Mia lays her head back down, closes her eyes.
At some point in the night, she falls asleep.
Notes:
Sweet Jonathan is trying so hard to be strong for his bby sister but he just found out his bby brother is dead!!!!!!
Chapter Text
Mia wakes up with Jonathan slipping out from under her.
She jolts up, “‘M awake.” She turns her head around, squinting at him. Her eyes hurt, her throat is dry and scratchy. She coughs, the pounding behind her eyes worsening. “Ow.”
Then she hears whatever woke Jonathan up, a knock at the front door.
“Go back to bed,” Jonathan whispers. His eyes are swollen. “I’ll wake you up again.”
She thought that she would forget everything that happened the day before. That the shoe would drop and every feeling would come rushing in. But she hasn’t forgotten. It feels as if she barely slept, just closed her eyes, and it’s morning again.
Will is -
Mia ignores Jonathan, slipping out of bed and wincing at the cold carpet beneath her feet. She curls a hand around his wrist, staring at him resolutely. She’s going with him. She doesn’t want - she can’t bear to be away from him right now.
He sighs and doesn’t say a thing.
Chief Hopper ends up being the one at the door.
“Morning.” He gives them a sad smile, eyes flicking down to Mia, “Can I talk to you for a second, Jonathan?”
“Mia, can you go into the kitchen for a second?” Mia clutches his wrist tighter, and doesn’t look away from Hopper. Jonathan sighs again, “What is it, sir?”
Hopper doesn’t look like he slept well. His uniform is wrinkled, dark eye bags under his eyes, the skin of his forehead shiny. He breathes in and out slowly, eyes closing, “We’ll need you and your mom downtown, this morning. At the coroner.”
He says it fast, without inflection. Like a bandaid being ripped off a wound, taking the scab with it.
Mia’s vision blurs, but no tears fall. Her throat feels parched all of a sudden.
Coroner. She knows what that is.
“Okay.” Jonathan whispers. He knuckles at his eyes, scrubs his hand down his face. “Okay. But - Mia -”
“I’ll go.” She says with all the command she can muster. “I’m going.”
“Mia.”
“No.”
Jonathan kneels down at her side, Mia doesn’t surrender her grip on his wrist. “Mia, you can’t go inside with me and mom. It won’t be good for you.”
“It won’t be good for you and you’re going.”
“Mom needs my help, right now. She’s not…” He trails off, squeezing his eyes shut, and Mia almost feels bad for being difficult.
“I can stay with her in the reception.” Hopper interrupts, worn down. He takes off his hat, scratches his head, puts it back on again. “You guys just...get ready.”
Jonathan asks if he wants some breakfast, but Chief Hopper says it’s fine, that he’ll grab a sandwich at the station. Once the door is closed, Jonathan asks if Mia’s hungry and she says she isn’t.
He isn’t either, so they go change clothes instead.
On the way back, Jonathan insists on at least making them sandwiches to go, like he does some mornings before school. They end up making four sandwiches with butter, cheese and tomatoes that he asks Mia to cut. Mia tries, but both her and Jonathan had forgotten about her wrist.
He asks her to wrap the sandwiches instead.
She gives her whole attention to finding the saran wrap, and wrapping each sandwich as they get ready. Once they’re done with the sandwiches, Jonathan asks her to get some apples, and she does. She gets four of them and washes them under the sink.
She freezes while washing the fourth apple. Four sandwiches. Jonathan was making four sandwiches.
“We’re giving it to Hopper.” Jonathan croaks out, watching her stare at all the sandwiches wrapped already at the counter. “We’re giving them to Hopper.”
Mia finishes washing the apple.
Jonathan gives her a bag, and goes to the living room to wake mom, while Mia busies herself with putting everything inside the bag just right, the sandwiches’ corners stacked against the corners of the bag, the apples aligned so they won’t jostle around.
Something heavy is set on the floor in the living room, a dull thud echoing in the otherwise silent house.
Mia looks for whatever it was when she comes to the living room, food bag in hand, but the only suspicious thing she finds is the couch throw balled up on the floor.
Had she been hearing things? Had she imagined it? Had it been the monster? Had there ever been a monster at all?
The ride to the coroner is silent.
Chief Hopper follows behind them in his patrol car. Mia kneels on the backseat and spends the entire ride watching him through the back window of their car, pretending the seat next to her isn’t empty.
She ends up eating her sandwich on the way there out of sheer anxiety, tearing it into tiny little pieces before stuffing them into her mouth.
The coroner’s building is a blocky-washed out thing, all artificial lights and faded artificial plants. The olive green walls are faded in some parts, the dark grey-blue cabinets scratched at the corners of the drawers, the ceiling beige and boring. The long row of dark brown blinds and the beige leather chairs in the waiting area are the only warm colors in the room.
The secretary guides Mom and Jonathan to the back, while Chief Hopper guides Mia to a seat.
Mia had brought in the sandwich Jonathan made for him, and gives it to him as soon as they sit.
“Thanks.” Chief Hopper says, voice warm. “You brought anything for you?”
She nods her head. “Ate on the way.”
Chief Hopper nods and leans forward against his knees.
They sit in silence, Mia watching the clock on the wall spin.
Chief Hopper eats his sandwich.
Half an hour later, he takes off his hat.
Mia notices a blue bracelet around his right wrist. It looks a bit like a hairband which is weird because Chief Hopper doesn’t even have enough hair to tie it around.
“Why is it taking so long?” Chief Hopper says, sometime later, seemingly impatient.
The secretary looks up from her paper. Mia doesn’t know her name, though she had greeted Mia by hers when they all walked in. “Well, everything’s been chaotic around here without Gary.”
“Without Gary? Where’s Gary?”
Mia doesn’t know who Gary is.
“I thought you knew. Those men from State, they sent Gary home last night.”
“So who did the autopsy?”
A jolt runs through Mia’s body, her hands growing cold.
Autopsy.
“Someone from State.”
It reminds her of biology class back in September, when Mr. Clarke had them dissect a frog. They’d been dissecting earthworms and chicken feet for the past two classes, so everyone knew that day would be the frog. Jenny hadn’t wanted to do it, so she pretended to be sick, using her fail-safe method of sticking the thermometer in the hot water with salt her mom brought her as soon as she said she had a sore throat.
The class was an odd number, so Mia had gotten stuck partnering up with Mike and Will. Mike had held the tongs while she and Will poked around inside the dead frog. Will’s disgusted face turning more and more disgusted every time he touched an organ with the tweezers had been so comical that Mia forgot all about the disgusting smell of Formaldehyde permeating the room.
“We’re autopsying a dead frog’s corpse. How are you laughing?” Will had grumbled, poking her with a probe. Mia had squealed with disgust and brandished her dull scalpel at him.
“Do that again and it’ll be you on this tray.”
Mr. Clarke had her trade places with Mike, saying she couldn’t be trusted with sharp things. But Mike had been too squeamish to cut into the frog and so the three of them had migrated to Dustin’s and Lucas’ table to watch them properly cut up the frog.
Now, Mia thinks of Will lying down on a silver table, held apart by prongs and pins, a masked doctor poking at his insides, his organs all yellow and purple, bulging out from within his stomach.
Her mouth floods with saliva and her vision starts to spin.
Mia leans the back of her neck on the chair and swallows again and again to stop herself from throwing up.
“You okay, kid?”
Mia doesn’t look away from the ceiling, doesn’t answer Chief Hopper, her whole face tingling. If she tried to speak, she’s sure she’d throw up all over the floor.
“Monica, can you grab me a bucket? Some water too, and salt if you have it. Kid’s white as a wall.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. It’s warm, and Mia leans into it. “Mia, can you put your head between your knees?”
She shakes her head. She’ll throw up if she leans forward.
“I’ll help.” He puts a hand on the back of her head and slowly tilts her forward.
For a few moments, she feels the sandwich she’d eaten at the back of her throat, but it passes, and soon enough she has her head between her knees.
Drops of sweat slide down her sides under her sweater and she grimaces at the feeling.
“There you go.” Chief Hopper says, smoothing a hand over her back, oblivious to the gross sweat sliding down her back. “You’ll be okay kid, take deep breaths. There you go.”
Fast footsteps come from the hallway. Mia jerks, moves to lift her head, but Chief Hopper stops her from doing it by putting pressure on top of her skull. She winces - it had been the spot she hit on the road when Will pushed him off her, after falling off the bike. Hopper seems to notice and shifts his hand to her back again.
“Not yet, kid. It’s just your brother. Breathe a little more.”
Mia’s still lightheaded, so she obeys. She sees Jonathan’s shoes stop in front of her, then he kneels, putting a hand on her back. Hopper takes his hand away, making Mia shiver. Compared to his warm hand, Jonathan’s are as cold as an ice cube.
“Her pressure dropped.” Chief Hopper explains to her brother. “How’s your mom doing?”
Jonathan sniffs, hand starting to rub up and down Mia’s back. “I don’t know.”
“How… How long has this thing been going on? With the lights, uh, Will and the...thing in the wall?”
It’s like a bucket of cold water being thrown at her face.
Mike had seen the demogorgon coming out of the wall of her bedroom but how did Hopper know about it?
Did this mean that the monster was real? She hadn’t been imagining it?
Jonathan sits on the chair next to Mia, not taking away his hand.
“Since the first phone call I guess.” Jonathan says, voice rough and scratchy. “She’s had some anxiety in the past, but this…I’m worried it could be...I don’t know.”
Wait, mom had seen the monster too?
Mia raises her head, blinking at the black and colorful spots around her vision. The spot above her left eye - still swollen and turning a dark purple from hitting her head on the ground that night - throbs, and so does the cut on her mouth.
The secretary steps up to them, holding two water cups and a salt packet.
“Here, darlings.” She says, passing a cup to Jonathan and one to Mia, giving her the salt packet too.
Mia looks at Hopper.
“Put it under your tongue.” He tells her.
She glances at Jonathan, who nods. She opens the packet, puts a bit on her finger and rubs it under her tongue.
“Mom will be fine.” Jonathan says, as much to Mia as to Hopper. He continues to rub her back. “We’re gonna be okay. Mom’s tough.”
“That she is.” Hopper reaches over Mia and clasps Jonathan’s shoulder. Jonathan’s eyes shine, brimming with tears. “She really is.”
Mia swallows too salty saliva and feels some blood return to her cheeks. Still, the taste is awful. and taking a sip of the water doesn’t really help.
The door slams open. Their heads snap to the corridor just in time to see Mom running out of it, someone who Mia thinks might be the coroner hot on her heels.
“Ma'am you have to sign -”
“I don’t know what you think that thing is in there, but that is not my son!”
Chief Hopper and Jonathan jump up, Mia does too, heart racing. Some black spots appear in her vision, but she ignores them.
Chief Hopper reaches a hand towards mom, who whirls around to stare at him like a cornered animal. “Joyce, wait a second.”
Mom shakes her head, face screwed up. “No! I will not!” She says, bolting for the door.
“Ma’am! Ma’am!”
Jonathan grabs his coat and takes Mia’s wrist. It’s her bad one, though Jonathan couldn’t know because her sweater was covering the tape. It hurts when he tugs her out of the office, and she has to clench her jaw hard to stop herself from making any noise.
Mom, however, isn’t outside.
Thankfully, Jonathan lets go of Mia and looks to one side of the street while Mia looks the other, holding her wrist stiffly against her chest.
She catches a glimpse of mom’s tan coat on the other side of the street, almost on the corner.
“Jonathan!” She points. Jonathan follows her finger and curses when he sees their mom.
“In the car.” Jonathan orders, fishing the key out of his pocket. “Get in the backseat.”
They peel off the curb not a minute later, Mia sitting on the edge of her seat, clutching the back of Jonathan’s seat.
Mom had said - she had said that it wasn’t Will, in the coroner’s office.
Eleven had said Will was alive and hiding, inside their house. Mia had seen Will inside Jonathan’s closet. Mom had seen the monster. Hopper knew about the monster. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, they had all seen the monster.
Mia had seen a monster that night.
Will had to be alive.
He couldn’t be dead. It didn’t feel like he was. Seeing his body in the quarry, that hadn’t been real. It couldn’t have been. Mom said it wasn’t Will, dead on the table, stomach open and organs bulging purple and yellow.
Mia would know if he was dead, wouldn’t she? They’re twins. She’d know if he was dead.
Wouldn’t she?
If he were dead, she’d know. She’d feel it. She’s sure she would.
Will has to be alive.
Jonathan finds their mom power-walking down the street and begs her to get in the car through the passenger side’s window.
Mom isn’t paying attention to him, walking faster and clutching her coat, saying she has to walk and think.
“Mom, please!”
She turns her head away and continues walking.
Mia wants to scream at her to get inside the car, wants to tell her she believes in her, but with Jonathan this agitated, she isn’t sure it’s the best idea.
Jonathan stops the car without warning. Mia’s face crashes into the headrest, the cut on her mouth opening again, hot and stinging. She hasn’t even raised a hand to her face and Jonathan’s already out of the car after their mom.
“Stay there!” He shouts over his shoulder.
The door shuts with a slam.
Mia jumps, hand on her lip, and watches Jonathan run over the crosswalk to Mom, spinning mom around with a hand on her shoulder.
Mom yells at him, hands waving.
Soon enough, their voices are loud enough that Mia can hear them from inside the car.
“This is not the time for you to shut down! Mia needs you! We have to deal with the funeral.”
“The funeral? For - for who? That thing back there?!” Mom’s pointing.
A woman stops to stare, clutching her bags. It’s Mrs. Holloway, who works right next to Melvald’s.
Jonathan says something that Mia can’t hear, hands waving at his sides. “- do you even hear yourself?! You can’t say something like that in front of Mia! Her twin just died! And all you’re doing is giving her this stupid false hope that might be alive! He’s not!”
“I am not giving her false hope.” Mom yells, getting in Jonathan’s face. Mia watches wide-eyed, panic rising in her throat. Mom wasn’t one to yell much at them. Dad was always the one who yelled at them. “I know it sounds crazy! I sound crazy, you think I don’t know that? It is crazy! But I heard him, Jonathan. He talked to me! Will is calling to me. And he’s out there, and he’s alone and he’s scared and, and I don’t care if no one believes me. I’m not gonna stop looking for him until I find him and bring him home. I am going to bring him home!”
People in the street have stopped to stare, watching her mom and her brother arguing with wide eyes.
Mia feels a strange mix of shame and fear. She wants to hide in the footrest of the car, she wants to run away back to her house, she wants to get right in their faces and tell them to stop screaming. She wants her mom to come home.
Mia blinks and realizes there are tears on her cheek.
She hadn’t even noticed she’d been crying.
She growls, wiping them away with her fingers. She’s sick of being such a crybaby.
Still, the tears don’t stop coming. She sobs, wiping them away and digging her nails into her cheeks.
Stop crying. Please, just stop. Stop fighting. She wants to be back in the waiting room with Chief Hopper’s hand on her back. She wants to lay down and sleep, to pretend this whole thing is a nightmare, and to wake up in the morning with Will still alive, and go to school with their friends.
No, he’s still alive. Mom heard Will. Mia had heard Will, back in Jonathan’s room.
Will had to be alive.
“Yeah?” Mia can barely recognize Jonathan’s voice, so distorted from anger that it is. He doesn’t shout like this. Never. “While you’re talking to the lights, Mia and I are having a funeral for Will! I am not letting him stay in that freezer another day!”
Jonathan stalks towards the car, a cloud of fury over his head.
Mia’s heart lurches against her will, and she scoots to the furthest side from the driver’s seat as possible.
Jonathan opens the car door, teeth gritted and slams it behind him.
Mia stares at him without blinking, barely breathing.
He curls his hands over the steering wheel, knuckles white.
Dad did that too, when he and mom argued in the car. Once, he’d reached over and slapped mom across the mouth. Mia had closed her eyes and feigned sleep, sick to her stomach, and had heard mom twist around to look at the backseat to check if they’d seen anything.
Jonathan squeezes the steering wheel tighter. Mia doesn’t look away and flattens herself to the backrest.
Jonathan’s eyes flick to the rearview mirror and their eyes meet.
For a moment, she doesn’t recognize him. His face is red, his eyes full of tears, his whole face twisted with pure fury.
Mia’s mouth is dry, her heart beating in the back of her throat.
Jonathan stares at her, and finally, a tear slips down his cheek. It seems to break whatever anger-induced trance he’d been in, because he slumps with a sob, leaning his head forward on the steering wheel.
Mia watches his shoulders shake, then slowly slides behind his seat. She reaches her left arm to him but thinks better of it, an image of Jonathan’s hand darting out and squeezing the sprained joint flashing through her mind like a thunderclap, and decides to change hands instead, leaning forward to pat his back.
“It’s okay, Jonathan.” She whispers, rubbing circles on her back like Hopper had done earlier. “We’ll be fine. I can help you with the…uhm. Everything.”
She can’t bring herself to say it. Will is alive. There shouldn’t be a - a funeral for him.
But what if he isn’t alive?
Jonathan is certain that he isn’t. Maybe mom really was going crazy like her sister, aunt Darlene did. Maybe Mia was going crazy too.
But that didn’t explain Lucas, Dustin and Mike. It didn’t explain Eleven.
“No. No. I’m dropping you off at...at Jenny’s. Or - or Mike. You can’t - I’ll be visiting funeral homes, Mia.”
Mia’s eyes burn. “I can help you.” She grits out.
“You don’t have to. I don’t want you to.” Jonathan chokes out, voice breaking at want. “You’re a kid. I’m technically still a kid and I shouldn’t be doing this, but Mom’s crazy and off doing whatever she wants so someone has to do this!” By the end of it, he’s shouting, Mia’s hand frozen on his back.
He slumps against the steering wheel again.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to shout. But you’re not coming.”
He sits up. Mia takes her hand away.
Jonathan wipes off his eyes on his coat, “Where do you want to stay?”
Mia blinks, looks around, lost.
The part of her that had been so certain that Will wasn’t dead loses a bit of its fire, because what if he is.
Jonathan seems so certain.
She can’t think about it, so she wipes it right off her mind, shaking her head like an etch-a-sketch.
“What day is it?”
“Thursday. The, uh, the 10th.”
The date makes her heart beat faster. Has it really only been three days since everything?
“Jenny has theater class today. I don’t...I don’t know if she’s going.” Jonathan ‘hm’s’, clearly not hearing a word she’s saying. Mia looks at the back of his head. “You can leave me at Mike’s. I can...help Mrs. Wheeler if he’s not there. With Holly, I mean. Or hang out with Nancy.”
Jonathan nods, jaw clenched. “Alright.” He says, turning on the car. “Alright.”
*
Mr. Wheeler is the one who opens the door. He stares at them for a couple of minutes, before something must finally click in his head.
“Byers.” He asks, then looks down at Mia. “God, everyday that passes you look more and more like your dad. How are you two holding up?”
Mia flinches. Jonathan gently squeezes her shoulder in comfort and ignores what Mr. Wheeler had said. “Can she stay with you for the evening, sir? We have to...deal with the - ah, arrangements.”
“Of course, of course. Mike and his friends are also here. I have to go back to the office in a few minutes, but Karen will be arriving from the school soon, so it’ll be okay.”
Jonathan frowns at him. “The school, sir?”
“Yeah, some deputies wanted to interview Nancy. Looking for Barbara Holland, you know. She’s been missing since…the night before yesterday.”
Jonathan blanches, his hand squeezing Mia’s shoulder again, this time more desperately.
Mia’s own good hand squeezes his.
She knows who Barbara Holland is. She was always over at Nancy’s house, and since Mia and Will were often at Mike’s, they’d seen plenty of each other. Nancy’s friend had been nice to her, in the couple of times they’d spoken to each other.
There’s the sound of a car coming from behind them. Mia glances back around Jonathan to see Mrs. Wheeler’s car rolling to a stop next to Jonathan’s.
“Oh, there they are!” Mr. Wheeler smiles, “See, the kids won’t be alone at all.”
“Well...I - I need to go.” Jonathan looks down at Mia, using a hand to brush away her bangs from her forehead. “I’ll pick you up when I’m done.”
“Alright.” Gripped by a sudden panic, Mia lurches forward to hug him around the waist. “I love you, okay?”
Jonathan laughs, a sound that is more sob than mirth.
He pulls away from her, messes her hair up with a hand. “I love you too, Mia. I need to go.”
Mia nods at him, glances quickly at an embarrassed looking Mr. Wheeler, who’s still hanging at the door, looking away from them.
“Bye!” She calls, and darts inside.
She doesn’t want to watch him leave.
She goes straight to the basement, hearing voices coming out of it.
“...this isn’t going to work. We need to get El to a stronger radio.” Mike’s voice says, in between bouts of static.
She opens the basement door and a hush falls downstairs, the radio noise suddenly cutting off, followed by the sound of feet on the ground, rustling sheets and things being put away.
“Mike?” She calls out, and the noises stop.
Mike runs to the foot of the stairs. “Mia?” He stares at her for a second, before his face breaks out into a wide grin.
Mia knuckles her eyes, wincing at the pull above her left brow. Lucas and Dustin appear behind Mike, followed by a hesitant Eleven.
“What are you guys doing?” She asks.
“We’re going to use Mr. Clarke’s Heathkit Ham Shack.”
“We’re going to school with El.”
Lucas and Dustin respond at the same time.
She processes it for a couple of seconds, looks between the two of them, frowning. She remembers Will geeking out about that radio a few times before.
“Why?” She asks them.
They share loaded glances, which deepens Mia’s frown.
Finally, Mike says it. “Will’s alive.”
Mike tells her about El using the Party’s Supercom to reach Will, tells her he was singing Should I Stay or Should I Go.
Mia’s heart lurches. Mom’s voice, yelling inside the coroner's office that the body wasn’t Will’s, echoing in her head.
The part that can’t accept that Will’s dead, that knows he can’t be dead, flickers to life in her chest at Mike’s words.
But.
“He’s not alive.” She replies immediately, voice breaking.
She doesn’t know what to think.
What if he is dead? What if she’s getting her hopes up for nothing? What if mom’s crazy and they’re all crazy, on some grief-induced, group hallucination, and Will’s lying there, inside a freezer, desiccated like a middle school frog? What if Jonathan is right?
“He is.” Mike repeats himself, eyes wide and earnest.
Mia wants so badly to believe him.
They’re silent for a moment, before Lucas talks again. “There’s a problem. There’s no way we can take the weirdo to the school without people noticing. I mean, look at her.”
The four of them stare at El, who stares back not understanding.
“Don’t call her a weirdo.” Mia says. She leans against the doorway, suddenly tired down to her bones.
“I know what we’ll do!” Mike shouts, slapping a hand on his mouth immediately after, staring fearfully up the stairs.
Mia leans back to see where Mr. Wheeler is. There’s the sound of a glass against the bottom of the kitchen sink, and soon the man comes into view, wallet and key cars clutched in his hand. Mia raises a hand at Mike, hidden from Mr. Wheeler by the basement door, telling the boys to be quiet.
Mr. Wheeler catches sight of her, then. “Ah, Mia. Found them?”
“Yes, sir.” She hesitates for a moment, thinking. She looks pointedly down at his wallet and keys. “Where’s Mrs. Wheeler?”
“Oh, Karen will have to go pick up Holly from the babysitter. She should be back in fifteen minutes or so. Do you need anything? Nancy is outside, talking to your brother about homework.”
Mia shakes her head, “No, it’s fine. Thanks, Mr. Wheeler.”
He nods at her, and leaves.
Mia lowers her hand once he locks the front door behind him, looking down at Lucas’, Mike’s, Dustin’s and Eleven’s expectant faces.
“The coast is clear.”
*
Turning Eleven into a convincing girl isn’t hard.
Mike insists they have to put makeup on her, raising the makeup kit he’d stolen from his sister’s bedroom, but Mia shuts that down right away.
However, El seems to find the glittery lip-gloss fascinating, so Mia carefully applies it on her, a bit nervous because who usually does this for her is Jenny, and she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. Being this close to El’s face also makes her a bit anxious, and the gloss stick keeps slipping in her clammy fingers.
Afterwards, Mia’s charged with asking Nancy to borrow some clothes. Nancy looks like she’s been crying, but there’s a look in her eyes when she sees Mia that immediately puts Mia on edge. Nancy doesn’t say anything though, and just gives Mia a handful of clothes that she says might fit her.
None of the clothes fit El though, all way too large. While Dustin and Lucas go look for something in the boxes in the basement, Mia takes a star necklace from Holly’s bedroom and the scrunchie on her own wrist, giving them to El.
El stares at her wide-eyed, as if she wasn’t sure about what she was being given.
“Take it.” She says. El kind of reminds her of Will - it’s the wide eyes, maybe. “It’ll look cool with whatever it is they bring back, I promise.”
Dustin and Lucas come back with a pink dress and a blonde wig at the same time that Nancy goes out into the garage, yelling at Mike to shout if he needs her.
Once she’s gone, Mia ducks into Nancy’s room with El to help her put the clothes they’d found on. Dustin, Lucas and Mike are outside in the hallway, waiting to see if Nancy will be coming back.
Mia shakes out the dress, wincing at the dust hanging onto it. Picking lint off the sleeves, she opens the zipper on the back, holding it out for El to step into it.
El stares at her.
“You have to take your clothes off first.” Mia offers, a bit confused as to why the girl isn’t moving to get into the dress.
El’s hands go to the bottom of her sweater before she once again stares at Mia. “Not supposed to do it where others see.”
“Oh.” Mia nods her head, passing El the dress. “Yeah, you’re right, I’ll turn around.”
She looks around Nancy’s bedroom, catching a flash of her own reflection on the vanity mirror. The bruise above her eye is darker, the cuts on her face and neck red around the edges. The split lip is a bit swollen and her bangs are all sweaty.
No wonder Nancy had looked at her weird earlier.
She avoids her reflection, choosing instead to focus on the pictures pinned to a corkboard above Nancy’s writing desk.
There are photos of birthday cakes, of a much younger Nancy on the beach, at a waterpark, holding sparklers on what seems to be a fourth of July fair. The most recent picture seems to be a black and white photo booth strip of Nancy and Barbara, their faces pressed together as they laugh and make faces at the camera.
Mia’s heart twists, whatever lightness there was turning to lead in her chest.
Barbara’s missing too, just like Will.
Has the monster gotten to her too? Will she be dead and floating at the quarry in a day or two?
Will’s red and yellow vest being fished out of the water flashes in her mind. Mia squeezes her eyes shut.
Will is alive. He has to be.
Is he?
What if he’s not alive. What if that was really his body. What if they find Barbara next?
A soft voice pipes up behind her. “Done.”
With a shaky exhale, Mia turns around.
El has stepped into the dress, the back hanging open behind her. The wig is lopsided on her head, some of the hair still trapped beneath the cap, a few strands sticking to the gloss on her mouth. She’s staring at Mia, round brown eyes wide and eager.
“Here, I’ll help.” Mia steps behind her to zip up the dress, hands falling still at what she sees.
Scars, a few dozen lines with different thickness one from another. All precise and straight. Mia can still see where the stitches were around one of them, a thick one that starts at the top of her spine and goes down to the middle of her back.
“Mia?”
Mia starts, unaware that El even knew her name. “Sorry.”
She quickly zips up the girl’s dress, turns her around so she can fix the blonde wig. As she does it, El doesn’t stop staring at her. Mia feels her eyes on her face all the while, her breath warm over Mia’s nose.
Mia’s cheeks get warm, and for some reason, she wishes Jenny was here too.
El should have something prettier than Mia to look at. Her bangs are all over the place, she hasn’t brushed her hair after washing it last night.
“There you go.” Mia says, ignoring how her voice shakes. “Shall we?”
The boys are appropriately dumbstruck when they get out. Mike glows pink.
El does look pretty, especially after Mia takes some of Mike’s Hawkins-cubs-themed socks, to match the scrunchie, and his white chuck taylors. El takes the blue coat she’d been wearing the other day and puts it on over everything. She looks nice. A bit too overdressed in the frilly dress, but Lucas had said nothing else seemed to fit so. This was it.
They bike to the school, El on Mike’s back and Mia on Lucas’. She hangs onto the seat and ignores the feeling of the bike under her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to ride a bike again without remembering how the last time she was on one, she’d seen her brother’s dead body.
The thought sends a spike of coldness through her chest. She has to swallow around her dry throat multiple times for it to fade.
“Remember,” Mike says when they get to the school, “If anyone sees us, look sad.”
El looks at Dustin and Lucas, who mime crying.
She glances at Mia then, screwing her face and putting her hands on her cheeks, mimicking Lucas and Dustin.
Mia nods, trailing tears down her cheeks with her fingers to portray tears.
“Attention students,” The school’s intercom says, “there will be an assembly to honor Will Byers in the gymnasium now -”
Mia stops listening, blinking repeatedly ahead of herself.
Will is alive, she reminds herself.
But all their planning and they hadn’t even stopped to consider that the audiovisual room might have been locked.
They stare at each other, disbelieving that no one had thought of it earlier.
Dustin suggests El open the lock with her powers.
At that moment Mr. Clarke rounds the corner.
“Boys?” He asks, voice full of confusion. His eyes widen when seeing Mia. “Mia? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you...be at home?”
Mia likes Mr. Clarke, she does. But she doesn’t really want to see him right now.
“I…came to get, uh - some of. Some of Will’s things.” Mia says, almost choking on her twin’s name. Her hands are cold and tingling, and she rubs them together, hooking the fingers to one another and pulling.
Will is alive. Will is alive. Will is alive.
Mr. Clarke’s eyes soften, shining a bit. “Of course, of course. Is your mom around?”
“Ah, no sir. I’m staying with Mike while Jonathan - and mom deal with the...the funeral.” She adds, hurriedly.
Lucas and Dustin are staring at the ground, while Mike, Mr. Clarke and Eleven stare at her.
Mia feels her face burn under the scrutiny.
“The assembly’s about to start.” Mr. Clarke says softly, at last, looking at the boys. “But I’ll understand if you don’t want to come.”
“Yeah, we really don’t want to go.” Mike says.
Lucas smiles, before remembering he’s supposed to look sad. “We’ll stay to support our friend in this - uh, difficult time.”
“And cry together.” Dustin finishes.
Mia barely stops herself from rolling her eyes. “Will told me about the Heathkit, sir. He never got to - I wanted to...” The knot in her throat grows.
Will had barely shut up about the Heathkit for the last few months, babbling about the stupid radio every time he had a chance. And he barely even got to use it because Mr. Clarke hadn’t allowed them to see it all that much since it was delivered to the school.
He will get to use it again, she thinks, he’s not dead.
But what if he is?
“Of course, Mia. I think he’d like for your friends to show you our radio.” Mr. Clarke says, eyes lingering on the three boys. He seems to register El, then, to everyone’s despair. “Oh! I don’t believe we’ve met. What’s your name?”
“Ele-”
“Eleanor.” Mike interrupts Eleven. “She’s my cousin. She’s friends with Will and Mia. Here for the funeral.”
Mr. Clarke sends a sharp look at Mike, looking pointedly at Mia. “Well. Welcome to Hawkins Middle, Eleanor. Wish you were here under better circumstances. You kids can use the Heathkit all afternoon, alright? I’ll leave you the key.”
Before any of the boys can screw up their act by looking too joyous, Mia steps forward taking the key from Mr. Clarke’s hand. “Thank you, sir. Will likes - liked you very much, you know.”
Her throat constricts. He isn’t dead! Don’t speak about him in the past!
But what if he is?
Mr. Clarke’s eyes water, his voice cracking. “Oh, I - He is - he was one of my favorite students. You kids enjoy yourselves, If you need me I’ll be at the assembly. It’s in the gymnasium, so just pop on there. We’re all here for you, Mia. You can talk to me or anyone else from the staff anytime you want. The rest of you as well.”
They watch him go, and promptly scramble into the audiovisual room as soon as he’s out of sight.
Mike turns on the machine, Dustin and Lucas helping him set it up. Mia guides El to the chair in front of it, hanging back to lean against the shelves behind it. She can practically hear Will’s voice explaining all about the Heathkit to her, as he hung upside down over the edge of his bed, showing her the pictures on the pamphlet that Mr. Clarke had given the AV Club.
She doesn’t remember what he said.
She hadn’t been paying attention.
Dustin pokes some buttons, flicks a switch. The radio bursts into static. Mia crosses her arms, digs her nails into her elbows.
He will have time to explain the radio to me again, she tells herself.
But what if he doesn’t?
The radio starts to flip from channel to channel alone. Mia stares at it, incredulous.
“She’s doing it! She’s finding him.” Mike says, glancing back at Mia. “See? Told you she had powers.”
“Calm down.” Lucas tells Mike. “She’s just closing her eyes.”
The light above them buzzes, flickering off with an electric fizzle and the smell of burning.
Mia freezes.
Everything goes dark, the boys’ face only silhouetted by the faint light coming from the radio.
Mia’s heart starts beating faster. She steps closer to them, curling her hand on the back of Lucas’ shirt.
“You okay?” He whispers.
Mia swallows dry, shaking her head.
Lucas lets her cling to his arm, shifting closer to her.
The radio crackles, pops like tiny fireworks coming off the speakers. The pops become louder, stronger, sounding more like someone hammering a wall, or the steps of something big and heavy.
The others lean in to hear it better, but Mia remains frozen, heart about to beat right out of her throat. The lump above her eye throbs along with her pulse, her hands tingling as she practically glues herself to Lucas’ back.
Dimly, she realizes she’s shaking.
“Mom?”
It’s Will’s voice.
Will’s voice.
“Will?” She squeezes herself between Lucas and Eleven, fear forgotten, grabbing the microphone. “Will?!”
He doesn’t hear her. “Mom? Please...Mom!”
“Will!” Mia yells into the microphone.
“It’s us!” Mike shouts next to her ear, head pressed to Mia’s.
“Will! It’s us, are you there?” Lucas shouts, leaning over El’s shoulder.
“Hello? Mom?” Will’s voice wobbles, terrified.
“Why can’t he hear us?” She asks El, “Will!” Mia starts crying, one hand reaching out to the radio. She stops just shy of touching it, afraid to mess up the connection.
In the back, the loud noise continues. Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Mom!”
“Why can’t he hear us?” Dustin shouts.
Mike pulls away from the microphone. “I don’t know!”
A low clicking sound comes from the speakers, a wheezing, indrawn growl. Mia goes cold to the tips of her toes, trembling all over.
It’s the same sound. The same sound.
Her lips go numb. She can’t feel her face.
“Mom, he’s coming!” Will cries out, Mia fights the urge to hold her ears and scream. “It’s like home but it’s so dark. So dark and empty - and, and it’s so cold!”
Mia’s teeth are chattering, someone puts their arms around her, but she’s stiff as a board, staring at the green lights coming from the radio.
Will shrieks, the sound making Mia’s head go light, and dizzy.
They’re running through the woods again. Will’s darting from one room to the other screaming for their mom, for Jonathan, for anyone to come and help them.
“Mom!”
The monster growls, that clicking sound growing louder. With it comes the sick slide of wet joints.
“Mom, please!”
There’s a snap, sparks fly out of the radio, and the whole thing bursts into fire, cutting off Will’s voice.
The boys jump, Mike clutching Mia’s arm and throwing her away from the radio and onto the shelves behind them.
The light turns back on. The fire alarm starts ringing. Mia’s head spins. She barely notices Dustin grabbing the fire extinguisher, or Mike shaking El to see if she’s ok, nor the blood running down the girl’s nose.
Will had sounded so terrified.
“El, can you move?” The girl doesn’t answer, just stares at Mike. “Ok, Mia - Are you okay?”
Mia registers the words a second too late to convincingly tell him she’s fine.
“Dustin help her up. Me and Lucas will help El.”
Oh. She’s on the floor?
Before she can try to get up herself, Dustin pulls her up a bit too roughly.
By her sprained wrist.
She’s back at the forest, stumbling over her feet and falling hand first against a tree trunk. Then she’s back at the AV Club room, and the pain is so bad that lights appear behind her eyes.
God, she’s going to throw up.
Somehow she gets her feet under her, and walks out after everyone, shifting her arm so Dustin’s dragging her by the sleeve of her sweater and not her wrist.
The shrill sound of the fire alarm continues overhead as they turn around a hallway corner. Right ahead, the doors to the Gymnasium open up. Mike halts abruptly, shoes squeaking, dragging Lucas and El back around the corner in the nick of time, Dustin and Mia following right behind him.
Mia, disorientated and barely able to breathe, stumbles on a wheeled cart parked in front of a classroom, with a projector on top that she almost sends straight to the floor. Dustin, however, looks at it, then at El’s limp figure, then back at the cart again. There’s a light in his eyes, and Mia quickly realizes what his idea is.
Sensing something, Mike turns around to them. Dustin nods at the cart and Mike understands it immediately.
Together, the three boys put El on the cart and wheel her down the hallway, Mia dragging herself behind them, barely able to see a thing through her tunneled sight.
Which is why she ends up behind, and, as they pass through an intersection, goes crashing against a person, falling to the floor with the impact.
Because nothing can ever go right, it’s not just another student that she had stumbled into.
It’s Troy Walsh.
“Look where you’re - oh.” Troy looks down at her, a grin stretching maliciously over his face. “Look who it is. Amanda Byers. And the little fairies.” Dustin and Lucas quickly scramble to hide an unconscious El with their coats, while Mike stands in front of the cart, staring down Troye.
They didn’t have to. Troye only has eyes for Mia.
Mia stares up at him, frozen on the ground. Her wrist burns from where she’d braced herself with it on the way down.
“God, you’re even uglier than before. What’s that coming out of your face? A horn?”
“Leave her alone.” Mike steps forward.
James Dante appears right behind Troy, sneering at them. There are a few other students behind him, who probably just came from the assembly.
“Aw, little frog face is mad.” Troy mocks a pout at Mike, before cracking open a grin. “What, Wheeler? Are you sad that your little boyfriend is dead?”
Mike’s face turns blank. He takes two strides forward, plants his hands in the middle of Troy’s chest and pushes.
Troy must have not been expecting it, because he goes flying back. The other kids that had been in the corridor step away, ‘ooh’ing’ under their breaths.
Troy gets up, eyes burning.
“You’re gonna pay for that, frog face.” He takes a step forward and Mia panics.
She turns to her side on the floor, and shoves one leg behind Troy’s knee while her other remains in front of his shin, pulling them both together. It’s a move she’s pulled many times before on Will when they fought back home, and as expected, Troy’s leg buckles, and he goes crashing down face first on the floor.
“Ow! My nose!”
Dante bends down to help Walsh up, staring wide eyed at his friend. The kids in the corridor laugh behind their hands.
Mike’s eyes are round too, he looks at Mia, panicked, then quickly pulls her up by the shoulder of her sweater. “C’mon! We have to go!”
“You’ll pay for this, Byers!” Dante yells, turning around on them. He reaches out to stop them, but something holds him back.
He’s frozen, one hand raised as if to pull Mia back by her arm.
A strong smell reaches her nose then, and when she looks down, a dark stain starts to spread from Dante’s crotch to his knees.
Someone in the corridor shrieks with laughter.
“James wet himself!”
Mike and Mia stare at him, gaping, until Dustin shouts at them, “Guys!”
Mike recovers first, fingers tightening on her sweater and pulling. Mia goes along, stumbling over her legs. She soon gets her bearings, and the five of them are off towards the side doors, leaving Dante and Troy behind with the laughing students.
They wheel El right up to the bike rack. Mike shakes her a bit, her previously floppy neck stiffening at once.
There’s fresh blood all over her chin.
“El, you need to hang onto me. I need you up, okay? You can go to sleep later. Nod if you understand.”
El nods.
“Okay, let’s go.”
They mount the bikes, Mia once again on the back of Lucas’. Her wrist is hurting too much for her to hold on to the seat, so she’s forced to hug him around the waist.
Lucas startles at the touch, and whirls around to her, “Whoa, what are you - shit.” She must have looked quite a sight. Her cheeks are tingling. There’s definitely sweat on her upper lip, and her chin has started to shake. “Mike, we need to go! Mia doesn’t look good.”
Mike and Dustin look at her too, eyes turning panicked in a second.
She must really not look good.
Mia spends the whole ride back to Mike cradling her wrist against her stomach and trying her best not to throw up on Lucas’ back. By the time they arrive at Mike’s basement, her wrist has become more of a dull and distant ache, but she’s more nauseous than ever. She makes a beeline for the bathroom as soon as Mike’s basement door opens, kneeling in front of it and throwing up the sandwich she’d eaten that morning.
God, she hates throwing up.
Someone follows her. Mike, judging by the gagging sound he makes.
He holds her hair away from her face at least, nose wrinkled and an expression of pure disgust on his face.
“Oh god, I’m going to throw up too.” Dustin says in the room behind them.
Mia heaves, panicking when her ribs lock in place, feeling as if her lungs will come out through her throat.
“Shut up, Dustin.” Lucas says, followed by the sound of a hand slapping against fabric, “Go get water, and some toothpaste. I’ll watch the weirdo.”
Bile comes out of her throat, burning her nose. Mia heaves again, crying when her ribs continue to squeeze. She can’t breathe -
“You’re okay. Hey, it’s fine. Just relax.” Mike says, not very helpful. As if it were that easy, why hadn’t she thought that before? Just relax. Yeah, right -
Mia’s so mad at him that her ribs relax, and she can once again breathe. She gasps against the toilet bowl, forehead bonking against the seat.
Ouch. Bad idea for someone who has a lump the size of a golf ball on their heads.
“Here, Mike.”
Mia raises her head from the toilet. Dustin gives Mike the water cup and toothpaste, who then passes it off to Mia before getting out of the bathroom with a shaky smile.
Once he’s gone, Mia drags herself to her feet and to the sink. She brushes her teeth with her fingers until the taste of bile and mint are barely recognizable apart from one another in the back of her tongue. The cup of water is lukewarm at best, which makes her stomach twist, but she downs the whole thing anyway.
“What did Will say?” Mike is asking the others when she finally leaves the bathroom.
Lucas and Dustin sit on the armchairs around him, Eleven stretched out on the couch on her stomach, looking up at the posters and drawings taped to Mike’s walls. Mia goes to her, and sits down by the girl’s feet.
El looks back over her shoulder at her, and after a moment, takes the borrowed scrunchie from her wrist and offers it to Mia.
“It’s fine. I can’t tie up my hair.” Mia pulls back the sleeve of her sweater to show her the wrapping around her wrist. “It’s sprained.”
El raises herself on her arms, brow furrowed. “Sprained?”
“I fell and hurt it, but didn’t break any bones.” Mia explains, peeling off one corner of the tape to show her while the boys try to remember what Will had been saying word for word. The bite mark beneath the tape - three small tears from Chester’s front teeth and eye tooth - is a bit too red against all the puffy and whitish dead skin of her wrist. “My dog bit me too.”
She hasn’t re-done the bandage since getting out of the hospital.
El’s frown deepens as she inspects Mia’s wrist, but she seems satisfied with the answer and lies back down.
“Like home, he said.” Mike is saying to Lucas and Dustin, “Like his house?”
Lucas frowns, a hand rubbing his chin. “Or maybe like Hawkins?”
“Upside down.”
Mia glances at El. Her eyes are half-closed, heavy with exhaustion.
Lucas and Dustin look at her as if she were crazy. Mia tries to follow the conversation. Mike’s eyes widen, and for a moment, Mia can practically see the lightbulb lighting up over his head.
He goes to the DnD board on the table.
“When El showed us where Will was, she flipped the board over, remember?” He says, flipping the board, “Upside down. Dark, empty.”
Mia gets up from the couch and stands behind Mike’s chair, a hand on the metal backrest.
“Do you understand what he’s talking about?” Lucas asks Dustin, raising his eyebrows at the other boy.
Dustin looks just as confused as Lucas, “No.”
It’s so dark. So dark and empty - and, and it’s so cold.
Mia thinks she understands.
“When Eleven took us to our house…” Mia starts, staring at the black paint on the underside of the board. “She said Will was there.”
“Yeah.” Lucas tilts his head up at her, “And he wasn’t.”
“But what if he was? What if we just couldn’t see him?” Mike adds, looking up at Mia.
Mia thinks of yesterday morning, when she’d seen Will, pale and blue-lipped inside Jonathan’s closet, his eyes wide with terror. The door that had banged open while still remaining closed. The lack of sunlight and sound, even though the room was bathed in yellow light.
It’s crazy.
But it’s just as crazy as believing that her brother is alive even though she’d seen his -
“What if he was in this…Upside Down place.” Mia whispers, “Like - it’s home but not, there’s no sunlight so it’s cold. There’s just...shadows. He was there, but not.”
Dustin snaps his fingers at her. “The Vale of Shadows.” Dustin looks around the table, triumphant, and at El, who looks at him with a small frown on her brow.
He scrambles for Mike’s D&D binder, opening up the entry on the Vale of Shadows. “‘The Vale of Shadows is a dimension that is a dark reflection, or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters’.” He reads, looking up at Mia. “It’s right next to you and you don’t...even see it.”
Had…had she seen him? Had she really seen Will? Had that noise been the monster?
Will really wasn’t dead?
“How do we get there?” Lucas asks. Dustin talks of shadow walking, but both Lucas and Mike roll their eyes. “In real life.”
“Well, we can’t shadow walk but…Maybe she can.”
The four of them turn to Eleven, who has her head buried in the cushions, blonde wig askew on her head.
“Do you -” Mia swallows painfully, “Do you know how to get there? How to get to him?”
Eleven shakes her head, seeming to be almost asleep. Mia slumps against the back of Mike’s chair, everyone breathing out a collective sigh of disappointment.
“Mike? Are you kids down there?” It’s Mrs. Wheeler, her heels striding fast towards the basement door. Mike springs up from the table, tugs El out of the couch and inside the blanket fort they’d built for her.
“Yeah, mom?” He shouts, shoving El inside and closing the entrance.
All of them hold their breaths to hear her answer.
But the door opens. Mrs. Wheeler gets down to the middle of the stairs, her eyes turning sad when she catches sight of Mia.
“Oh, Mia.” She tries a smile, brows furrowed in concern. “Your brother just dropped Nancy off, he’s done with the - well. He’s at the door waiting for you.”
Mia nods, and out of habit, glances around to check if there’s anything for her to take with her.
There isn’t. She’d come to Mike’s empty handed.
She bids everyone goodbye, surprised when Mike pulls her into a hug and whispers into her ear.
“We’re going to find him.”
She pulls back, grimaces at him, but nods. She doesn’t know if she should have hope. This entire thing is crazy. And El doesn’t even know how to get to Will.
But it’s something.
It’s the hope that her brother might really be alive.
The ride back to her home is tense, Jonathan lost in thought at the wheel.
Mia sits up front, turns on the radio and fiddles with the stations without saying a word. She wants to ask him what he’s thinking, if he’s okay, and what he had been doing with Nancy of all people. She flips from channel to channel instead, wincing at the scratchy static noises, and hoping, hoping, to listen to Will’s voice again.
It doesn’t work.
She shuts off the radio.
It’s dark when they get home. Their ax, the one they use to chop wood, sits upright by the door, leaning on the nearest wooden chair and reflecting the dim yellow light of the porch. Jonathan doesn’t notice it, and shuffles Mia to stand in front of him while he unlocks the door.
Then, for the first time since picking her up at the Wheeler’s, he looks at her, as if only then realizing she was there.
Jonathan grimaces and pushes the door open. “Sorry, Mia. I was miles away. How was the afternoon at -”
He freezes in the doorway.
Mia glances away from him and into the living room and does the same.
Because she’s sure she’s seeing dad.
Sitting on the couch next to mom, holding a beer.
Mia’s mouth goes dry at the sight of him. Her hand shoots out to grab Jonathan’s coat.
Dad. Sitting on the couch. Next to Mom. Touching mom.
Dad pulls away from mom, sets the beer bottle on the coffee table and smiles. “Hey, kids.”
Mia shivers at the sound of his voice, a slimy, ugly feeling rearing its head inside her chest. Anger. Fear. Which, she doesn’t know, maybe both. She’s shaking with it, hand twisting Jonathan’s coat tighter.
They stare at each other in tense silence. Neither Jonathan or Mia answer.
It is really him.
“What’s going on?” Jonathan asks Mom, still standing in the open doorway.
Mia glances behind them, a sudden urge to run filling her body. But one glance at the darkness stretching out at the front of the house makes her shiver, mind flashing back to the memory of the monster staring at her from beyond the clothesline. Which monster is she choosing tonight?
She pushes Jonathan inside so she can close the door and lock it behind them. It gives her something to do instead of looking at dad. Or crying, which she feels like doing as soon as she hears mom tell them that Dad will be spending the night.
Mia is half tempted to go back outside and try her luck.
Jonathan steps away from her. Mia’s heart jolts in her chest, wanting to go after him to continue holding his coat, but not wanting to draw attention to herself.
Jonathan walks across the living room, pulls out a tarp taped to the wall and reveals a gaping hole on it, insulation bursting out of it like a torn apart teddy bear. She hadn’t noticed it, while they were climbing up the porch.
“What happened?” Jonathan asks, whirling around on mom and dad.
“Don’t worry about that -”
Jonathan ignores dad. “Mom, that thing you saw before, did it come back?”
Mia’s head snaps to him, open mouthed.
Not only had she almost forgotten that her mom had seen the monster, but Jonathan didn’t sound skeptic about it. It was almost like…
Did he believe mom?
“Jonathan.” Dad warns, “That’s enough. Your sister is right there.”
But instead of backing down, Jonathan straightens his shoulders, turning back to dad. “Can we talk? Alone?”
Mia watches them go into Jonathan’s room, the door clicking softly behind them. There’s a moment of silence, with Mom staring at the wall and Mia staring at mom.
She had held dad’s hand on the couch. Does mom know that Dad once broke Jonathan’s nose? Does she know about that time Dad stomped on Will’s hand and that’s why he had that broken finger and not because he fell off his bike?
Does she know about the movies Dad had made her watch, right there on their couch?
Of course mom doesn’t know about it. She didn’t know then. Why would she know now?
Why is she holding his hand now. She said he would be gone forever. Mia had believed her when she said that Dad would never come back again.
When Mia speaks, her voice is much sharper than she intended. “Why is dad here?”
Mom turns to her, but it’s almost as if she’s looking through Mia, instead of at her.
“He’s here for the…” She shakes her head. “He’s just trying to help.”
Mom doesn’t know about the time Dad broke Mia’s Hunky Dory vinyl. Doesn’t know about the time Dad had made Jonathan gut a rabbit with his bare hands just because he’d cried instead of shooting it straight up.
Doesn’t know about what happened on the couch. The movies.
Mia had never told her.
“Why. Is he. Here.” She grits out, trying her best not to shout.
Mom sighs, dropping her head into her hands. “The funeral, Mia. The funeral.”
Mia’s stomach drops. The funeral? Why is mom talking about a funeral when just today she was screaming that Will wasn’t dead for the entire town to hear?
“No - we can’t.” Mia says, before she can think about it. A wave of feeling rises in her throat, urgent. “Mom, Will isn’t - he isn’t dead. You said it yourself earlier. He isn’t dead.”
Mom’s head snaps up, her eyes wide.
She jumps up from the couch, scrambling to Mia and cradling her face between her hands. Her fingers are as cold as ice cubes and Mia winces at the touch.
“What do you mean -” Mom squeezes her eyes shut, and when she opens them again, they’re shiny. “What do you mean, he’s not dead?”
Mia opens her mouth, ready to tell her everything.
“That’s enough, Mia. From both your brother and you.”
Dad appears out of the hallway then, alone, eyes dark and voice gruff.
Mia’s heart jumps. She hadn't heard him coming to the living room.
“Go to your room.” He orders her.
Dad isn’t glaring at her, like she’d expected him to. His voice is soft, his eyes deceptively calm. It’s almost worse than if he had shouted.
She glares at him. You can’t tell me what to do. She wants to yell at him. You shouldn't even be here. You can’t just decide to be my dad now.
Mom’s fingers tighten around Mia’s shoulder, as she ignores dad. “What do you mean he’s not dead, Mia?”
“Joyce.” Dad hisses, voice hardening. “Amanda - Go. To your. Room. I won’t repeat myself.”
Mia glances from her dad to her mom, hoping she’ll say something. But mom doesn’t, she simply looks away to the wall, staring at something Mia can’t see.
Her heart twists in her chest, and she jerks herself away from Mom’s cold hands, stomping off to Jonathan’s room.
Dad tries to catch her around the shoulder, probably to shout at her for her misbehaviour, but she swerves away in a split second, running the rest of the way to Jonathan’s room and slamming the door behind her.
Her heart races as if she’d run a marathon. She finds that her shirt is sticking to her back and sides with nervous sweat.
Mia and Jonathan eat dinner in his room that night, both of them tense and silent, listening to dad stomping around the house. When they lie down to sleep, Jonathan holds her close, putting himself between her and the door.
Mia doesn’t sleep, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, ears straining to listen to every single noise outside of the room.
Her heart hammers when there’s a creak on the floorboards of the hallway.
Her foot jerks when Mom’s door clicks closed.
There’s the sound of glass clinking in the kitchen, a gruff sigh.
If she tries hard enough, she can just hear the springs of the couch bending as Dad lies down.
Jonathan hugs her closer in his sleep. Mia shifts to her side, and cranes up her head to see over his shoulder. She’d locked his door, right? She remembers doing it before they slipped into bed.
Did she lock his door?
Mia stares at the ceiling until the first rays of gray light appear through the window, not brave enough to get up and go to the door and check it, but also not confident enough that it’s locked to fall asleep.
At some point, Jonathan stirs, arms tensing, head turning as if he’s having a nightmare.
There’s a sharp inhale and his whole body jerks as he snaps awake.
Mia slams her eyes shut, pretending to be asleep.
Jonathan shifts, the arm she’d been using as a pillow moving under her cheek. There’s a long moment of silence, then her brother sighs, followed by the sound of his hand running through his hair.
Mia can feel his eyes on the side of her head.
His hand falls on her shoulder then, and it takes all of her willpower to not flinch in surprise at the touch.
“You’re going to be okay.” Jonathan whispers. “Sleep. I’ll watch out for dad.”
Against her will, Mia relaxes with a loud sigh. Jonathan hugs her close again and finally, finally, she falls asleep.
Notes:
fuck you, Lonnie
Chapter Text
Things are weird when she wakes up again, only a few hours later.
She’d dreamt of vague shadows and running. Her legs hurt as if she was still running.
By the door, Jonathan’s putting on a white dress shirt, doing the buttons with slow, shaking fingers. He glances at the bed, finds her awake and staring. And smiles.
“Hey. Morning.”
Mia continues to stare. “Jonathan?”
“Yeah?”
She doesn’t know what she means to say, but words tumble out of her mouth anyway.
“Did you see the monster too?”
Jonathan stops. He hesitates for a moment, eyes glancing to the door.
Then with a heavy exhale, he sits down on the edge of the bed. “Mia -”
“I saw it. That day on the shed. No one believed me.” Mia blurts out, voice thick. She doesn’t want to cry again, but there’s something shaky inside her, fragile, coiled tightly around her throat. “Mike and the others saw it too, in mine and Will’s bedroom. It...it came out of the wallpaper. It’s the same thing that followed us home that day, I think.”
Jonathan stares hard at her, searching for something on her face. Whatever he is, he must find it, because his eyes harden and he leans forward, a hand coming to her shoulder. “Mia, I need you to stay away from this.”
Her stomach lurches. She feels out of breath, though she’s still sitting in bed.
This is…this is confirmation. Both of the monster and of -
“But we - we know where Will is.” She stutters, fingers starting to tingle. She breathes in deep through her mouth, hoping it’ll help with the lightheadedness she feels, but it doesn’t. “We heard him talk. He’s alive and he’s hiding from the monster.”
Jonathan looks at her as if struck, mouth open, pale. “What?”
“He’s alive! He’s in the Upside down, hiding from the monster.” She nods her head, begging him to understand.
Because if there is a monster, if everyone saw it, then there must be an Upside Down like El had said. And if there is an Upside down, then it means that they had really heard Will’s voice on the radio. That really had been him, hiding. He was alive.
Will was alive.
“The Upside Down…?” Jonathan’s throat bobs, mouth opening and closing. He closes his eyes then, a decisiveness in them when he opens them again. “Mia, listen to me. This thing - it took Barb, ok? Nancy’s friend. Nancy and I - we’ll handle it. I can’t stay home, so I need you to stay at Jenny’s or Mike’s, you hear me? Stay safe and far away from here, far away from - from the house. And from dad. Tell me you understand.”
But Mia has stopped following since he mentioned Mike’s sister. “Nancy? What does she -”
“Tell me you’ll stay away from it.” Jonathan cuts her off, voice hard.
Like dad’s.
Mia nods, dumbly, staring at him in stunned shock.
Jonathan’s face turns even more intent. “And you can’t tell mom, either.”
A shudder runs down her spine at the words, a sick feeling twisting her stomach. “Why?”
“Because mom is - “ Jonathan cuts himself off, shaking his head. “Mom’s been through enough, alright? She doesn’t need more stress on top of everything.”
Mia doesn’t reply. She might not have liked how mom had pushed her out of the house yesterday, or how she’d just...bent to dad’s will. But...she’s still mom. Mia can’t help but think she could make everything better if she knew about it.
“But mom saw the monster too.”
“I know. But she can’t know about this. If she hears that I’m after the thing that caught Will, if she hears that he is - that you heard him… She might do something drastic, like…draw the monster straight to her without thinking how she’s going to deal with it. She could get hurt. Promise me you won’t tell her.”
Mia opens her mouth, closes it again, not answering. The whole things has left a sour taste in her mouth.
Jonathan nods as if she’d answered, burying a hand on top of Mia's head and tousling her hair.
She whines, batting his hand away. Jonathan’s eyes soften at the edges. He seems lighter, his back less bowed, like a weight had come off it.
“Go get ready for this fake funeral, then. Mom hung your dress in the bathroom.”
*
Mia wants to leave the cemetery as soon as they arrive.
There are many people from school there: Cindy Mavis, Lizzie Owens, Carter from art class, the boy Jonathan used to be friends with in middle school from his photography club, professor Clarke. Some of them hadn’t even been close to Will. And Mia’s pretty sure Susan Mavis - Cindy’s older sister - had been the one to put a fairy sticker onto Will’s locker door last year.
Still, they’re all holding yellow and white roses, staring down at the casket on the ground with teary eyes.
He’s not there, Mia wants to scream. You didn’t even know him.
Dad tries to guide her to a chair with a hand on her shoulder but she shrugs him off, stepping on the other side of Jonathan and holding his hand. He squeezes it, moving both of them away from dad, and gestures for her to sit between him and mom.
The service, or whatever, starts. The priest talks and talks and talks.
Mia doesn’t look at the headstone, or the casket. She looks at the blue sky and the people gathered around the hole in the ground.
Dustin, Lucas, Mike and their families are there, Mrs Henderson wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. Mike catches Mia’s eye and smiles. Because Will isn’t dead and they know it.
Will isn’t dead and they will find him.
Mia smiles back, continuing to look around. She finds Jenny as if magnetized, the blonde girl standing red-faced and crying, with her hair down and unstyled behind her ears.
And she’s wearing all black.
Black long coat, black tights, black shiny shoes, a black beret. It’s unnatural. There’s not a single speck of color on her.
With a jolt, Mia realizes that she hadn’t talked to Jenny yesterday.
The last they’d seen each other had been at the quarry, when Will’s - when that body had been dragged out of the water.
She doesn’t know Will is alive.
The ceremony drags on, with Mia not paying attention to a single second of it. When it’s time to go, Jonathan taps her knee and she rises, standing awkwardly behind her mom while everyone says their condolences to dad, of all people. As if they didn’t know that dad hadn’t been in their lives for literal years. They didn’t care that it had been just them, and their mom, and that dad had been a shitty person who used to hit them and throw slurs at Will and -
And he’s been gone for years. Years.
Mom glares at the ground, her arms around herself, while dad is all smiles, shaking hands with Dustin’s mom and Mike’s dad. It’s not right.
A hand taps her shoulder. Mia whirls around to find Jenny standing behind her.
“Hi, Mia.” Jenny sniffs, frowning with wet eyes towards Mia’s family. “I didn’t know your dad was back in town.”
Mia looks at her dad - shaking Mr. Wheeler’s hand - with thinly veiled disgust, and coincidentally finds Jonathan sneering at dad over their mom’s head with even more emotion. Then her eyes fall on Lucas, Mike and Dustin, standing just behind Nancy and Mrs. Wheeler.
“Yeah.” Mia says, forgetting what Jenny had said. “Jenny, can we talk?” She looks back at the blonde girl, who nods at her, still frowning. “C’mon.”
Mia takes Jenny’s hand, catches Mike’s eyes, and jerks her head to an empty part of the cemetery. From the corner of her eye, she sees Jonathan walking towards Nancy.
Nancy and I - we’ll handle it.
She’d told him she’d stay out of this but...she can’t. It’s Will.
The five of them walk away, just enough that Lucas’ and Dustin’s moms can still see them but no one can listen in on their conversation.
“Jenny.” Mia starts, glancing nervously around at the boys. “We need to tell you something.”
Jenny sniffs and undoes the top buttons of her long black coat, revealing a dark pink dress underneath. Only then Mia notices her glittering stone earrings, and the sight of her - shining and colorful and still Jenny - makes something in Mia’s chest settle. Will is alive. Jenny has to know it. She will believe in Mia.
“Will is alive.”
Jenny’s eyes widen, roving over her face as she processes what Mia has just said.
But instead her face lighting up with joy, Jenny narrows her eyes again, baring her teeth and whirling around on Mike, eyes full of fury. “You!”
Mike raises both brows, incredulous, “Me?!”
“This isn’t funny!” Jenny shouts.
Lucas stumbles back, wide eyed. Dustin raises his hands, placating, while Mike just glares at Jenny, used to her turning on him for no reason. “What did I even do?!”
“I know it was you.” She stomps her feet, getting right up in Mike’s face. “You can’t just - Whatever it is that you told her - Will’s dead, you can’t keep - keep - UGH! The monster isn’t real, Michael! Will isn’t alive! We all saw his body!”
“He is too!” Mike shouts back, “That thing wasn’t Will!”
Jenny growls at Mike, moving as if to slap him.
Mia intercepts her, clamping a hand on the girl's shoulder.
“Jenny - Jenny! He’s telling the truth! I saw him.” Everyone turns to look at her, and Mia’s face burns, “I mean - we heard him. He’s alive. He is. The monster is real, and it’s after him. You have to believe us. Eleven was right all along. Mike is telling the truth - Will isn’t dead.”
Jenny blinks over and over again. Her eyes are wet, still, her eyelashes dark.
“Don’t you trust me?” Mia presses on.
Jenny’s face smooths over as she nods. Mia’s heart seems to skip a beat, aching down to her very soul.
“Of course I do, Mia. Always.” Jenny whispers, closing her eyes and breathing in and out for a long moment.
She finally opens her eyes and turns to Mike and the others, blonde hair whipping behind her in a wide arc. “So, he’s alive. What does that mean, then? Do we have to go into the woods again?”
It’s a good thing Jenny’s adaptable.
Mike straightens up, Lucas and Dustin standing shoulder to shoulder with him. “No. Will is in this - alternate dimension thing.”
“The Vale of Shadows.” Dustin pipes in.
Jenny frowns, “Like in D&D?”
“Kind of. It’s the Upside Down.” Mike corrects, “It’s Hawkins but not - the monster’s there too, and we need to get to Will.”
“Problem is,” Lucas says, “We can’t actually access this dimension.”
“Can’t that girl… El. She has powers and she knows about the place. Can’t she do something?” The four of them shake their heads. Jenny sighs. “Great. Well, alternate dimensions...those are a physics thing right?”
“Yeah.” Mike agrees.
Jenny nods her head, looking towards where the adults are now walking away from the graves.
“Then it’s a good thing Mr. Clarke came to the funeral.”
*
Picture an acrobat, Mr. Clarke had said, on a tightrope. Now picture a flea, just behind it.
They need a gate to the Upside Down. Or rather, find the one that’s probably already open.
“There needs to be a lot of energy for a gate like this to open.” Mike repeats to a wide-eyed Eleven, right after sticking a pen through his paper stand-in of Mr. Clarke’s paper plate to showcase their teacher’s metaphor. They’ve been re-explaining everything Mr. Clarke had told them to El now, in Mike’s basement. “But it must be what happened, or Will wouldn’t have a way to get there, right?”
El nods. She’s still wearing the blonde wig and the dress she’d used to go to school. Jenny had even reapplied the gloss on her, much to El’s happiness.
She’d found the dark pink barrettes that had been revealed when Jenny took off her black beret fascinating.
Jenny had clipped those onto El’s wig, and the other girl couldn't stop touching them, raising her hand to her head every now and then to trace the swirling, raised patterns on their shiny surfaces.
“What we wanna know is - do you know where the gate is?” Lucas asks. El shakes her head. “Then how do you know about the Upside Down?!”
“Lucas.” Jenny hisses. “There’s no need to shout at her.”
“But how does she know -”
“You don’t have to be a jerk - “
Mia looks away from them, at Dustin, who’s been pacing back and forth this whole time, staring at something in his hands. Following Mia’s gaze, El leans forward to look at him too, drawing Lucas and Jenny’s attention.
“Dustin?” Mia calls, but the boy doesn’t seem to hear it.
Mike raises his hands above his head, annoyed. “Dustin! What are you doing?”
Nothing.
“Dustin!” The four of them shout at the same time.
Dustin turns to them. “I need to see your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!”
Mia and Jenny and even El - once Mia’s explained to her what a compass is - help scrounge up all the compasses lying around Mike’s house. At the end, they have about 7 compasses, (and a watch, courtesy of El) from the tiny ones that come in keychain rings, to the precise ones, with rulers, that Lucas had in the backpack he’d left at Mike’s.
Mia sees why Dustin had asked for them right away.
“I don’t get it, what’s so exciting about it?” Jenny asks.
Mike, who had opened his mouth, closes it with a click, and gives her a funny look before also looking questioningly at Dustin.
“They’re all pointing North.”
Lucas shrugs. “Yeah, so?”
“It’s not North.” Mia tries, looking at Dustin. He smiles wide, eyes nearly disappearing.
“Bingo! It’s a good thing we have someone smart in our party or we’d all be doomed. Look - The sun rises in the East and sets at West, right?” Mike and Lucas nod, Jenny too. “Which means, that’s North.” Dustin says, pointing at the corner of the room, where El’s sitting on the couch.
A light dawns on Jenny’s eyes. “Mr. Clarke said something about a magnetic field didn’t he?”
“What does that have to do with the compasses?” Mike frowns, “Are they broken?”
“No, genius.” Jenny taunts, even though she’d only gotten it like, a second ago. “The magnet points to the North of the Earth’s natural magnetic field, but, if there’s a magnet nearby that’s strong enough, the needle will point to it instead.”
“So the gate is like a giant magnet.” Lucas affirms, more than asks.
Mia nods. “Exactly. Mr. Clarke said that the gate would have so much power -”
“- that it would disrupt the magnetic field.” Mike completes.
Lucas frowns, “So if we follow the compasses’ North -”
“- It should lead us to the gate.” Dustin finishes.
El sits up, wide eyed.
Mia waits for her to say something but she doesn’t.
So they get ready.
Mrs. Wheeler drives Dustin, Lucas, Mia and Jenny all back to their respective houses, Mia staying with Jennifer. After having a quick lunch with Mr and Mrs. Hayes, they go to Jenny’s room to get ready.
They grab two bags, fill them with granola bars and water and a mini softball bat Jenny has in her bedroom, yellow and bedazzled, but capable of caving in a skull - which they’d found out the hard way when Jenny had killed Mrs. Carol’s cat by accident on a backswing.
Jenny had been inconsolable for weeks. Mrs. Carol had forgiven her, at least.
Granted, it probably won’t do much to an eight-foot tall monster, but if the bad men come for El, they’ll be ready to bust some kneecaps.
“Did you think she was acting weird?” Mia asks Jenny while they’re getting out of their funeral clothes and slipping into new, more comfortable ones. Mia had a few pieces of clothing forgotten in Jenny’s bedroom. She changes into those, and sits at the doorway of Jenny’s room - out of her fluffy white rug - to put on a pair of Jenny’s hiking boots, Jenny’s feet being just half a size bigger than Mia’s.
Jenny puts on her coat over a striped pink and yellow sweater, and sits down on the floor next to Mia to pull on her other pair of hiking boots.
“Eleven?” She asks, and at Mia’s nod, continues, “uh-huh. She got all quiet after Mike said we were going to find the gate. Here, take my coat. I think she’s hiding something.”
She twists back to fish something off a pile of clothes on the ground and passes Mia a maroon corduroy coat with fleece on its collar.
Mia pulls it on, thankful she won’t have to wear the long, scratchy black coat she’d used for the funeral. She glares at her pile of black clothes, left on the floor by Jenny’s bed.
She never wants to look at them again.
“But maybe it’s because the bad men are after her?” Jenny continues. “Like - they must know about the gate too, right? Mike said she escaped the bad men on the same day Chief Hopper found you...She knows about the monster and the Upside Down, so they should know about it too.”
Mia hadn’t thought about it. “Might be. Probably. Mike said she was from a lab...do you think she’s like, part of some experiment, like Weapon X?”
“Could be. Let’s hope it’s people that are after her, and not other mutants, then. I can use my bat against normal people.” Jenny picks up her backpack, shakes it to emphasize her point. “I mean, she’s weird but - but I kind of don’t want the people who want to hurt her to…actually hurt her.”
“Yeah,” Mia agrees, thinking of El’s round brown eyes, “Me too.”
Jenny looks at her for a long moment.
“Does she really have powers?” he asks, finally, voice doubtful. “The last time she supposedly used them she led us to your house.” Jenny shrugs, “There wasn’t much to see, then.”
Mia nods her head.
“She does, though. I’ve seen it. We went to the AV Club yesterday afternoon - don’t look at me like that,” She tells Jenny, when the girl narrows her eyes at Mia. “Jonathan dropped me off at Mike’s while he went to look for, uh, cas-” She swallows too much air, hiccups, and continues, “caskets, and you were at Drama class. El used her mind to...talk to Will, I guess. We could hear him through the radio.”
His voice comes to mind then, as clear as if she was still in that room.
It’s so dark. So dark and empty - and, and it’s so cold.
Mia shivers.
“We could all hear him. The lights flickered, kind of when the monster caught Will, then the radio was on fire. We had to carry her out of there in one of those projector carts, because there was blood gushing out of her nose. Oh - and I’m sure that she stopped James Dante from grabbing me with her mind.”
Jenny listens with wide eyes. When Mia says the last part, her whole face twists with equal parts fury and disbelief. She hasn’t forgotten the time Dante and Walsh had destroyed Will’s art project - which had also been Jenny’s project, because it’d been a group thing. The teacher had only allowed them to redo-it because they were both model students in her class, but she’d still docked points.
Jenny smooths the strap of her backpack, fury winning over her emotions. “That bastard. I’m gonna kick him in the nuts when I next see him.”
Once ready, they meet up with the boys and El at Dustin’s, right across the street, and begin their search for the gate.
The compasses lead them to the forest and Dustin suggests they stick to trails and other markers to not lose themselves. Which soon becomes impossible, because there’s no trail where the compass is leading them.
Sometimes, Mia sees a fallen tree or a particular large rock that makes her shiver for a reason she does not know. She wonders if she’d passed through here while running through the woods.
She still can’t remember.
She’s stepping over a rock, wondering if it had been the one to trip Will that night, when a thought crosses her mind as sudden as a clap of thunder. If the monster is in this Upside Down place, could it be that the closer they get to the gate, the closer they’ll get to coming face to face with the monster again?
They don’t know if Will is anywhere near the gate. What if the monster is?
Suddenly, she doesn’t think this is a good idea anymore.
But it is the only one they have.
She has to find Will.
The compasses keep pointing in different directions. They circle back a couple of times, before they finally stabilize. After what seems to be hours later, they come across the train tracks, and since the compass seems to indicate a point somewhere in its direction, they all decide to walk alongside it.
Dustin and Lucas head the group, Mike and El in the middle and Mia and Jenny at the back.
Mia watches the back of El’s head while Jenny is walking up on the iron rail like a gymnast, catching herself on Mia’s shoulder every time she loses balance.
“She’s acting weird.” Mia whispers some time later, smiling nervously when El turns her head back to look at them.
Jenny nods, using her elevated height to look around. Not that there’s much to see. “Her nose too.”
Mia looks up at her, brows furrowed in confusion, what?
Jenny mimes wiping her nose on her sleeve, points at El.
On cue, El wipes her nose on her sleeve.
The girl’s shoulders heave up and down, as if they’d been running a marathon and not just ambling at a relatively moderate pace for the past hours.
“She’s using her powers.” Mia whispers to Jenny, frowning.
Jenny’s eyes widen. She turns to El and narrows her eyes, as if struggling to see a visible manifestation of El’s powers. “What? I can’t see it.”
El clutches Mike’s arm then, tugging on it. Mia and Jenny share a glance.
“Mike.” El says. Her voice, too, is more airy than normal, “Turn back.”
Mike looks at El incredulously. “What? Why?”
“I’m tired.”
“Look, I’m sure we’re almost there, just hold on a little longer, ok?”
El looks back at Mia and Jenny and stops walking, brown eyes wide.
She looks scared.
Mia and Jenny halt, Jenny holding onto Mia’s shoulder.
“Mike, I think we need to stop.” Mia says, staring at El. Something in the girl’s expression makes her heart beat faster than normal.
The part of her that wanted to call it quits earlier grows.
Mike stops too, glancing between them and Lucas and Dustin up ahead. “We’re getting close, just hold on.”
Jenny jumps off the rail with a huff, she gestures at El. “Can’t you see there’s something wrong?”
Lucas and Dustin run back to them. “What are you guys doing? Why did we stop?”
“El is saying we should go back.” Mia answers Dustin.
“What?” Lucas’ head snaps to El. “What do you mean? We have to find the gate!”
El opens her mouth, then closes it again. Guilt is written all over her face.
Lucas narrows his eyes, mouth turning down at the corners.
“Why should we go back?” He insists.
And El’s brown eyes give her away.
“You said you didn’t know where the gate was, but you - you lied, didn’t you? You lied!”
Lucas lunges towards El. Mia jumps back, heart racing, and so does El, who trips on the train rail and goes down hard to the ground. Jenny, however, jumps forward, putting herself between Lucas and El, eyes flaming.
“Hey!”
“Lucas!” Mike and Dustin yell, jumping to hold him back by the arms.
“She’s been acting all weird this entire time! Wiping her nose on her coat - are you using your powers?! On what?” Lucas’s face scrunches up, a light glimmering in his eyes. “Is that why the compasses have been acting weird? Did you do that? Have we even been walking towards the gate?!”
“Lucas!” Mike pushes him back, “What are you doing?!”
“I’m trying to find Will. Our best friend!” Lucas shouts, thrusting his hand out to Eleven’s fallen form. “She’s trying to sabotage our mission!”
“She’s not! Why would she do that?”
“Because she’s a traitor! She doesn’t want us to get to the gate, she must be - be messing with our compasses or something. I knew it had started pointing in a different direction. Admit it! Admit it that you’ve been using your powers on the compasses!” When El just stares up at him, mouth opening and closing, Lucas bypasses Jenny and kneels on the ground, snatching up El’s wrist. On her coat, dark streaks of blood stain the blue fabric. “See, I told you!”
Mia kneels down on El’s other side, and pushes Lucas away. Her head buzzes, whole skin crawling when Lucas’ gaze snaps to her. He’s so angry his eyes are watering.
“S-stop it, Lucas.” She stutters out, glad that her voice doesn’t break at least.
Lucas stands up, fists balled up at his sides. “Why are you defending her? She’s stopping us from finding Will - she - she’s been playing us from the beginning!”
“That’s not true!” Mike shouts, “She helped us find Will! Maybe she’s just- just keeping away the bad men or something. Or trying to sense the gate!”
“That doesn’t even make sense! And she helped us know he’s alive, not find him. All we’ve done is run around like headless chickens, based on information she’s given us! For all we know she’s been making up Will’s voice. He might not even be alive!”
Jenny seems to have had enough of Lucas’ shouting. She pulls him away by the back of his coat, using the advantage that Lucas won’t hit her because she’s a girl. He still bares his teeth at Jenny, pulling himself away sharply as soon as she lets go.
“Think, Lucas! What does she even get from playing us?” Jenny asks, hands flying to her hips. “It’s not like we’re paying for her to help us.”
“We’re giving her food and bed. She even has clothes now. She’s like a stray dog!”
Mike’s face glows red, his fists balling at his sides. Dustin, sensing the oncoming fight, tries to calm them all down. “C’mon, guys, let’s cut it out -”
Mike, of course, ignores Dustin, “Shut up, Lucas!”
The argument is on. Lucas starts shouting at Mike, who shouts right back. Jenny, Mia and Dustin look at each other, eyes wide, after all, it isn’t often that Lucas and Mike fight like this, if at all. Jenny and Mike? Sure. Lucas and Mia? a lot. But Mike and Lucas were usually a team, a closed front against Mia’s and Jenny’s frequent opposition.
Mia grips El’s shoulder as the two boys shout even louder than before, Mike’s face turning red.
“You’re just blind because you like a girl that for once isn’t grossed out by you. But for all we know she’s been helping the monster! Maybe she’s a monster too!”
“I said shut up!”
Mike throws himself at Lucas and the two of them go rolling out of the tracks.
Dustin follows, yelling at them to stop.
“I’m done with this.” Jenny grits out, shaking her head at the three boys. “We’re going. If they want to fight, let them. I’m hungry and I’m tired and I’m not in the mood to listen to this. Just tell me something -” She starts, looking down at El with sharp eyes. “Why do you not want us to find the gate?”
El’s eyes are full of tears, her shoulders shaking under Mia’s hand. “Not safe.”
“Why?” Jenny insists, voice hard.
“B-bad men. Home.” El whispers, head shaking from side to side, “Can’t go back.”
“So you do know where the gate is.” Mia stares at her, and eventually, El nods. “The gate is...back where you used to be, is that it?”
El nods frantically. She’s terrified, and Mia can feel it, like a current of electricity under her veins. There’s something about seeing another girl their age so terrified that sets her on edge. I
“Bad men.” El whispers, “Monster. Hurt me, you. Us. Don’t want you hurt.”
“We can take them.” Mia says, uncertain. Can they? Jenny swivels her backpack around to her front and takes out her softball bat as if to illustrate Mia’s point. “Yeah, we have Jenny’s bat. We can definitely break some bones.”
El shakes her head hard. She raises a hand, forefinger and thumb pointed at Mia in a horizontal L.
The realization hits her then, leaving her cold.
“Well, that’s enough of a reason for me.” Jenny whispers.
Mia looks at the boys. Dustin has finally managed to split Lucas and Mike apart, judging by the lack of snapping branches and crushed leaves. They’re breathing heavily, Dustin keeping them apart with a hand on each of their chests.
Jenny holds out both her hands, one for El and the other to Mia, drawing Mia’s attention back to her.
“C’mon,” she says. “We’re going home.”
El blinks at her, not understanding. “Mike?”
“No, not Mike’s home. My home. And you’re coming with us.”
*
Mia didn’t want to leave the boys behind, but Jenny didn’t want to listen to Lucas insulting Eleven and fighting Mike for one second longer.
After some more arguing, and Lucas refusing to take Mike’s apology, Mia, Jenny and El left the boys at the edge of the woods and walked back to town on their own.
Jenny held her bat in her hand the entire time.
Once at the Hayes’ residence, Mia and Jenny had El wait outside Jenny’s bedroom window while they went inside, and pretended everything was normal. Jenny talked to Mr. and Mrs. Hayes about Mia staying for a sleepover, which they were more than ok with, only asking if the girls were hungry enough for dinner, or a late lunch. Jenny insisted they were fine and that if they got hungry, they’d come down and eat, which her parents accepted quite easily.
As they climbed up the stairs to Jenny’s bedroom, Mia heard Mrs. Hayes asking her husband not to crowd them, that they’d come to them when they were ready.
In the bedroom, they smuggled Eleven inside through the window, Mia helping El in by holding her arms, taking some of her weight so her feet don’t make much noise on the floor.
“There you go.” Jenny whispers to El once the girl has both feet on the floor, gently shutting the window. “Welcome to my room.”
El is instantly taken with the interior, spinning around and staring at it all gobsmacked.
Mia finds herself looking around too, at the baby blue walls that Jenny doesn’t really like, but doesn’t want to paint over because she can’t choose a color. At the handful of glow in the dark stars around the adorned light fixture, that Mr. Hayes had never finished scraping off after Jenny turned 10 and didn’t want them anymore. There’s a collection of stuffed bears on top of the white wardrobe, and a thick, floral bedspread on Jenny’s bed, which is pushed flush to the wall on the left to the window.
Her white writing desk is cluttered with homework and papers, as well as craft things, like a rainbow of puff paints and glitter. Above it, two shelves sit filled with books, some barbies obscuring the titles between the goosebumps novels and a dictionary. By the desk, an open cabinet filled with vinyls and tapes sits, a chrome stereo on top of it, its acrylic case covered in stickers.
Her grandma had bought it for her as a birthday gift, two years ago. Mia had held the sheet of stickers while Jenny debated where to glue them.
Jenny’s bedroom is as familiar to Mia as her own bedroom, and pretty normal, from what she knows. Yes, she has some fancy stuff, but it’s not all that much right?
Yet, El looks around the floor as if it were the best thing she had ever seen, looks at the pile of clothes sitting next to Jenny’s bed - the clothes they’d worn to the funeral - and at the box stuffed to the brim with my little ponies that sits next to the open closet doors, as if they were piles of gold. Jenny’s collection of softball bats sitting on the shelves over her clothes, next to her stuffed animals and El looks at them as if she’s never seen anything like it.
But had she seen anything like it before?
El looks particularly captivated by the rug: a thick, fluffy white thing with a perpetual layer of glitter. that covers almost all of Jenny’s floor. She stares at it, stock still, mouth open.
“Do you like it?” Jenny asks El, who nods her head while staring intently down at the rug. “You know, if you take off your shoes you can step on it. It feels really nice and fluffy.”
Jenny’s only rule in her bedroom is no shoes on just for that reason.
Mia, who had left her borrowed hiking boots in the shoe box outside the bedroom door, buries her sock-covered toes on the rug. “Yeah, El. It’s really nice.”
They don’t have to say it twice. El takes off Mike’s borrowed white Chuck Taylor and the striped socks, as well as her wig for some reason. She kneels down on the rug in front of Jenny and Mia and flops to her back on the floor.
Her eyes - perpetually wide and sad - scrunch up in delight, a smile breaking out on her face.
“Nice and fluffy.” She parrots Jenny’s words, glancing up at them.
“Do you like it?” Jenny smiles down at her, blonde hair like a curtain down the sides of her face, blue eyes glittering.
“I like it.”
Mia shares a look with Jenny, both of them grinning.
They stay in Jenny’s room, blasting Jenny’s favorite station on the radio that Jenny keeps under her bed until Mr. and Mrs. Hayes go to sleep, by which time they are asked to either turn the volume down or turn it off through the closed door.
After they’re certain Mr. and Mrs. Hayes have gone to sleep, they get out of the bedroom, looking for something to eat. Jenny votes for waffles, the only thing she knows how to cook without burning herself. Mia fishes a bag of red licorice leftover from Halloween for the three of them to munch on while the waffles get ready.
Like with everything in Jenny’s house so far, El stares at the licorice’s bright red color with an excited glimmer in her large eyes.
Mia and Jenny make an unspoken agreement to leave most of the bag to the girl.
“I should call my mom.” Mia says, glancing at the darkened windows, “tell her that I’m going to sleep over here. She’ll worry if I don’t come home.”
Jenny hmms, pulling on a string of licorice with her front teeth.
When Mia had told her mother that she was spending the evening at the Hayes’, Mom had barely paid her attention. She had been distant the entire funeral, arms around herself, muttering under her breath and not saying a word to neither her nor Jonathan. Mia doubted she’d actually heard what Mia had said. So she had told Jonathan too, just in case, while Nancy stood awkwardly next to her brother.
Still, there is that hope that mom might have been listening. That she might be worried for her, back home, now that night had fallen.
“Worry?” El asks, watching as Mia walks to the telephone on one corner of the kitchen.
For a moment, Mia doesn’t understand her question, then it clicks.
“Oh, yeah. It’s… It’s, uhm, that bad feeling you get when you think about a problem, or a bad thing that might happen.” El continues to stare at Mia, a line of confusion marking her brows. “Like - my mom will feel bad because she doesn’t know that I’m planning to spend the night here at Jenny’s, so, when I don’t come home to sleep, she could think something bad has happened to me. And because she loves me, she doesn’t want something bad happening to me. So until I tell her that there is nothing wrong, she will worry.”
El seems to understand, so Mia moves to the phone to dial home.
As she waits, the oven dings, and Jenny takes the waffles out, unwrapping them from the aluminum foil in a cloud of steam and presenting them to El with a soft ta-da!
“Eggos?” El points at the waffles.
“Yeah! Kinda - I mean they are a much better brand, but still waffles. How did you know?”
“Mike gave me. For breakfast.”
“Oh, then I bet these will be much better than Mike’s.”
Someone finally picks up on the other end of the phone.
“Hello?” Mom’s voice comes from the other end, bringing a smile to Mia’s lips.
She hadn’t realized that she had been missing her mom until now.
“Hi, mom!”
“Mia! Oh, honey - I didn’t realize it was so late. How are things at Mike’s?”
Mia looks away from El and Mia, staring blindly at the phone’s dial.
She knew her mom hadn’t been paying attention, but still.
“It’s alright.” She lies around the lump in her throat. “Is Jonathan there?”
Had he gone after the monster with Nancy like he’d told her he would?
“Jonathan? Yes - he is right…” A long moment of silence. “Ah - He’s out.”
Mom doesn’t know where Jonathan is.
If Jonathan went after the monster with Nancy, he could be dead and none of them would even know-
No. No.
Jonathan’s fine. He’s just…out.
Hunting the monster that had almost gotten Mia.
Mia shakes her head, dispelling the sudden vision of Jonathan lying on the forest floor with his organs exposed to the air like a dissected frog.
“I just - I just wanted to tell you that I’m sleeping over tonight.”
Mia hears something fall in the back of the call, hears someone curse with a deep voice.
Her dad?
“Alright, honey.” Mom says, voice faint, as if she had turned away from the phone. “Have fun.”
Mia stops. Opens and closes her mouth without saying a thing. Even with Mom’s behavior these past days... ‘have fun’?
Is it too much to want her mom to pay attention to her for just five minutes?
“‘Night, mom.” She whispers, a deep ache settling in her chest.
“Goodnight, baby.”
Mia watches her own hand put the phone back on the hook, a coldness spreading through her body, as another thought crosses her mind.
Is her dad hurting her mom again? Is her mom alright?
“Mia?”
It’s El who calls her this time, staring at her concernedly at her over a plate of waffles.
No. Mom is an adult. She can handle herself. If she wants to be with dad, who once hurt her, then that’s her fault. Mia shouldn’t worry about her mother right now. She has to find Will, her brother, who might still be out there in a nightmare dimension being hunted by that monster.
It’s time.
She has to ask.
“El.” Mia begins, keeping her voice as unthreatening as possible. “We need you to tell us about where you came from.”
Granted, she could have worded her question better, and maybe she could have asked once they’d been in Jenny’s room, and not in the kitchen surrounded by electrical appliances that, apparently, El could control too.
The electric oven dings to life, the kitchen light flickers.
There’s the same feeling of static and pressure against her ears.
Sound explodes into the kitchen, making Mia cover her ear while Jenny scrambles to the living room where El had turned on the TV at full volume.
But just as suddenly, the lights turn back to normal. The oven turns off. Jenny, who had been cursing and doing her best to turn the TV off, stops and drops to her haunches as it turns off by itself.
Mia turns to look at El. The girl’s eyes are wide and terrified, unseeing.
“El?” She tries, stepping closer to the girl. Her heart is pounding, and distantly, she hopes that Mr. and Mrs. Hayes have not woken up with all the noise.
When El doesn’t seem to have heard her, Mia lightly touches the back of her hand with her finger.
El jerks as if electrified, a whine coming out of her mouth, hand raised towards Mia.
Mia freezes, staring at El’s thin, pale fingers.
“El?”
El lowers her hand and hangs her head, silent.
Mia glances at Jenny, at a loss of what to do. Jenny shrugs, equally lost.
They end up not having to decide.
El grabs the plate full of waffles and the whipping cream and marches off, back to Jenny’s room.
Mia looks at Jenny. Jenny looks at her.
Mia scrambles to get the licorice bag and some forks, before running after El.
Back in Jenny’s bedroom, El is sitting with her back to the door by the window, right on the edge of the rug, plate on the space between the rug and the wall, where there are no fluffy white fibers to get dirty.
Her shoulders are shaking.
“El?” El’s shoulders tense, but otherwise, there’s no sign she’s heard Mia. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry that I said it like that, but...I need to know. We need to know. I want to find my brother and you said -” She cuts herself off, staring at the pile of black clothes by the bed. “You said you’d help us. Please. I have to - I have to know.”
There’s a long stretch of silence.
Jenny enters the room then, closing the door softly behind her with her foot, her arms occupied with three coke cans and two sprite bottles. When Mia looks back at El, the girl has twisted around, also staring at Jenny - or better, at the drinks in her hands.
“I didn’t know which you liked.” Jenny offers, looking between El and Mia.
Jenny’s eyes widen, asking Mia if everything was okay. Mia nods. Jenny relaxes and walks over to El, plopping herself down next to her, lining up the cans and bottles by the waffle plate.
El picks up the sprite bottle, not looking at the Coke can. Her nose scrunches up and the cap goes flying off with a pop!
Ok.
That was so cool.
Mia picks up the other sprite bottle, extends it like an olive branch. “Can you do mine too?”
El looks at her, eyes so dark and sad, and flicks her gaze down to the bottle. Its cap flies off, landing in the middle of the rug without a sound.
“Whoa.” Jenny gasps, smiling wide.
El stares down at the stack of Eggos and picks up a fork. Next to her Jenny does the same, tossing the last fork to Mia. Mia and Jenny stab their forks into the middle of the waffles, holding them upside down to bite at the corners, while El gets the remaining waffle and the plate.
Jenny puts a small mountain of whipped cream on top of hers and starts to eat it, occasionally wiping the tip of her nose free of frosting.
They munch on their waffles in silence, Jenny sharing impatient glances with Mia every five seconds while El stares out the window, big brown eyes still impossibly distant.
Mia realizes with dismay that she’ll probably get nothing from El right now, and tries her best to focus on her waffle and the cold sprite cradled between her criss-crossed legs. The spot above her left eye has started to throb again, and pins and needles have been going up her injured left wrist since Dustin grabbed it yesterday.
She had meant to ask Jonathan to help her rebandage it, but then…
Dad.
She shudders, glad to be out of the house while her father is there. She hopes Jonathan isn’t there either. She would like it even better if her mom wasn’t.
Suddenly, she can almost feel Chief Hopper’s hand on her back, from yesterday in the morgue. Why couldn’t he have been her dad instead of Dad? He seemed nice, even though his height kind of scared her a bit.
“Papa.”
Mia stops, halfway through her bite of waffles.
She lowers her fork, glancing at El, a jolt of fear making her arms twitch. Could El read minds too?
“Lived with Papa.” She says, throat bobbing up and down. Her eyes are bright. Scared. Mia is thankful that it’s not her mind that the other girl is reading, then immediately feels awful for being basically glad that she’s scared of her own dad too. “Bad place. Bad Men. Hurt.”
Jenny shifts closer to El, and puts a hand on her knee. El puts her fork down too and stares at Jenny’s hand before cautiously placing her own on top.
“Papa... made me…use. Powers.” She lifts her hand to the side of her head, where a coin-sized scar sits on her temple. El’s right wrist is turned to Mia, 011 written in dark black ink on the inside. Mia recalls all the neatly stacked scars she’d seen on Eleven’s back, the large one that went all along her spine. “Find people and...and monster. I...hurt people.”
“You…” Jenny starts, opening and closing her mouth. “You lived with your dad in this...bad place. I assume that’s where the gate is? And this bad place is full of bad people...and they - sorry, your dad, made you use your powers to, to find and hurt people? Is that it?” El nods. “Was your dad, like, your dad?”
El frowns, not understanding.
“Like - uh. You didn’t meet my dad, but, uh, he’s asleep with my mom now, in the next room.” El’s eyes widen, and before the girl can panic, Jenny continues, “He’s nice! He is! I love my dad, really. He takes care of me and he’s a good person, he isn’t - I mean, your, uh papa sounds like a bad person if he makes you do bad things that you don’t want to do. I mean -” Her eyes flicker over to Mia then, before she clears her throat, “Dads can be really terrible people too. But, what I meant is: is he really your dad?”
El shrugs, brows still scrunched in confusion.
“He could be someone from the government, like you said before.” Mia tells Jenny, “or some rich person that decided to experiment on people.”
Jenny nods, “Dad talks about a lot of shady government stuff, like - there was this huge project during the 60s. Like, the government was experimenting on people using injections, I think. They were researching uh...paranormal abilities, actually.”
They both turn to El, who’s staring at them, wide eyed.
“Did your papa ever give you, uh, injections?” El hesitates, then nods. “Okay...did you...live in a government building? Maybe it looked like a hospital or, or a military base -”
“We do have that old military base at Hawkins.” Mia pipes in.
There are signs about it on the road through Mirkwood. She and Jenny had walked along their fences plenty of times. Cassie Owens, the high schooler a year under Nancy, had dared her friends to hop it once, and her younger sister told everyone during theater class that they’d all been escorted home by army people. Jenny had told Mia the story while running a stick along the fence a few months ago, when they’d been searching for purple mushrooms in the woods.
“I mean, the Power Company is there today,” Mia continues, “but there are still a lot of army people there, I think. And it’s...in the woods.”
El stares at her, eyes wide.
“It’s there, isn’t it? The place where you lived. And where the gate is.”
El nods.
There isn’t much to talk about after that. El seems determined to shovel as many waffles into her mouth as possible, and Jenny’s strangely quiet, looking out the window.
Mia isn’t up for talking either, her head full of questions.
Had the government created the gate? Had the government created the monster and the Upside Down? Or had it always been there, like ghosts and stuff. Had the monster escaped from the Upside Down through the gate? How had Will ended up in the Upside Down? One moment he was there in the shed, and the next he wasn’t, he couldn’t have gone through the gate all the way in the woods. How had he gotten there? Could the monster just…teleport? Could it just appear everywhere?
Could it appear right where they are?
She puts down her last waffle, still half-eaten, suddenly nauseous.
Of course it could. The shed door had been locked, hadn’t it? The Demogorgon could melt out of the floor, or the walls, like it had in her house, at any moment now.
El takes the waffle from Mia’s limp hands and finishes it off.
Mia barely notices Jenny piling all the cans over the plate and taking it back to the kitchen. Jenny nudges her up sometime later and Mia just goes, her mind filled with fuzzy static and fear. Then she’s in the Hayes’ bathroom, elbow to elbow with Jenny, who’s giving a brand new toothbrush to El and putting toothpaste on the yellow toothbrush Mia has at the Hayes’. Jenny puts it in Mia’s hand, nudging her once again towards the sink with her elbow.
Mia avoids the mirror, staring straight at the blue porcelain bowl while she brushes her teeth.
Why had the monster attacked her and Will? Would it try to come for her too? Why was Barbara Holland attacked first and not her?
The taste of mint is overpowering, and at the same time, it tastes like nothing. Just cold. Her eyes burn. Mia holds the toothbrush loosely in her left hand and cups some water into her mouth with her good hand, spitting and watching the white foam run down in a spiral to the drain.
If Will was here, they’d be brushing their teeth at home by now. He’d be trying to talk around the toothbrush in his mouth about something that had happened in his day and Mia would be nodding along because while she didn’t understand what he was saying, she did understand what he wanted to say. He’d lean over to cup water into his mouth and she’d try to spit on his toothbrush just to mess with him and he’d smear gross toothpaste foam on her cheek and she’d slap him and then Jonathan would come in and tell them to knock it off or he’d tell Mom they were making a mess of the bathroom and he wasn’t the one who was going to clean it and -
And everything would be okay.
Her head feels empty, her hands too far away from her body.
There’s a cold hand on her elbow, leading her back to the bedroom.
She curls her toes on the white rug, eyes catching on the pile of black clothes still by Jenny’s bed.
The funeral had only been that morning.
It feels like a lifetime since.
A calendar stuck to the wall over Jenny’s writing desk tells her it’s the 11th.
Will has been missing for four days now.
Someone pushes her onto the bed. The covers are pulled to her chin and tucked tight around her left side. On her right, a small, bony body settles, too thin and hesitant to be Jenny. Mia barely catches a glimpse of El’s wide brown eyes before Jenny turns off the lights. The blonde girl settles somewhere on the floor, probably curled up inside the sleeping bag she keeps in the closet, next to the stuffed animals.
Mia stares up at the ceiling, at the fluorescent stars dotted around the lightbulb.
El’s knuckles are cold against the back of her hand. Mia curls her fingers around El’s hand, feeling a bit more present in her body when the girl squeezes her hand back.
At 1 am, Sussex, the front neighbor’s cocker spaniel starts barking. Mia turns to her side, so Eleven’s hidden behind her back. When Mr. Hayes peers into the room to check if they’re asleep, he doesn’t see the extra girl in Mia’s room, closing the door a moment later.
Mia stares at the ceiling, terrified by the possibility of the monster coming out of it, and doesn’t fall asleep.
Notes:
Jenny: I just met this weird girl but if anything happens to her I'm shooting everyone in this room and then myself. Except you Mia.
Mia: I'll help.
Chapter 10
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The next morning, after Mia and Jenny had breakfast at the table, and Mr. and Mrs. Hayes had left the house, Mia watches Jenny pull clothing after clothing from her closet in an endeavor to find something for El to wear while they plan on how to get to the lab without being arrested by the military.
So far they have light jeans and a pink, long-sleeved shirt. El has Mike’s blue coat and wig on one hand, the other tracing the raised swirls on the barrettes Jenny had loaned her, all of them still clipped onto the wig.
“...you had to leave somehow, right? So we can just take the same path you took, but backwards, and maybe it will be easier to do it at night, because then their cameras won’t be able to see us -”
Jenny’s rambling is interrupted by the doorbell downstairs.
“I’ll get it.” Mia says, rising from the bed.
She hasn’t done anything today, head still clinging to the fuzziness from yesterday. But this she can do.
She gets up and her legs feel too far up from the floor. She bangs her hip on the doorway of Jenny’s room, not noticing how close she was to it until it was too late.
She gets downstairs and pulls the front door open, picking at the peeling tape on her left wrist.
Her wrist seems to be hurting even more today, the skin under the tape hot and a bit swollen. She feels sick just staring at the yellowing bruises peeking out under the tape, her mind flashing back to the dark woods and running -
“Hi, Mia.”
Her head snaps up.
It’s Dustin and Mike at the door, their bikes left on their sides on the front lawn.
“Can we come in?” Dustin asks, eyes wide and cautious.
Mia looks behind them, but doesn’t see Lucas anywhere. Weird. She steps to the side and lets them in.
El has changed into the clothes Jenny picked out for her by the time Mia and the boys get to the bedroom, and Jenny’s stuffing all the rejected clothes into the closet without folding or properly putting them away.
Mia has the boys take off their shoes and the five of them proceed to sit down on the floor, Mia, Mike and El on the rug, Dustin and Jenny on the bed. Mike and Dustin proceed to tell them about Lucas, and how they’d still been fighting on the way back home yesterday. Today, Dustin tells them, when Mike had gone to apologize, Lucas had said he didn’t want to take El with them to the gate anymore, which Mike completely disagreed with and so none of them had apologized for yesterday’s fight, and thus, the party had split up.
And Lucas had gone alone to find the gate and Will.
What if he came face to face with the military? What if they arrested him? What if they killed him? What if they took him into their lab and experimented on him just like they did with El?
They’ve barely finished speaking, and Jenny’s already pulling yesterday’s backpack out from under her bed, and El’s eyes are so wide there’s white all around it.
Meanwhile, Mia has been picking at her bandages so much that it’s almost completely off her wrist by the time they finish, feeling her heart beat double its pace in her chest. Below the bandage, Chester’s bite is puffy and red, and too hot. Her hand feels numb, with bruises staining her skin a mess of yellow and purple-black. She can barely move her pinky and ring fingers.
It looks bad but they don’t have time to do anything about it, they have to get to Lucas before the military does.
She just pulls the sleeve of her coat over her hands and decides to think about it later.
She has a friend to rescue.
Jenny leaves a note for her parents, saying they’re going to Mike’s. They take their bikes and leave soon after, Mia on the back of Jenny’s bike and El on the back of Mike’s, Dustin riding alone at the head of their group.
They don’t talk on the way to the woods. Mia feels as though there’s barbed wire around her throat, choking her. All she can think about is Lucas.
Once in the woods, they quickly dismount the bikes. It’ll be easier to cover more ground on foot, since the ground is covered with leaves and branches, and there’s many hills and ditches in the area.
Lucas must still be following yesterday’s idea of heading North, so they follow one of Dustin’s compasses too, yelling for Lucas all the while.
They have to find him before the military does.
Hours later, Mia’s throat hurts from shouting and there is still no sign of Lucas. The fear that he has been taking has formed into a cold certainty, that sits heavily in her stomach.
Even El has been calling for Lucas, timid voice wavering and cracking when she goes any higher than her normal volume.
“Lucas!” Mike’s shouting, craning his head this way and that. His voice cracks, and he coughs, before trying again “Lu -”
A branch snaps up ahead.
Mia freezes, whole body growing cold. Dustin stumbles into her back, hands warm against her shoulders.
“Mia, what-”
“Shush.” Mike hisses at him, also frozen in place, head tilted at the woods, listening for more noises. “Did you hear that?”
Leaves crackle, a branch snaps, the sound coming from the hill up ahead.
Mia’s heart slams up to her throat, vision going dark at the edges.
A pressure behind her eyes pushes her back and back and back until it feels like she’s seeing the woods through binoculars, far away from the forefront of her own mind.
It’s the demogorgon coming for them, she knows it is.
Will is dead and Lucas was taken and it's come for them now.
It’s coming for her.
The trees sway in the wind, the crackling of leaves and branches get louder. Soon, that grey, oozing creature will come out from behind the hill.
Troy Walsh and James Dante come up instead, with grins on their faces.
Mia blinks at them, her brain not understanding it for a moment. Where was the monster? Was it behind them?
She blinks, trying desperately, but failing to push away that distant feeling that clings to her head. She needs to think, but she can’t.
There’s the sound of metal against metal. Walsh pulls out a knife. A metal baseball bat glints in Dante’s hands.
There’s a sound next to her, Dustin throwing his bike on the ground.
“Run!” He shouts.
Something inside Mia snaps.
She twists on her heels and runs.
She runs and runs, Dustin’s voice urging them to run faster drowned out by the beating of her heart. Her nose burns. Her throat burns. Her wrist burns. She runs and she runs and she runs and has to blink away the darkness in her eyes, because it’s day, it’s not night. Except that everything’s dark and Walsh and Dante’s footsteps crash through the woods like the thing that had run after her and Will, and Mia panics, she throws her hand out, hoping to find Will’s clammy grip and finds a thin hand, but then another one clamps onto her left wrist and it hurts even more and she’s still running but now she can see that it’s day time and the trees become sparser until they’re running through a dirt road surrounded by gravel, and just around the corner where her house should be is the drop to the Quarry.
Dustin yells. Mike shouts something over his shoulder. He’s the one holding her wrist, she realizes, looking back only to have her hair whip onto her eyes.
The skinny hand in Mia’s belongs to El.
They skid to a stop at the bend of the road. Mia can barely breathe, a stitch stabbing her side with every gasping breath.
“Shit.” Dustin curses, making Mia turn to him, and to the road ahead.
Somehow, Dante had circled around them, and is now running to them from that side of the road, the baseball bat in his hands.
Mia whirls around, and Walsh’s behind them too, brandishing his knife with a grin on his face.
Mike bends down and grabs a rock. Dustin grabs a stick, yelling at Walsh to stand back. Jenny pulls out her bedazzled softball bat from her backpack, eyes wide and hands shaking.
Mia grips El’s hand like a lifeline, legs and hands tingling, feeling completely useless.
She tries to stay there, she really does. She tries to push herself to the front of her mind, but she can’t. Everything seems so far away, coming in flashes: Mike throwing his rock at Dante and missing him by a mile. Dustin swinging his stick at Walsh and barely missing him.
Walsh pulling Dustin in by his jacket and pressing his knife to his throat.
“Let him go!” Mike and Jenny yell at the same time, Jenny nearly shrieking with fear.
Jenny grips her bat, starts toward Walsh, but he presses the knife harder against Dustin’s throat.
“Stay back! Stay back or I’ll cut him.”
“Then I’ll bash your head in!” Jenny yells, right as Mia feels something yank her back by the back of her sweater.
She falls back, hand slipping out of El’s, straight into someone’s chest.
It’s Dante, holding her against him.
She raises hands that are too slow, too weak, and tries to claw his arms, to twist herself away, but he traps her arms in with his bat, crushing them across her chest so hard that she can feel the bones grinding against each other in her injured wrist.
She’s violently shoved to the forefront of her mind as her wrist lights up in agony.
She doesn’t know if she screams, but it hurts - it hurts so bad. Her vision’s gone gray around the edges, coldness spreading over her body. She feels everything, the brush of her own clothes against her body, the disgusting heat of Dante behind her, the pressure against her chest. She tastes sweat on her upper lip.
“Let her go!” Jenny yells.
El steps forward but Dante steps back, pressing his bat even tighter, now crushing Mia’s neck. She chokes, barely able to breathe.
“Leave us alone!” Jenny shouts again. “What do you want?!”
“I know you did something to me! And Dante! Some nerdy science shit that made us do that.”
Mike sneers at Dante, “You mean piss your pants?”
Dante tightens his grip. Mia gasps, chokes on her dry throat, trying in vain to kick his legs with her useless, tingling feet.
“There’s no way you’re strong enough to push Walsh, frog-face! What the hell did you do, huh?”
“Our friend has superpowers and not only did she stop you in your tracks like the big shit you are, she also squeezed your tiny little bladder with her mind!” Dustin yells, and Walsh is once again pressing the knife to his throat, and Jenny’s yelling and Mike’s yelling, and Mia can’t get free.
El’s eyes are dark and wide, staring straight at her.
Through the haze and the shouting, she hears Troy’s shout to Mike.
“Jump! Or Toothless here gets an early trip to the dentist.”
Jenny and Dustin yell at the same time, begging Mike not to move. Jenny even clamps onto Mike’s arm, baring her teeth at Walsh.
“Like hell he is! You touch Dustin and your ass is grass, Walsh!”
Staring straight at El like she is, Mia sees the exact moment El’s face tightens, eyes narrowing in anger. A fire’s been lit behind her usually scared eyes, and now? Now she doesn’t look scared.
She looks scary.
El turns to Walsh and Dustin, and raises her hand towards Walsh. The knife goes flying out of his hand like the cap from the sprite bottle last night, embedding itself to the hilt on one of the rocks next to the cliff’s edge.
Then his arm twists grotesquely with a loud snap.
“What the -”
Dante barely has a chance to finish his sentence, breath hot against Mia’s ear, and El’s already turning, raising her other hand and pushing it forward.
An unseen force launches Dante back, and though his arms pinwheel back to try and break his fall, he drags Mia back with him.
One moment she’s upright, and the next she’s hitting her head on the ground. The impact rattles her teeth, echoes in the bump above her left eye, and for a moment, she thinks she’s back at the road near her house, Will pushing her off of him after they crashed on the ground.
But she opens her eyes and it’s daytime and Walsh is running towards Dante, screaming and holding his arm to his chest, and Dante scrambles up, limping, and they run around Mia’s side, sliding on gravel and dust.
Dustin is screaming after them.
“Yeah, you better run! She’s our friend and she’s crazy! You come back and she’ll kill you, you hear me?! She’ll kill you sons of bitches!”
There’s blond hair over Mia’s eyes, a pink shirt right above her head.
El’s nose is bleeding, Jenny’s hands are on her face, her blue eyes wide and worried.
“Mia, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Her hands go to the back of her head and Mia swallows down her scream.
It hurts. It really, really hurts.
She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to go home, and curl up in her mother’s arms, and have Will put an ice bag on her head, and ask Jonathan to tuck her in on the couch. She kind of wants Chief Hopper to pick her up again, hear his low voice rumble through his chest as he says that she’s going to be fine.
But none of them are here. And she’s not home.
Mia turns around to her stomach, and slowly pushes herself up. El and Jenny help her up, and once she’s standing, Mike swims into her view, Dustin standing worriedly over his shoulder.
For a moment she thinks she’s about to throw up on Mike’s shoes.
Maybe Jenny would find that funny.
“I’m okay.” She says instead, not feeling the words leave her mouth.
El squeezes her elbow. Her eyes are shiny. Mia notices distantly that she’s crying.
“I’m sorry -” El whimpers, “I’m sorry.”
Mike turns to her, hand already on the girl’s shoulder, offering comfort. “What are you sorry for, El?”
“The gate.” El gasps, rubbing away the tears rolling down her cheeks and the blood on her nose with the back of her sleeve, “My fault I - I opened it. Lucas said - I helped it. I’m a monster.”
“No, El. You’re not a monster.” Mike denies, a smile on his lips. Behind him Dustin shakes his head in agreement. Jenny holds a hand out for El, squeezing the girl’s hand in hers.
“You saved us, El.” Jenny whispers, voice thick. “We were all a bunch of useless nothings against two stupid bullies and you saved us!”
Mike nods, head bobbing up and down, awestruck.
“You really saved us, El.” He says, and pulls her in for a hug.
Jenny jumps into the hug too, dragging Mia along. Behind Mike, Dustin throws his arms over everyone and then they’re all hugging, Mia squeezed between El and Jenny, Mike’s hair tickling her ear.
The grayness slowly leaves her vision. Mia raises her arm and hugs El too, every moment of the last five minutes replaying in her head as if she was watching a movie. El had saved them. Had saved her.
Something warm and big grows in her chest.
The girl tilts her head to look at Mia and smiles, and that little something burns in her chest.
Despite all the pain that she’s in, Mia smiles back.
She loves her friends, she’s always known that. But now - now there’s El, and the girl might just have become her friend too.
*
They end up biking back to Mike’s house, the search for Lucas temporarily stopped after the encounter with Walsh and Dante.
Mia leans her entire weight on Mike’s back, her good hand squeezing his coat.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mike asks, slightly wheezy from biking.
No, she wants to say, I can’t feel two of my fingers and my whole arm has been in pins and needles and I might have a headache too. She doesn’t know if that halo of iridescent light that she’d seen floating in her vision on the night that thing got Will is back, but her vision is definitely weird. She keeps getting surprised by the houses that come rushing up to them on the sides of the streets.
“Yeah.” She lies to him, “We still got to find Lucas.”
“We will. We just have to regroup first.”
They enter his house through the basement door, Mia making a beeline to the couch. Though she wants to throw herself down on the cushions, it’d probably do more harm than good, so she sits slowly, and tips her head back til it touches the back of the couch. She closes her eyes, willing the room to stop moving, willing her legs to stop feeling like they’re still running.
God, she’s so thirsty.
Jenny ushers El into the bathroom to clean her bloody nose. Mike runs upstairs, taking two steps at a time. Dustin settles on Mike’s table, fiddling with his supercom.
She tunes them all out, focusing on the kaleidoscope of colors behind her eyelids.
Then someone pokes her on the shoulder, and she opens her eyes to find Mike holding out a glass of water towards her and some aspirin pills.
“Here. You sure you don’t want me to call Jonathan?”
Jenny and El are standing next to Dustin by the couch. When had they gotten here? When had everyone gotten up?
They’re all staring worriedly at her.
And Mike’s said something, hasn’t he?
Crap.
“Thanks, Mike.” She rasps, taking the pills and the water cup from him.
Mike opens his mouth, probably to ask if she’s okay, but Dustin’s supercom decides it’s the perfect moment to crackle back to life.
There’s yelling, and a lot of static. The others, staring at it like it’s a dead animal that just took its first breath again.
“Is that Lucas?” Jenny asks, and suddenly, Mike and Dustin explode into movement.
Dustin’s freaking out. “Oh my god, what if he found the gate?!”
“What if the bad men found him?” Jenny shouts back.
“Lucas, can you hear us?” Mike grabs the com out of Dustin’s hands. Him and Jenny lean towards it, but Lucas’ voice is too tiny and muffled to be heard.
“What’s he saying?!”
“I don’t know, he’s way out of range!”
Jenny yells at Lucas to repeat himself, to talk slower, and finally, Lucas’ voice comes crystal clear. He’s yelling, and panting, voice filled with fear.
“- know! They know about Eleven! Get out of there, they know about Eleven! The Bad Men are coming! All of them!”
“The Bad men.” Dustin and Mike speak at the same time. They look at each other, only then realizing what it means.
“Bad Men!” Mike shouts, then looks around at the girls, hopping in place. His head swivels wildly from one side to the other, before he sharply pulls on Dustin’s elbow. “You all stay down here!”
Before anyone can protest, the two of them disappear up the stairs, the door slamming behind them.
As soon as they’re gone, Jenny jumps to the table, grabs hers and Dustin’s backpacks, and Mike’s too, dumping them in a pile by the basement door. She leans against it, staring out of the blinds, fingers on the doorknob.
“You think they’re already here?” She asks.
Belatedly, Mia realizes Jenny’s talking to her.
Mike and Dustin come running back down the stairs before she can answer. Mia glances at El, that glances at Jenny, that glances at Mike.
“We have to go.”
El pulls Mia up by her good wrist, and somehow, Mia makes her legs move. They all spring into motion, running towards the door.
Outside, Mike, Dustin and Jenny grab their bikes from the ground, running alongside them. Mia and El run ahead, Mia’s head throbbing in time with her heartbeat. They stop so Mia can jump on Dustin’s bike and El onto Mike’s, and that’s when they see them.
A handful of men in dark blue coveralls walk across the Wheelers’ garden, led by a white haired man in a long coat.
He’s staring straight at them.
At El.
“Go, go, go, go, go!” Dustin yells, tearing off the Wheeler’s sidestreet. The men in the garden run back to their cars - big hulking white vans with HAWKINS POWER AND LIGHT across the sides.
And once again they’re running for their lives.
Mia sticks close to Dustin’s back, nearly sliding right off the bike as he makes a sharp turn. She feels his voice through the cheek she’s pressing against his back, his hair whipping against her face as he repeats over and over again oh my god oh my god oh my god.
Dustin’s ‘com crackles to life, Lucas’ voice coming from it, louder than before.
Dustin answers it in his earpiece, “Lucas they’re onto us! Right behind us!” Lucas replies something she doesn’t hear, “Cornwallis. Got it! Elm and Cherry!”
They cut through a few backyards, riding right past the intersection with Dearborn street. The sounds of cars get louder. Mia looks back, to find Mike, El and Jenny following right behind Dustin’s bike.
There’s a line of vans right behind them, hot on their heels.
Mia whips her head around, forcing herself to think past the pounding ache in her head.
There’s the sharp corner with Gloucester right ahead. They need to lose the vans, and get to Cornwallis, where Lucas probably is, so she looks for a way out in the houses lining up the street. Closed gate, closed gate, car, car, garage - There!
There’s a house right up ahead, its backyard door right open, a guy coming out of it.
“Dustin!” She yells “Through there!” She points at the side of the house, where the backyard doors sit wide open.
Instead of following the turn of the road, they go straight forward, through the yard gate, nearly running over the guy. Then they’re all flying down a hill, a park, and scaring the crap out of a couple of girls playing by the slide. Their bikes glide underneath them, faster than they usually go.
Mia has a sense of deja vu, of running through the streets on the back of Will’s bike a few nights ago.
She holds on tighter to Dustin as they make a couple of crazy swerves on the bikes, and slide onto asphalt again, already on Cherry, almost crashing straight into Lucas.
“Lucas!” Mia shouts, echoed by Jenny and Mike as they all come skidding to a stop.
“Where are they?” Lucas pants, doubling over the handles of his bike.
“I think we lost them,” Dustin says, right before the sound of screeching tires reaches their ears.
There are the vans again, barreling towards them from the end of the street.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!”
They start pedaling again, gliding down the slope of Cherry street as fast as they can.
Mia’s legs squeeze Dustin’s bike so hard she’ll have the bruised imprint of the metal frame on her thighs for the rest of the month.
Then everyone starts screaming.
Mia looks over Dustin’s shoulder to see a van gunning for them right ahead.
They don’t have time to stop.
She shrieks into the back of Dustin’s coat, voice lost to the wind. Any time now she’ll feel the pain, the impact, will feel herself flying and hitting the road -
But there’s the same pressure from before, the hum in her ears.
Mia looks up from the back of Dustin’s coat in time to see the van flip over, flying over their heads as if a bomb had gone off under it, crashing onto the ground and blocking the road behind them.
She’d never expected the sound of screeching metal to be so loud.
She feels deaf in the aftermath, the screeches of tires and breaks as the vans are forced to halt behind them lower than they should be.
She looks over Dustin’s shoulder. Mike and Lucas are gaping at each other, incredulous. Next to Dustin, Jenny’s staring wide eyed at El.
“Holy shit.” Jenny shouts, turning her head around, blonde hair swinging around her head. “Holy shit.”
They don’t have much time to stop and gape at the accident left behind. They quickly pedal down the street, away from the vans.
Mia lets her eyes drift over the houses. She’s tired down to her bones, but also not at the same time - she feels shocked awake, knees trembling and aching from her position on the bike.
Somehow, no one comes out to the streets, or stops them. No more vans come from around the corners, though they all anxiously expect them to.
Lucas guides them through a few more twists and turns in case they’re still being followed, then through Mulberry and the small roads that lead to the quarry, until they’re all the way over at the old junkyard. They ride until they reach the old rusted school bus, where they finally let themselves stop.
“Holy shit!” Now Dustin’s the one yelling. “Did you guys see what she did to that van?”
He’s sweating a lot. Mike, Lucas and Jenny too. Mia passes the back of her hand over her forehead and finds herself all sweaty too, though she’s not at all hot.
“No, Dustin, we missed it.” Mike rolls his eyes, helping El out of his bike. Mia’s glad that Dustin’s standing up on his bike, because she doesn’t think she could hop out, or even stretch out her legs to keep the bike balanced if he had gotten out.
Jenny throws herself out of her bike, dramatically bending at the waist to clutch her knees. “That was - that was -”
“That was awesome.” Lucas says, to everyone’s surprise.
The last they’d seen of Lucas had been him cursing El’s powers, now - now the boy stares at her with something akin to awe, mouth stretched in a wide grin. Mia watches him walk to El, then kneel down next to her.
“Everything I said about you being a traitor and stuff. I was wrong.” He puts a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
El visibly relaxes, shoulders dropping. Her nose is bleeding again, and she looks just about ready to drop dead. But she smiles a bit, nodding at Lucas.
“Friends don’t lie.” She says, and Mia thinks she recognizes that line. Will has said it a few times before, Mike too. “I’m sorry too.”
“Me too.” Mike says, stepping in front of Lucas.
He holds a hand out to the other boy, who reaches out and shakes it.
Peace. Finally.
A while later, after Mia’s managed to get down from Dustin’s bike and she’s taking cover in the bus’ shade next to El. Next to them, Jenny and Mike hand out snacks they’d taken from Dustin’s bag and bicker over who will take the only packet of Reese's cups that Dustin had packed.
Neither notice it inching away from them on the ground as if pulled by an invisible string until it bumps El’s and Mia’s shoes.
El bends down to grab it, tears the wrap open and gifts one of the candies to Mia. She takes it with a smile, and shows El what a toast is by gently touching her cup against El’s.
The girl furrows her brows, then smiles, touching her cup to Mia’s again just as gently. She watches Mia for a second, waiting.
Mia plops the entire candy in her mouth at once, because biting it in half is sacrilege.
El does the same.
Mia can only laugh when Mike and Jenny discover they’ve lost the Reeses.
Lucas interrupts Mike and Jenny’s incoming fight by calling them all over to a make-shift map he’s built on the ground. Mia and El head over too, and Lucas soon begins to tell them about the fence and the lab, and the ways he found to get inside it.
Mia looks at Jenny, remembering what El told them, but finds the girl staring at Lucas, without even blinking.
Mia frowns, and nudges her with an elbow. Jenny’s blue eyes snap to her, her cheeks still pink and sweaty from the ride to the junkyard.
“What?” She whispers.
Mia nods her head to the boys. Tell them what we know, she urges with her eyes.
Jenny seems to get it.
She speaks up, telling the boys what El had told them: that the lab was where she’d come from, that the bad men and the military were one and the same, and that the gate really was in there. It doesn’t take long for them to conclude that there’s no electricity going on in there. They must be building weapons - the human kind.
Dustin and Mike start talking about how that could be done, what kind of machines they might have, and experiments they might be doing. Are they like Department X? Is there some kind with powers like Wolverine out there?
Mia can only think about the fact that El is number Eleven.
There must be other people being experimented on, ten, at least. Were they alive? Were there more, after Eleven? How many were there? Were they all in the lab?
Faintly, Mia registers a distant chopping sound, getting closer by the second.
She pokes at her ear, checking if something hasn’t gotten loose after the many falls she’s had the past couple of days.
But then, Dustin seems to hear it too. And soon, it’s close enough to be seen: a helicopter, flying towards the junkyard.
“Hide.” Mia says, her voice coming out of her throat like glass shards. “We gotta hide! C’mon!” She yells, pushing Jenny’s shoulder and running to the bikes, “Under the bus, c’mon!”
Mia helps Jenny put her bike under the bus, El helping out Dustin with his while Mike and Lucas carry their own bikes. Dustin’s bike gets stuck on Mike’s. El kicks at it until it finally slides under the bus, and by then, the helicopter is right above them.
“Inside the bus! Let’s go.” Mike yells, running inside. Mia follows, hot on Eleven’s heels. They throw themselves on the floor of the bus, Mia squished under a window next to Lucas, El and Jenny at the back while Dustin lies flat on the aisle, staring at the ceiling, just like Mike.
The sound of the helicopter get really, really loud for a couple of minutes, where Mia is certain they’re gonna get bombed like in the movies, but then it starts to fade.
“Mental.” Dustin wheezes, “absolutely mental.”
The sound of the chopper grows more and more distant, but doesn’t vanish.
They’re still looking for all of them.
Mia doesn’t know how long they spend crouching down inside the bus, unmoving, but she counts the screws on the ceiling to keep her mind occupied. She’s counted 50 so far, and that with her eyes unfocusing all the time against her will, making her have to recount them all over again.
She can’t control her own vision. it’s like - like a switch was being flipped inside her brain. On. Off. On, then Off again.
Her vision’s just going unfocused again when there’s a sound on the boys’ supercom.
“Mike, are you there?”
Mia freezes, eyes darting to the walkie talkie she can see peeking out of Mike’s backpack.
Dustin sits up, “Did you guys hear that?”
“Mike? It’s me, Nancy.”
“Is that your sister?”
“This is an emergency, Mike, we need you to answer. Do you copy? Mike, do you copy?”
“Maybe we should answer her.” Jenny says.
Lucas reaches for the walkie talkie, but Mike bats his hand away. “Don’t answer it!”
While they’re arguing if they’ll pick up or not, a new voice comes through.
It’s Chief Hopper, Mia realizes, eyes burning with relief. He knows they’re in trouble. He knows about El.
“We can protect you.” He says, “We can help you, but you gotta pick up. Are you there? Do you copy? Over.”
Chief Hopper had helped find Mia. He’d carried her into the Hospital. And back into her house when Will’s - that body had been found.
The others are too busy arguing on what to do, so Mia reaches forward and plucks the radio from Mike’s hand before he can say anything,
“Yes, we copy.” She answers, voice shakier than she intended it to be. “It’s Mia. And Mike. We’re here. We’re all here.”
Chief Hopper asks them where they are. Mia tells him, despite Dustin’s and Mike’s dirty looks. Chief Hopper orders them to sit tight and wait, that he’s coming to get them. Mia ignores the looks the others are throwing at her, especially Dustin who keeps repeating Lando under his breath, before she finally shuts off the call, collapsing the antennae thingy of the supercom.
Mike waves his hands around. “Really, Mia?!”
“She did the right thing.” Jenny cuts in, rubbing her palms together. “Now there’s nothing to do but wait. We can do that. And we can do that without fighting.”
And so they wait. And wait. And wait. Jenny has migrated to the spot next to Mia, El choosing to follow along and sit beside Jenny. Lucas and Mike have occupied some of the seats. Dustin’s taken to pacing along the aisle. At some point, Jenny drops her head against Mia’s shoulders and drifts off.
Mia’s seriously considering doing the same, except that every time she even closes her eyes, it’s like she forgets how to breathe. Her heart jolts to the back of her throat and she startles awake, breathless and even more anxious than before.
Besides, she can’t go take a nap - what if the soldiers come back?
Dustin must have worn a groove on the floor when the first sounds reach them from outside the bus: a car coming up the gravel road.
Mike, Dustin and Lucas scramble to the bus’ door. Mia nudges Jenny awake and goes to one of the grimy windows. And immediately blanches when she realizes it’s not one car, but three distinct cars.
Three men dressed in suits hop out of each car. Mia’s heart climbs to her mouth when she sees the guns in their hands.
“Everyone, hide now!” She hisses, but she didn’t need to, the others were already moving. Mia squeezes under a seat with Jenny, the others ducking behind the seats and gluing themselves to the walls.
Mia stares at Jenny’s terrified eyes, both of their hands clutching one another’s on the ground between them.
The footsteps come closer.
Something taps the side of the bus.
Mia swallows down a whimper, a drop of sweat rolling down her nose and dripping to the dusty floor.
The bus door squeaks open. Mia squeezes herself further under the seat.
“Hey!” Someone shouts.
Mia jumps, biting her cheek at the series of thumps and groans that follow.
She glances at Jenny, who seems just as lost and terrified as she is.
Footsteps come onto the bus, Mia sticks her head out, ready to see if they’ll have to run or not.
But it’s only Chief Hopper, hat, mustache and all, with a gun pointed at the ceiling.
“Alright, let’s go.” He says, looking over them.
No one moves.
Mia’s legs have gone numb.
She can’t believe it’s Hopper standing right there.
“Let’s go!”
The shout startles them into movement.
The boys run for their backpacks, while Mia and Jenny squeeze out from under the seat. They all run out of the bus, El following at the rear, wide eyed and uncertain. Chief Hopper urges them into the car, head swiveling around to look for more threats. It’s a tight squeeze, but they stuff themselves into the available space without complaints.
It’s a tense and crowded ride to wherever they’re going. Mia goes at the front, cradling her left wrist to her chest. In the backseat, El sits on Jenny’s lap, and Lucas sits on Mike’s, Dustin squeezed between them.
The whole thing feels so surreal. She can feel the Chief’s gaze on the side of her head every now and then, but she keeps her eyes on the streets outside, heart jumping whenever some random person even looks their way.
She’s so keyed up, she barely realizes they’re heading to her house. Wouldn’t have realized it at all, actually, if it wasn’t for Lucas.
“Are we going to Will’s house?” he asks.
“We are.” Chief Hopper answers.
And that’s the last time they talk during the ride.
It’s dark by the time they reach the house. The car rumbles to a stop by the front porch.
Mia sees the yellow-ish light coming through the front windows and the orange porch light and the clotheslines swaying in the night wind and suddenly she can’t move anymore.
She can’t - she won’t get out of the car.
She doesn’t want to.
The others are spilling out of the back seat like marbles from a tin can and she doesn’t want to get out. She can’t. She sees the front door opening, Mom and Jonathan walking out, Nancy Wheeler just behind them, and all she wants to do is lie down and cry, far away from everyone.
Is her dad still inside?
She can’t go in there. She can’t.
She feels, more than sees, Chief Hopper getting out his door and circling around the front of the car. He opens her door and she nearly falls straight down to the ground, stopped only by his hand on her shoulder.
“Easy, kid. C’mon. You’re home now, your mom’s right there.”
She knows that, she has eyes. But her dad might also be inside.
She shakes her head at him. Chief Hopper narrows his eyes, brows furrowing in confusion.
“Mia!” Jonathan shouts, then. She looks through the windshield to see him and Mom practically leaping from the front porch to run towards the car.
She doesn’t have a choice now.
She lets Chief Hopper help her to the ground, only to be swept up in Jonathan’s arms. He smells like sweat...and blood? She pulls back, and takes a look at his face. One of his eyes is slightly puffier than the other, and then she notices his hands - his right knuckles swollen, a large split between his ring and pinky fingers.
Coldness flashes through her, down to the bones.
“Did dad -”
But before she can ask, mom is there, pulling her into her arms like a ragdoll.
“Oh, baby, you’re okay!” Mia can’t help but relax completely into her mom’s hug, tucking her head against her neck. Reflexive tears fill her eyes at the sheer relief that courses through her just by being in her mom’s embrace, but she stubbornly doesn’t let them fall.
Mom pulls back first, smoothing her hands up Mia’s shoulders and neck, holding her cheeks in her hands. Mia can’t seem to look her in the eyes, and focuses instead on her wild hair, and the shiny sweat on her forehead.
“We should move it inside.” Chief Hopper says, not unkindly.
Mia’s cheeks grow hot once she realizes the other had just been standing there, watching them.
They all file inside. Mia gapes at the sight that greets her.
The house’s trashed, there’s no other word for it.
The Christmas lights that had been hung up everywhere are scattered on the floor. Piles of papers and stuffing from the wall are all over the place. The coffee table and the armchairs are halfway to the kitchen. It’s like someone came in, shook her house up and left.
Jonathan, Nancy and Mom go straight to the couch, while Chief Hopper sits on the armchair her dad used to sit at.
The very sight of him there fills her with such a wrongness that she stops right where she is, unmindful of how El crashes into her back.
Mike, of course, notices and makes it his business. “Mia, are you okay?”
Everyone’s heads snap to her.
She wants to melt down into the floor. Wants to run out the back door into the woods and never come back. She’s suddenly sick of breaking down, sick of people looking at her like she’s about to keel over and die. She looks at the free armchair, full of trash on top, and makes a beeline for it. She sweeps it all onto the floor with her good hand, and throws herself down on it. The back of her head bumps painfully against the armrest, but she just glares at Mike and stubbornly waits for the pain to pass.
He doesn’t ask her if she’s okay again.
The others crowd around the coffee table, and Mike launches into an explanation of everything they’d found out without prompting. With visual aids and reenactment and all. He talks about finding El when they went out to look for Will and Mia, of El leading them to the Byers’ house, tell them about the Heathkit at school and Will’s voice, about the gate, the flea and the acrobat analogy that Mr. Clark had used to explain to them the parallel reality of the Upside Down. Jenny and the other boys pipe in when needed. Jonathan and Nancy tell them about their theories on the Demogorgon, easily accepting the name that Dustin had given the creature.
Mia watches them all talk, and watches El, who’s also watching everyone, completely silent.
Mia also watches Chief Hopper watch El as if he was trying to decipher something.
Once Jonathan and Nancy are done speaking their side of the last few days, Chief Hopper asks about the gate, still looking straight at El.
El answers.
They both know exactly where it is inside the lab.
He continues to stare at her, almost unblinking while Mom asks if El can contact Will again. She nods.
Mia closes her eyes, hearing Will’s panicked breaths in her head again. It’s like home but it’s so dark. So dark and empty - and, and it’s so cold!
For a moment it’s almost as if she’s hearing the monster’s wheezy, indrawn breath, its clicking sounds.
She snaps her eyes open, looks around at the light fixtures on the walls - they all glow steady, their yellow-ish light comforting in their familiarity.
Nancy asks about Barbara. Eleven grabs Mike’s supercom, and heads to the kitchen table. Lucas, Dustin, Mike and Jenny are already on their feet, ready to follow El. The adults and teenagers look between themselves, before cautiously following behind.
Mia stays where she is. She doesn’t think she could get up if they asked her to.
Jenny, however, stops by the kitchen doorway, glancing back at Mia. Jonathan sees her stopping and does the same, looking just as surprised as Jenny at seeing Mia still in the armchair. His eyes narrow, flying over Mia’s curled up form.
Mia tries to sit up, look more alert, but still sees it when it dawns on him something’s wrong.
Jonathan crosses the living room in three long strides, kneeling by Mia’s armchair. “What happened?”
Mia looks over his head, to where Jenny and now Lucas have hung back to watch them anxiously, and jerks her head to tell them to go to El. They share a glance between themselves, before going to the kitchen to stand on either side of El by the head of the table.
Something touches her wrist.
Mia hisses, yanking her arm back to hide it between her side and the couch. Jonathan looks gutted, staring up at her with his hand still hovering over her.
“Mia, let me see your wrist.” His voice is barely a whisper.
Her wrist hurts, she doesn’t want to move it.
“Please.” He whispers again. Maybe he’s just now remembering they haven’t really done anything to it, like they were supposed to since she came out of the hospital.
She offers her arm to him, and winces when he carefully peels back the sleeve of her sweater, because even the small movement is enough for her to want to scream from the pain.
The bruises are darker than before near the base of her hand, a blotchy stripe of red almost the exact width of Dante’s baseball bat crossing her wrist. She tries to wiggle her fingers, grimacing at the pins and needles, and finds that her pinky, ring and middle finger barely move along with the other two. Chester’s bite is red and raw looking, but not as puffy as it was before, though one of the punctures’ scabs has fallen off, pulled away by Jonathan rolling up her sleeve. It oozes something clear and pinkish.
“We need to put ice on that.” Jonathan croaks, before clearing his throat.
He glances back at the kitchen, where the others are crowding around the table.
Chief Hopper looks up at them briefly, eyes skimming over Jonathan’s hands around her arm. He must have heard Jonathan, because he takes two steps to the fridge, and after a quick look, pulls out the frozen peas they’ve kept in the freezer since the days that dad lived with them. He cracks the bag against the kitchen counter to separate the peas, startling Mom and El at the table. Then he grabs a dish towel from the table and walks to the kitchen doorway, throwing it and the bag of peas at Jonathan.
Jonathan thanks him, rolls the towel around the bag and presses it to Mia’s wrist.
She hisses, batting his hand away. It’s too cold, the cloth too rough against the inside of her wrist, Jonathan half-heartedly glares at her, and presses it again to her wrist. She whines, but yanks the bag from his hand, lightly pressing it to the back of her wrist.
She barely feels the cold this way.
In the kitchen, the light flickers.
Mia’s chest constricts, hands squeezing the bag of peas a bit too hard before she realizes it’s just El and her powers.
Not the monster.
El has closed her eyes, Mike’s supercom turned down low on static noise at her front.
At the table, Mom holds her arms around herself, teeth biting furiously at her lower lip. At Mia’s side, Jonathan looks like he wants to comfort her, but he stays by Mia’s side, one hand rising to her knee, softly squeezing the joint.
A clicking noise comes from the supercom and Mia’s glad for that point of connection. Her entire body grows cold as if she’d been dumped in the quarry in the middle of winter, Jonathan’s hand her only tether to the warm amber light of her living room.
It was the monster, right there, on the other side of the supercom. She’s sure of it.
No one reacts to it at all, though, and Mia wonders if it’s just her head playing tricks on her.
“I’m sorry,” El’s saying, voice thick. Mia blinks fast, and curls and uncurls her fingers, trying to dispel the coldness that had spread through her body. “I can’t find them.”
The table is silent as El gets up and runs to the bathroom, the door closing softly behind her.
Chief Hopper sighs and walks around the table to sit on a chair.
From the corner of her eyes, Mia watches Jonathan’s hand slide off her leg, to fiddle with a new rip in his jeans, his fingers shaking. She balances the pea bag on her bad wrist and uses her good hand to run her fingers through his hair.
It feels oily, and a bit stiff, but she still moves her fingers to the base of his skull, scratching with her nails at the nape of his neck.
“I’m gonna go check on her.” Jenny mumbles in the kitchen, pushing away from El’s empty chair and power-walking to the bathroom.
As soon as she’s gone and the bathroom door has once again clicked closed behind her, Mike’s talking, explaining to them that El must be tired. That her powers are “battery-powered”, and she’s the battery. She drains fast, especially after flipping a whole van earlier in the day. She needs to rest. They’ll have to wait before she can try again.
It's funny how Mike can sound so convincing and sure of himself when he knows as much as Mia and the others about El’s powers.
Which is nothing.
“Well, how long do we have to wait?” Nancy asks, impatient.
Mia thinks of the black-and-white photo booth strip on her vanity mirror. If it was Jenny in Barb’s place, Mia wouldn’t want to wait either.
Dustin comes to Mike’s aid. “We don’t really know.”
Mia doesn’t hear the bathroom door opening, but suddenly, El and Jenny are walking back into the kitchen, holding hands.
“The bath.” El says. Mia sees her squeeze Jenny’s hand when everyone turns to look at her.
A weird feeling fills her chest, and Mia has to rub at her breastbone to brush it away.
“El can find them.” Jenny continues. “The tank Chief Hopper mentioned. They used to -” She glances at El, shaking her head. From her spot on the armchair, Mia can’t see her face, but her voice drips with anger. “They used to leave El inside it, in the water and in the dark. It’s how she used to find people.”
“A sensory deprivation tank.” Chief Hopper says from the sink. His voice is tight with anger too. “I’ve seen those.”
His voice makes Mia want to curl up tighter in her armchair. She takes her hand away from Jonathan’s head, intending to do just so, but Jonathan takes her hand before she can, holding it tight in his.
“It’s okay,” He whispers, loud enough for only her to hear, eyes intent.
She wants to tell him that she’s not dumb, she knows it’s okay.
But it is it really?
“How do we get a sensory deprivation tank?” Lucas asks, looking at Dustin, “She said a bath, right? Can we use a bathtub?”
“I don’t think so.” Dustin shrugs, “I don’t know. But I know who does.”
Surprisingly, none of the adults protest at Dustin saying they need to call Mr. Clarke. Perhaps, most surprisingly, is that Mr. Clarke answers the phone and doesn’t hang up in Dustin’s face when he makes his speech about pursuing knowledge.
Dustin snaps his fingers at Mike and Lucas, asking for a pen not long after.
They scramble like headless chickens around the kitchen, Lucas finding the notepad they write their groceries list on while Mike looks for a pen.
Mom gets it from the junk drawer by the oven, handing it over to Dustin as he sits at the head of the table and starts to write what they’ll need. He thanks Mr. Clarke when he’s done, smiling so wide his eyes turn to little slits.
Turns out that they need the kiddie pool that is rolled up somewhere in the shed. And salt.
Fifteen hundred pounds of it.
Nancy gasps, “Where are we gonna get that much salt?”
From the look Chief Hopper shoots Mom, he knows exactly where they can get it.
*
Even with both the Chief’s and the Byers’ car, it’s still an uncomfortable ride to the school.
Once they get there, they split up: Chief Hopper and Jonathan would get the salt, while Nancy and Mike get the hoses from the shed behind the football field. Jenny would help Dustin and Lucas set up the kiddie pool in the gymnasium, and Mia - who still had the melting bag of peas against her wrist, tied with a dishcloth, and was forbidden from carrying anything - was made to stick to Mom and El, who would be looking for things they could use as a blindfold for the girl.
Mom steers them to the closest classroom, the science lab, with a warm hand on each of their necks. She sits El down on a desk chair, while her and Mia kneel down by the cupboards in search of something they can use.
Mia finds goggles, and when she looks over the cupboard door, she sees mom holding up a roll of silver tape.
Perfect.
Mia stands behind El’s chair and watches mom tape the goggles. Mom had given her a long strip of duct tape to fasten the pea bag to her wrist, but the bag has mostly melted by now, so she’d just left it in one of the sinks. The janitor can probably deal with it on Monday.
“This will keep it dark for you, just like in your bathtub.” Mom tells El, finishing up the goggles. She puts it on the desk, and glances briefly at Mia before scooting closer to El. “You’re a very brave girl, you know that don’t you?”
El turns around to stare at the floor.
“You are.” Mom insists. “Everything you’re doing for my boy, Will...for my family. Thank you.” Mom reaches over to hold El’s hands between both of hers, dark eyes gentle. “Listen, I’m gonna be there with you the whole time. And so will Mia, and all your friends. If it ever gets too scary in...that place, you just let me know, okay?”
It’s the same voice that mom uses when Jonathan ropes Will and Mia to watch a scary movie, and she’s the one who has to calm them down to sleep at night, saying that her door is open, and they can always cuddle up to her in the night. I have two arms for a reason honey, she’d said last year, after they’d watched Halloween, it’s alright to be scared, just call out for me and I’ll get you both nice and cozy in my bed, alright?
“Yes.” El whispers now, voice mostly air.
Mom nods, steady and calm. It settles Mia’s nerves just seeing her so sure. “Ready?”
El raises a hand to squeeze Mia’s on her shoulder and sits up taller in her chair.
“Ready.”
They take a while longer. Mom takes them to the bathroom to wash off the grime in El’s neck, and to take a look at Mia’s wrist. She hisses in sympathy and clicks her tongue at the puffy bite, laying a kiss on the back of Mia’s hand.
The movement hurts, but Mia doesn’t say a thing, she’s just relieved that Mom is looking at her again.
Mia’s glad that she’s acting like her mom again.
Mom has a few band-aids in her wallet, and she quickly slaps it on over the bite mark. She asks if Mia wants one on the cut under her eyes.
Now that she’s thinking about it, her cheek feels crusty with a thin layer of dried blood. The scab must have fallen off at some point during the day. Mia raises a hand to it, but Mom stops her hand before she can poke it with her germ-filled hands.
Mia shakes her head, at her, “I’ll be fine.”
When they get back into the gym, Chief Hopper and Jonathan are cutting up salt bags and pouring it out on the already filled up pool. Dustin, Lucas, Mike and Jenny are kneeling by its edge, Jenny holding out a carton of eggs for Dustin. Mia watches him drop an egg into the water, and it stays on the surface.
Whooping, Jenny high-fives him. Lucas and Mike too.
When did they even get eggs? She thought that all they got in the cafeteria were the powdered ones.
El sits down to pull off her socks and shoes. She unfastens Mike’s borrowed watch, which Mia takes from her hands and passes it off to Mike.
Mom hands the goggles over to El, and her and Chief Hopper help El into the pool, jeans and long sleeves and all.
Mia grimaces.
Wet jeans are terrible.
El floats on her back in the middle of the pool, the water barely rippling around her. Her chin’s trembling though, Mia notices, as she kneels down between Jonathan and Jenny, eyes fixed on El’s weightless form.
There’s the hum of electricity.
The overhead lights flicker, and turn off with the faint smell of burning.
Jenny’s hand darts out to hold Mia’s, who’s just thankful she didn’t need to do it first. Her heart beats so hard inside her chest it hurts her throat. The bump over her eye throbs a bit, and she raises a hand to rub around it.
El floats in silence. Jenny’s breathing is loud next to Mia.
They’re all quiet, tense, until -
“Barbara?”
Outside the Gym, the lights continue to flicker. A loud noise from the generator shutting down reaches their ears.
Nancy leans forward on the other side of the pool, getting up on her knees, not minding the sudden darkness outside the Gym. “What’s going on? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know,” Mike answers his sister, rising up to his knees.
“Gone.” El whispers. “Gone, gone, g-gone.”
Gone? Was she not where she and Will not where they were before or…?
Nancy falls back on the floor, her face bloodless. It takes a moment for Mia to understand the true meaning of gone.
Mom reaches into the pool to comfort El, but the girl’s thrashing around now, shouting. Gone! Gone!
“It’s okay, honey! We’re right here.” Mom squeezes El’s hand, and Chief Hopper does the same. Jenny reaches into the water too, putting her hand on one of El’s kicking shins, that falls still immediately at her touch.
El’s breathing hard. Her shrill voice echoes in Mia’s ears. Gone! Gone!
Nancy is sitting on the floor, staring at nothing. Mom’s still talking to El, you’re safe, honey, we’re right here.
Mia tries to breathe in but finds she can’t, her nose is blocked. And just like that, she’s crying too.
Barbara was dead. Nancy’s best friend was dead, truly dead, no other hope for it.
Did this mean that Will could be dead now too?
“Castle Byers.”
Mia‘s head snaps up to El’s face at the faint sound of her voice.
“What about it?” She asks, voice cutting through the grim air of the Gym.
Mom’s other hand darts out to Mia’s knee and squeezes, as if to warn her.
Was this it? Would Will be dead like Barbara? Could they have come so far, just for Will to have been taken by the monster now?
They were so close.
But El breathes in, and out. Then -
“Will?” She asks, as if she was seeing him, right there.
Mom gasps. Mia feels weak down to her toes.
“You - you tell him, tell him that I’m coming.” Mom says, “Mom is coming.”
The walkie talkie behind Chief Hopper turns on, static blaring out. Then a voice, Will’s voice, comes through, crystal clear.
“Hurry.”
Mom leans further into the pool. “Tell him to stay where he is. We’re coming. You hear me? We’re coming.”
They hear El’s voice on the com, repeating what Mom had said, even though Mia’s looking straight at her face and doesn’t see her mouth move once. Then El’s breathing gets louder, faster.
“Will!” El shouts.
There’s a screech on the walkie-talkie, a high pitched whine as it shuts off.
El jolts up in the pool, nose bleeding.
Mia reaches forward to rip the goggles out of her face, while Mom fishes her out with one arm, letting El cling to it.
“I got you.” Mom says, “I got you honey. I got you. You did so good. I got you, you’re okay.”
*
Chief Hopper helps El out of the pool. He then pops out of the Gym to his car and comes back with a balled up blue flannel in his hands. Mom rubs El down with a towel, then drapes another one over her shoulders, wrapping her up like a burrito, and tells her to put on the flannel once she’s a bit dryer, to at least keep her chest warm.
Jenny and Mike lead her over to the bleachers, Dustin, Lucas and Mia following behind them.
Jenny sits down and pulls El against her side. Lucas settles behind El and starts to rub her shoulder. Mike sits on El’s other side and the girl drops her head onto his shoulder.
Jenny starts braiding her own hair, clearly anxious, fingers weaving half of the blond strands expertly to one side of her neck. She doesn’t have any hair ties, so she just lets it go when she’s done, before starting on the other side of her hair. Her eyes fill with tears, sparkling in the low light of the gym, that don’t fall down her cheeks.
Mia sits down next to Dustin, and takes his hand into hers.
Nancy gets up from the floor and runs out of the Gym and into the school building, crying. Mike tenses, as if to go after her, but in the end, remains sitting.
Mia thinks of Barbara’s red hair and square glasses. The pretty blouses she used to wear. She had loaned Mia a sparkly green barrette for her fairy Halloween costume when she and Will went trick or treating with Mike last year.
Gone, El had screamed.
Barbara Holland is dead. She’s dead.
Mia’s eyes fill with tears again and she rubs them away.
It could have easily been her. It could have been Will.
It might still be him. A voice says inside her head. It might still be me.
Chief Hopper walks outside, Mom and Jonathan behind him. The door slams shut.
El jumps, raising her head from Mike’s shoulder.
The six of them tense up, trying to listen in on what the others are saying, but none of them can hear it. There’s only the screeching of tires a while later.
Mom, Jonathan and Hopper don’t come back inside.
They wait in silence.
Dustin’s hand is sweaty in Mia’s. El leans her head back on Mike’s shoulder, one leg slung over Jenny’s knee.
Mia wishes they’d thought to bring her new clothes.
Mike starts bouncing his knee, glancing at his watch. Lucas leans back on the bleachers, staring at the far off wall. Jenny starts humming some song under her breath, ignoring the annoyed looks Mike sends her way.
Mia watches Mike’s bouncing knee, bone-tired. There’s that same feeling of electric unease under her skin, and the fear that the demogorgon might just come out of a wall is almost overwhelming. She wouldn’t be able to nod off even if she wanted to.
Mike checks his watch. It has been too long since the others left the Gym.
Mia swears she sees a shadow move and her head snaps to the far corner of the Gym, dreading to see the Demogorgon. But it’s not - it’s just a moth, fluttering its wings as it flies up into one of the light fixtures in the tall ceiling.
Mike checks his watch again, and before Mia can tell him to stop doing that, he jumps up, running to the doors, yelling out for Jonathan and Nancy.
No one answers, even when he ducks outside and shouts for them again.
Mia knows what he’ll say as soon as he starts walking back to them.“They’re all gone, aren’t they?”
Mike’s eyes cut to her, ignoring Lucas shocked what?, and nods, neck stiff.
“Their car is gone.”
“What about Mrs. Byers?” Dustin asks.
“Do you think she went with the Chief?” Lucas asks Mike.
“I can’t believe they just left us here.” Jenny scoffs, incredulous. “We’re kids!”
“I don’t know.”
“What about Nancy?” Jenny asks, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.
Dustin groans, “She and Jonathan are probably sucking face somewhere.”
“Ew, Dustin.” Mia groans, letting go of his hand.
“No.” Mike shudders, “No way!”
“No.”
They all turn to El.
“No?” Mike asks her, “Did you see them? Do you know where they went?”
“Yes.”
Mia’s eye twitches. She could elaborate a bit, couldn’t she? “Where?” She asks, a bit impatient. She can’t believe Jonathan just ditched her - them, like this. “Where did they go?”
A beat of silence.
“Demogorgon.”
Mia thinks of Jonathan’s hands on her shoulder, on that morning before the funeral, his brown eyes narrowed and hard. Nancy and I - we’ll handle it.
Mike swallows dryly. Mia sees it in his face, that he knows exactly what they’re doing.
They’ve gone after the monster.
Notes:
Someone needs to give these children a hug
Chapter Text
Jonathan and Nancy work as a team to set things up around his house.
He hammers nails into Nancy’s softball bat. She loads up the pistol. He starts setting up the bear trap in the hallway while Nancy pours a long line of gasoline over the carpet.
He flicks the lighter in his pocket. They may just burn down his childhood home tonight and he can’t bring himself to care. He has to kill this thing - this monster that terrorized his sister, and that’s still chasing his brother. He can still save Will if they kill this thing.
Nancy comes over to help him finish up the bear trap, both of them surprisingly competent at it, though they still glance at the manual every now and then to make sure they’re doing it right. Jonathan had never set up a bear trap before, neither had Nancy, but she’s just as determined as him.
The monster killed Barbara Holland. It killed Nancy’s best friend. It had almost killed Mia, and is still hunting Will.
It could still kill Will. It could still come back and try to kill Mia again.
Suddenly, the bear trap feels all too real under his hands, the metal too cold. Barbara had been only a few months younger than Nancy. He had done a geography project with her back in sixth grade.
He looks up at Nancy, and she nods at him, grim. They step off the sides of the bear trap. They could die tonight, but if they do, they’ll make sure to bring down the monster with them.
For Mia. For Will. For Barb.
*
The white-haired man, the one from the newspaper articles, enters the holding room.
Brenner, Jim’s brain supplies. He doesn’t look any older under the sickly green lights overhead.
Jim wonders if Brenner had watched as they made all sorts of sick experiments on that little girl they’d left at the gym trembling and wrapped up in a thick towel. Wonders if he had been the one conducting the experiments. Wonders how the asshole can be so cruel to a child, how he could watch that tiny, skinny kid be poked and prodded and used like a science tool without feeling a single thing.
Jim’s a Sheriff. He had even been a big city deputy once. He’s seen fucked up before, he knows there are plenty of men and women like Brenner, some even worse.
He still can’t wrap his head around it. Eleven was just a kid.
Brenner sighs, closes the door. pulls out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. The packet’s full. Jim fishes one out knowing it’s an attempt to make him talk.
He thinks of those six kids in the Gym, thinks of that little girl’s bird-boned hand in his, wet from the pool water. He thinks of Joyce, of Will’s smile on his missing posters.
He has a part to play if he wants to help Joyce find her kid. If he wants to come out of this building alive, and not as just another fucked up story of addiction that people will read about in the news.
He knows people would believe it too.
He lights the cigarette.
“Where’s the girl?” Brenner asks.
He takes a long drag from the cigarette, squeezes his hands in his lap to chase away the phantom feeling of the girl’s hand in his. They’d been cold, like Sara’s on the days before she was gone.
No, he has to think of the other children.
His memory flashes back to Mia Byers’s weight in his arms, the way she’d thrown up in her brother’s lap, held up only by his hand on her forehead and his arm around her chest.
He has to think of Will, and Joyce.
He’d promised Jonathan Byers that he’d find his brother.
Jim needs to abide by their rules and their agreement if he wants to take Joyce out of this place alive and with Will.
“You have to give me your word.” He feels an idiot to even ask for it, but what other choice does he have? “No one’s ever going to find out about this. And you’ll leave those five kids, those boys and girls that have nothing to do with this, you’re gonna leave them alone. Then I’ll tell you.”
He curls his hand into a fist, remembers how the girl had leaned into his hand when she stepped into the pool. Guilt weighs down his chest, but it’s not a new feeling. He takes a drag from the cigarette to chase it away. He and the kids had a plan. They’d stick to the school, and keep the girl safe and out of sight. The Byers girl is good at hiding, and she’s taken to Eleven. Besides, he had told the older Byers and the Wheeler girl to stand watch. Those teens seem responsible enough, they’ll take care of the kids. They’ll see the feds and get the kids running as fast as possible. They still have the car too.
They can still make it.
“I’ll tell you where your little science experiment is.”
It’s a small chance, but Jim still clings to it, hoping he can make himself feel less guilty for sending armed men after children, for trusting onto a child torturer’s word.
*
Jonathan pulls open the kitchen drawer, takes out two of their sharpest, serrated knives.
Mia has cut her fingers so many times when washing these that Jonathan and Mom are the only ones allowed to wash them now, despite Jonathan’s heart doubling its speed whenever he catches sight of them.
Still, they need blood to draw in the monster.
He knows that these knives will do.
He walks back to Nancy, gives her one of the knives. “Remember -”
“Straight into Will’s room.” Nancy says, eyes down. She looks half-terrified, half-uncertain. They can’t hesitate now. “And -”
“Don’t step on the trap.”
She looks up at him, cold blue eyes glinting with the same determination from before. “Wait for the yo-yo to move.”
“Then…” He takes out the lighter, flicks it on, watches the flame reflect on her eyes. He really hopes he won’t drop it now and set fire to everything with the way his hands shake, so he flicks it closed and puts it back in his pocket.
He’s terrified, a slow-burning anxiety running through his entire body. It’s worse than when he has to present seminars in front of the class, worse than the time he had to lie to his dad and say he’d been the one to break the man’s vinyl and not Will. Almost as bad as the morning his mom opened the door to Will and Mia’s room and they weren’t there.
“Are you ready?” Nancy nods, “On three, then.” He readies the knife, palm up next to Nancy’s hand.
The metal is cold against his skin. His scalp prickles. He can almost feel the familiar drag of the serrated edge against his skin.
“One,” He glances up at Nancy. She looks terrified, lips trembling.
“Two,”
Her whole neck tenses, mouth twisting down.
He hesitates. This is familiar to him, he anticipates the pain, but doesn’t fear it. He fears what comes next, and he knows that with some deep cuts, if you’re anxious, you have a higher chance to pass out when you see the blood.
Will had found him in the bathroom a couple of times with his feet propped up on the toilet seat.
“You don’t have to do this.” He tells Nancy.
“Jonathan, stop talking.” She grits out, teeth bared. Jonathan softens his voice even more.
He understands if she doesn’t want to do this. Better for him to bleed than her.
“I’m just saying, you don’t have to -”
“Three!” She says, slicing the knife across her palm. He does the same to his own hand. The line across her palm stays white and gaping for a second, and Jonathan knows she’s cut too deep.
He’d cut his own way too deep too, but it had been on purpose.
Blood wells up at the same time, dark red, on both their hands, dripping onto the floor.
*
Mia and Jenny help Eleven shimmy out of her wet jeans while Dustin, Lucas and Mike argue by the pool, their backs turned to the girls.
Mia’s pulling on one leg, while Jenny pulls on the other, and El buttons down Chief Hopper’s flannel. It falls down to the middle of her legs, like a dress, and will be enough to cover her and still allow for her legs to dry.
The jeans had been itchy and cold, and Jenny had thought it better for her to wear only the long-sleeved shirt and the flannel. Seeing El’s lips turning blue at the edges, Mia had agreed.
The pant leg Mia is holding pops off of El’s heel with a wet noise, sending her toppling down to the floor on her butt with how hard she’d been pulling it. The same happens to Jenny, not a second later.
El smiles at them, eyes crinkling up at the corners.
“Guys! This is crazy!” Mike yells, turning around to look at the girls.
Jenny shrieks, diving to pull down El’s flannel to cover her knees. “Turn away, Mike!”
Mike’s face turns tomato red in an instant, his hand flying up to cover his eyes. Lucas and Dustin, who had also turned around at Mike’s shout, do the same thing, blindly reaching over and turning Mike around by his shoulders.
“Sorry!” Mike shouts, now turned to the gym doors, “But we can’t wait around for them to come back!”
“In case, you’ve forgotten, Mike, we’re still fugitives.” Lucas reminds him, “The bad men are still looking for us.”
Dustin agrees with Lucas, “And we don’t even know where your sister is.”
Mia suspects they’ve gone back to their house. After all, it’s where they’d seen the monster the most isn’t it? Besides, it makes sense. If Will is back at Castle Byers, and the monster’s hunting Will - and that very idea sends a shiver of terror up her spine - then the monster must be nearby.
The monster is near her house. And now Jonathan, Will and probably even Mom are near it.
Terror grips her heart, so deep and strong that she has to lean forward to press her eyes to the bones of her knees, breathing in through her mouth as quietly as she can. A flash of dead-gray skin sparks behind her eyelids, the scent of rotten milk deep in her nostrils.
Jonathan, Will, Mom…They might all die tonight. Like Barbara.
El gets up, pulls on her borrowed socks and white shoes. Jenny nods at her, turning her around to see if El can raise her legs safely, without showing too much. She can, so Jenny flashes her an ok sign with her fingers.
“You guys can turn around now.”
At Jenny’s prompting, the boys turn, Lucas throwing a look at El’s wet jeans spread out on the floor.
“She’s not wearing any pants?” He squeaks out, incredulous.
Dustin elbows him, hard. “Dude. More important stuff! We should stick to the Chief’s plan. Stay here where it’s safe and keep El hidden.” Dustin says.
“Right.” Lucas shakes his head, and continues. “It’s the most important thing.” He looks at Mike, sees him staring worriedly at the Gym doors. Lucas nudges his shoulder. “Hey, Nancy’s okay. She’s with Jonathan.”
“Yeah,” Jenny pipes up, “And Nancy’s a total badass. They’ll be fine.”
Dustin nods in agreement and turns on his heels, walking towards the double doors that lead into the school.
“Where are you going?” Mia asks, because hadn’t Dustin just said it was better for them to stay here?
Mike seems just as confused, “You just said to stick to the plan!”
“I am,” Dustin responds to both Mike and Mia, “I’m just going to get some chocolate pudding. I’m telling you, lunch lady Phillips hoards that shit.”
“Are you serious?!” Jenny and Mike say at the same time, throwing twin disgusted looks at each other because of it.
Lucas shrugs, and starts walking after Dustin. Mia glances at El, who seems confused.
Chocolate Pudding kind of sounded seriously good right now.
When was the last time she’d eaten, anyway? This morning, back at Jenny’s?
“It might be good.” Mia tells the girl.
El furrows her brow and nods, serious, as if getting pudding had become a task in a mission they had to accomplish. She offers a hand to help Mia up from the floor. Mia glances at it for a moment, but takes it.
“El needs to recharge.” Dustin says to Mike and Jenny.
Mia nods her head, agreeing with Dustin. For some reason, El has clasped her hand, and hasn’t let go yet. Maybe El needs the reassurance now, so Mia continues to hold her hand too.
“C’mon, Mike.” She tells Mike.
He side-eyes her, but then his eyes fall on El and for some reason that makes him look away, scuffing his shoes on the floor.
“It’ll be just a minute.” Mia presses.
“Fi-ine.” He groans, prolonging the letter ‘i’, “You’re coming too, Jenny?”
Jenny shrugs, tossing a braid over her shoulder before kneeling up off the ground. Her hair’s seriously frizzy by now, more flyaway hairs out of her braids than in. “If everyone’s going, I’m going too. Like hell I’m staying here all alone.”
*
Steve is at Jonathan’s door.
Steve Harrington is at Jonathan’s door?
There’s blood on the floor and the monster can come in at any second now and Steve Harrington is knocking on his door.
Nancy jumps to answer it, Jonathan’s so shocked he barely hears her trying to get rid of him.
It doesn’t work, Steve shoulders his way in, ignoring Nancy’s choked cry of No, Steve!
His one eye that’s not swollen shut widens at what he sees inside. It darts from Jonathan, standing by the coffee table, to the bat filled with iron nails behind him, then around the trashed room, finally falling on the boxes of ammunition.
“What is - what is this? What’s going on?”
Jonathan moves forward, curling his hand on Steve’s jacket. The anger from this morning near the movie theater returns with a vengeance, fueled by the terror he’s feeling. Steve had been a dick to Nancy, he had called his mom and his siblings freaks. Steve is a fucking asshole, and Jonathan’s damned if he’ll even let him step foot into his house, even more so when Nancy doesn’t want him here.
He’s had to let his dad back inside. No way he’s gonna let Steve here.
Even more so when there’s a monster coming any second now. One that Steve knows nothing about.
Steve Harrington is an asshole, but Jonathan doesn’t want him to die.
In a small part of his mind, Jonathan kind of wishes it were his dad stepping into the house right now. Jonathan would swipe his bloody hand across that bastard’s face and knock him out cold, leaving him for this monster to eat up whole.
Maybe then Nancy wouldn’t need to be a part of this.
Steve fights against his grip, bringing Jonathan back to the present. Jonathan shakes him so hard by the lapel of his jacket that his perfect teeth clack. “Listen, I’m not asking you -”
“What is this -”
“- I’m telling you to get out of here!”
“- is that gasoline?!”
There’s the sound of a safety switch being pulled off, Nancy gets up, gun in hand and pointed at Steve. “Steve, get out!”
Shit.
Jonathan throws himself out of the way, the sight of the gun enough to make his knees go weak, even on Nancy’s hand.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait!” Steve shouts, looking between Nancy and Jonathan, freaking out. “What is going on?!”
“You have five seconds to get out of here!”
“Is this a joke? Stop! Put the gun down -”
Nancy squares her feet. Jonathan’s sure she’s going to shoot Steve. “I’m doing this for you.”
“Hold on -”
The lights flicker.
Jonathan’s heart stops, lungs constricting with terror.
The lights flicker again.
“Nancy.” He whispers. She doesn’t listen.
“Three.”
Steve is yelling at her not to shoot him.
The lights flicker again, more lights than before.
“Nancy!
“Two!”
“No, no -”
Jonathan shouts, “Nancy! The lights!”
Nancy turns to him, then finally looks behind herself, at the lights.
All of them are going crazy above their heads.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Steve yells.
There’s no time. The monster is here and Steve Harrington is also here.
There’s no time.
Jonathan picks up the bat. Steve’s saying something Jonathan can’t hear over the beating of his own terrified heart. The boy is hovering at the edge of his vision, but Jonathan barely pays him attention and raises the bat, cut hand burning as he grips the wood even tighter. There’s a strange smell in the air, over the gasoline, over the acrid fear he tastes in the back of his throat. Like milk that has been left out of the fridge for too long.
“Where is it?!” Nancy shouts, back against Jonathan’s, “Where is it?!”
“I don’t know I don’t see it -”
“Where is what?! Will someone explain to me what the hell is going -”
A crash. Plaster rains down from the ceiling. Something dark and gray pulses in it, reaching down towards the floor. Jonathan sees an arm, a head, gray skin that glistens under the multicolored christmas lights.
Mia had been right all along. He’d seen it, but he hadn’t believed it.
A shot rings out, deafening, followed by another, and another. Jonathan flinches, then jumps forward to grab Nancy by the waist and shove her back towards Steve.
“Go! Run!” He shouts.
The thing falls from the ceiling, crouched like an animal on the ground. Jonathan takes Steve’s wrist, fingers clawing at his shirt and pulls.
The thing screeches, an inhuman sound that raises all the hairs on Jonathan’s arms. They run towards Will’s room, Jonathan barely remembering to tell Steve to jump over the bear trap so as to not set off the trap.
He slams Will and Mia’s door closed behind the three of them, and catches himself against the side of their bed.
“Jesus, what the hell was that? What the hell was that?!”
“Shut up!” Nancy and Jonathan yell at the same time, Nancy angry as hell, Jonathan simply terrified that the thing’s gonna find and eat them.
Mia had gone against this thing once. She’d run through the woods, away from it, in the dark. She’d watched it take Will.
Jonathan has to put himself together and kill it, once and for all. For his sister. His brother.
He can’t let it kill his brother.
Heart in his throat, Jonathan pulls out the lighter, flicking it on. The flames look laughably stupid when he recalls that Nancy’s gun had barely done any damage on the monster.
There’s a sound, high and low at the same time, Jonathan can’t even understand it, truly,=, but it is just outside their door. There’s a wet squelch, a low sound like a long indrawn breath.
“What’s it doing?” Nancy whispers.
Jonathan shakes his head, trying to listen better. “I don’t know.”
The lights flicker, an electric buzzing filling the air and Jonathan feels all his limbs tense as the certainty of an attack washes over him like a tidal wave. Was this what the rabbit he’d killed as a child felt, right before the trigger had been pulled?
But then, it stops. It all stops.
There’s no more sound. The lights stop flickering.
Nancy’s face is close to his, he can feel her breath against his cheek. He doesn’t remember when they’d stepped so close to each other.
“Do you hear anything?”
He shakes his head, flicks off the lighter. “No.”
He glances back at Steve, watching the two of them with wide eyes, chest heaving from fear. He thinks of Will and Mia, and his mom.
They have to kill this thing. He can’t be the rabbit right now, he has to be the hunter.
Jonathan steels himself, pulls the door open and steps out into the hallway, bat raised.
There’s nothing. The hallway is empty. He steps towards the living room, breathing through his mouth so he doesn’t make any noise, Nancy and Steve following behind.
His heart pounds in his head. He grips the bat with his cut hand tight enough to sting.
There’s nothing.
He looks back at Nancy and Steve. Nancy’s eyes are wide, her gun pointed at the walls. Steve is mumbling to himself, running his hands through his hair.
“- this is crazy, this is crazy. This! Is crazy!” He shouts, turning around and jumping towards the phone. He yanks it off the wall, dials a number and puts it to his ear.
Nancy pulls it out of his hand and throws it onto the floor with a loud shattering noise.
Shit.
“Are you insane?” Steve yells.
She yells right back, a head smaller than Steve and twice as menacing, “It’s going to come back! So you need to leave! Right. Now.”
Steve’s eyes dart from her to Jonathan and back again. In a flash, he’s turning on his heels and sprinting out the door, slamming it behind him.
Well. It’s not like Jonathan can blame him.
Fucking coward.
Nancy and Jonathan stare at the door. Jonathan is the first to recompose himself. “Nancy, it’s going to come back, we need to go to Will’s -”
The lights flicker again, turning on and off, on and off.
He walks backwards until his back is flush against Nancy’s, fear gripping his heart with its rough hand. They spin around, Jonathan’s vision swimming and above his head the lights blinks on and off. The letters on the wall look like claws and whenever his eyes sweep over them he thinks it’s the monster, but the monster isn’t here.
He can’t see it.
“Can you see it?” He shouts at Nancy.
”No! Where -”
“C’mon, you son of a bitch.” He grits out, suddenly angry. It’s playing with them, he knows it. It might have already killed Will and now it’s playing with them. “C’mon! Where are you?! C’mon!”
The lights go out. Nancy sobs. Jonathan feels something cold climbing up his back. Only then he realizes Nancy is in front of him.
A low growl like an indrawn breath comes from behind him. Nancy screams his name, he’s barely turned around and something slams against his chest with the force of a car, throwing him to his back on the floor.
The bat goes flying off his hand as Jonathan claws at the creature, at its oozing gray skin, trying to push it away from him - but it’s not working, the monster is too strong. The smell of rotten milk burns his nose, and Jonathan opens his mouth to breathe and gags at the smell. He can’t move his chest, the thing pushing him down into the floor too hard. It drools, its small head with no eyes or ears or nose leaning down and then opening up like a fucking flower, with rows and rows of teeth in its five-petaled mouth.
Jonathan feels his ribs creak, about to snap. Distantly, he hears his dad’s voice, telling him to fight like a man.
But then, a shot.
“Go to hell, you son of a bitch!”
And another, and another.
The thing barely moves, barely feels it. It gets up and it’s much, much taller than a human.
The half-lit glimpses Jonathan’s seen so far will be burned into his eyes for the rest of life, he thinks. Nancy’s pale face beneath the flashing lights will too.
The thing snarls, Nancy shoots, and shoots and shoots until the gun clicks, empty.
They’re going to die.
It happens too fast for him to keep up.
The door opens, a dark shadow jumps between the monster and Nancy with a scream.
Jonathan half-thinks it’s another creature until Nancy screams Steve Harrington’s name.
It’s Steve between Jonathan and Nancy, and the creature. He dodges one of the thing’s stick-thin arms, Jonathan’s bat held in his hand. It claws over Steve’s head, and Steve shouts, pitching the bat against its side. In the flashing lights from the corridor, Jonathan sees Steve’s silhouette twirl the bat around his wrist and slam it right onto the thing’s face, sending it flying back and straight onto the bear trap set in the hallway.
It slams shut with a loud screech of metal that Jonathan hears all the way from the living room.
The thing shrieks, beating against the walls.
“It’s in the trap!” Steve shouts. “He’s stuck!”
Jonathan takes the lighter from his pocket, stumbling up and towards the hallway with a wheezing breath, putting himself in front of Nancy and Steve and striking the lighter. He throws it on the trail of gasoline and the whole hallway erupts in flames.
The brightness hurts his eyes. Jonathan ducks down to cover them with his elbow.
The thing’s trashing, its dying shrieks like nails on a chalkboard. Jonathan’s heart is in his throat, nose burning with the smell of smoke, gasoline and decay.
He looks back up just in time to see the thing melting into the floor, away from the fire.
It’s gotten away.
It’s gotten away and the house’s still going to burn.
Jonathan runs to the living room, grabs the fire extinguisher Nancy had copped from the Sheriff’s station, and opens it, directing the jet against the tongues of fire licking up the walls. He can barely see a thing with the abrupt absence of light, eyes and face stinging from the heat. Walking backwards, he coughs from the smoke and mist, then almost hacks up a lung as his ribs seize up and refuse to move, aching as if they were broken. He ends up knocking his hip against the kitchen table while Nancy and Steve wheeze into their hands from the smoke and steam in the living room.
He stumbles more than walks back to the hallway, leaning his entire weight on the too hot walls.
Nancy and Steve follow.
“Where did it go?” Nancy asks, coughing onto her elbow.
Jonathan looks at the charred floor, the blackened bear trap with bits of something sizzling still in its teeth. “It has to be dead,” he says, barely hearing his own voice. “It has to be dead, it has to be.”
But he knows better. The thing had escaped.
It had all been for nothing.
Above them, the lights flicker.
They tense up, Steve leveling up the bat to point at the lights menacingly. But…there’s something different now. It’s not the frenzied flickering from before - the lights just dim and then brighten, slowly, like colorful fireflies.
One by one, they light up, from the beginning of the hallway to the middle of it.
Jonathan, Nancy and Steve watch it go over their heads, stop right above the bear trap, and then go back again, towards the living room.
They follow the trail, Steve at the front, bat raised, and Nancy holding up her empty gun.
If he wasn’t still trembling with terror from before, he’d even think the twinkling lights were beautiful. There’s no buzzing in the air, nor the taste of electricity on his tongue.
He’s standing right below one of the twinkling lights when he feels it - like something warm had just brushed his shoulder, though it’s more the ghost of a feeling than an actual touch.
He hears someone’s breathing - slow and strong, and not at all terrified like his own, or Steve’s and Nancy’s.
He knows it’s not the monster.
“Mom?” he whispers, because he’d recognize her breathing anywhere. “Mom is that you?”
The lights stop, gleaming bright just above the front door. They dim, and then glow again, this time holding steady.
The porch light flickers. Jonathan, Nancy and Steve walk out the door, inhaling the crisp night air and watching for -
for anything, really.
The light in the front yard flickers, off and on again.
“Where is it going?” Nancy asks, voice raw from screaming.
Jonathan shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s the monster.”
His mother has made it into the other dimension.
*
Mia watches Dustin and Lucas pile chocolate pudding on their arms, while doing absolutely nothing to help them.
Dustin huffs at her, “You could help us, you know? I’m not giving you any of it if you don’t help.”
She waits for him to look at her, then raises her eyebrows and points at her wrist. It’s numb all the way through to her middle finger, she hasn’t moved it much in the last hour.
“I’m injured.” She tells him, “I can’t help.”
“I’m injured, I can’t help. Meh, meh meh.” Lucas pitches his voice higher in a terrible attempt at copying her voice, “You should have said so before we dragged you along instead of Jenny or Mike. You just wait and see if you’ll get any pudding.”
He and Dustin move past her, arms full of the goey dessert. They’re near the cafeteria doors when Jenny comes walking through them, nearly knocking Dustin to the ground. Still huffing and puffing, she grabs some of the cans from his arms, an annoyed look in her eyes that Mia knows isn’t directed at the three of them.
“Gimme that! I was coming to check up on you guys, ‘cause Mike’s been giving me the death stare ever since you left.”
Lucas frowns at her, “Why?”
“How would I know?!” Jenny rolls her eyes, “I just couldn’t stay there with him anymore or else I’d choke that little -”
The four of them enter the cafeteria just in time to see Mike lean forward and kiss El on the lips.
Lucas makes a choked off noise. Jenny’s jaw drops. Dustin’s frozen, staring at Mike and El with wide eyes.
Mia - Mia doesn’t know how to feel.
Her cheeks feel uncomfortably hot, and something slimy and ugly crawls up her throat. She wants to scream, or throw up. Or hit Mike.
Did he just kiss El? Like kiss, kiss?
Does El even know what a kiss is? Had she told him she wanted it? El didn’t even know what worry meant, does she even know what wanting it meant?
Mike pulls away. El smiles, head ducked, all shy.
Mia shudders, a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She feels cold all over, sweat breaking over her forehead as if she were about to throw up.
Why was El smiling at Mike? Why was she smiling when he had just kissed her!
Lights shine over the cafeteria windows. Mike looks up at them, before saying something to El and running off the cafeteria
something rises inside of her, an urge to vomit or to scream, she doesn’t know. Still, she shouts Mike’s name, teeth bared.
“Mike!” She yells after him, then turns to the others, “I’ll go see where he’s going.”
Without another look behind herself, she jogs to the doors on the other side of the room. Her limbs feel as though they’re burning, as if they’d melt right off her bones, and yet, she feels cold. So cold.
The doors are swinging closed when she reaches them, and she forces them open with her shoulders and forearms, barely feeling the ache in her injured wrist.
Mike’s running up ahead, towards one of the school’s side doors.
“Mike!”
Mike swivels his head around, and stops, waiting for her to catch up with a grin on his face.
“Hi!” he says, chipper.
She bares her teeth at him. She wants to slap him. To throw him to the ground and kick him and punch him and shake him and -
She shakes her head, swallows down her confusion, disgust and anger.
Mike’s her friend. Why is she so angry?
“What are you doing?” She asks him instead.
“I think that’s Nancy, c’mon!”
And then he’s running again. Mia shakes her head, and follows.
Mike pushes the door, holding it open for her. Through the gap, she notices that there’s more than one car coming up next to the gym. Multiple cars, actually.
And an army truck.
She holds the door before it can slam closed, halfway out of it. She shares a terrified glance with Mike. That’s definitely not Nancy, or her mom.
Dozens of men come out of the cars, guns in hand, flashlights flying over the side of the Gym building.
Mike catches her arm, pulls her back where they came from, and they run.
She gets there ahead of him, pulls the door to the cafeteria open with a loud squeal, and Mike comes barreling through, yelling for the others. “Guys! Guys!”
“What?” Dustin and Lucas ask, over their small mountains of chocolate puddings.
Mike’s and Mia’s terrified faces must alert them that something's wrong, because Jenny and El immediately get up.
Lucas quickly takes in the sudden shift, his voice becoming low and scared. “Guys, what is it?”
“The bad men,“ Mike pants, “they found us!”
Notes:
WARNING: It's nothing graphic, but there is implied/reference SH during Jonathan's POV, which starts on "Jonathan pulls open the kitchen drawer, takes out two of their sharpest, serrated knives.". As always, take care of yourselves, and if any more warnings are needed, let me now in the comments.
Chapter Text
They’re walking very fast through the hallways. Half of them are wearing shoes that squeak and slide on the floor, Mike and El are holding hands, and Jenny is basically glued to Mia’s side, eyes wide.
They aren’t walking fast enough.
“We should find a classroom,” Jenny whispers, loud enough so the others can hear it. “They can’t go through all of them, can they?”
Mike and Mia shake their heads at the same time.
“There were too many guys in those trucks!” he says, “We have to find somewhere else. The woods, maybe.”
“How did they even find us?” Lucas asks, leading them through an intersection and down a set of stairs. They’re close to the band room, Mia thinks, clutching a can of pudding she’d brought from the cafeteria tighter in her hand.
“I don’t know,” she says, at the same time that Dustin says, “Lando.”
Mike also shakes his head, “They knew we were in the gym.”
“Who would even tell them where we are?” Lucas hisses, shoes squeaking on the floor.
A light up ahead. Mia halts, pulling on Jenny’s arm, but it’s too late.
The double doors at the end of the hallway open, two men coming out from behind it with flashlights and guns.
“Go!” Lucas screams, spinning on his heels and running.
Mia’s hair whips to her face. They run up the stairs, panting, turning right through the narrow hallway that leads to the history classroom, coming face to face with another pair of armed men. Mia runs backwards, tripping over Dustin’s and Jenny’s legs as they all try to go back to the hallway and make a run for the opposite end. They make it halfway through it, when a blond woman comes from around the corner they intended to turn, followed by a handful of armed men.
El, who had ended up at the front, grinds to a halt, everyone just behind her.
The woman raises her hand, and it’s a second later that Mia realizes she has a gun.
The men raise their guns as well.
They’re surrounded.
Mia raises her hand, ready to chuck the can of pudding she doesn’t remember grabbing at the woman if need be. But she’s not a child. She knows it won't be any effective against a gun.
Against multiple guns.
Then there’s a pop in her ears, a pressure behind her eyes. The flashlights flicker, a buzzing sound coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.
The pressure mounts, Mia looks at El, finds her crouched forward like a wild animal, head tilted, a small trail of blood oozing down her left nostril.
Something dark comes out of the men’s eyes and nose. The woman's arms lower an inch, fingers growing lax around her gun. The dark liquid is seeping out of her eyes too, and with a jolt, Mia realizes it’s blood.
There’s a snap.
Around the six of them, the agents drop to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.
El sways on her feet. Mia lets go of the can and jumps forward just in time to grab her arm before she falls straight down to the floor.
“El?” she shouts, lowering the other girl down as best as she’s able with one injured hand.
Jenny’s next to her in a second, Mike, Dustin and Lucas too.
“There’s something wrong,” Mike worries, pushing El’s shoulder. The girl’s gone gray, veins purple around her eyes. She isn’t moving, or waking up. “El!”
“She’s just drained.” Dustin argues.
Mike and Lucas shake their heads.
“No. She’s not waking up, there’s something wrong.” Mike says, voice turning panicked. “El!”
Jenny puts a hand on his shoulder, “Mike, shut up! They’re going to find us -”
She cuts herself off at the sound of footsteps.
Mia snaps her head up.
A man appears on the other end of the hallway. The same one that had been at Mike’s house earlier that day - white haired, with a long black coat.
Two other armed agents come flanking his shoulders, another just behind them.
“Step away from the child.” He says.
Mike, Lucas and Dustin get up, yelling at the man to back the fuck off. But there are more footsteps, this time, right behind them.
Mia whips her head around just in time to see four men run towards them.
She scrambles for the pudding can, manages to strike it once against one of the men' s hands, before one of them grabs her wrists, pulling her up and off the ground as though she was a rag doll.
This time there’s a definitive pop from her left wrist, just before a wave of ice-cold fire licks down her entire arm.
She gasps, going limp in the goons’ arms. The man wasn’t expecting it, and overbalances, almost falling, before he twists a hand against her side, fingers digging painfully into her stomach through her sweater, pulling her up and out of the floor.
The world tilts. Turns black.
Mike’s screaming, Lucas and Dustin too. Mia opens her eyes to find that a man had grabbed Jenny, and has a hand over her mouth.
Mia’s friend bites it, and the man takes it off with a curse, but before she can squirm away, the man brings his closed fist down on the back of her head, stunning her enough that Jenny stops moving in his arms.
Mia’s vision becomes spotty again.
Sounds come in and out like an out of range walkie talkie. She blinks her eyes open, unaware she’d closed them, and finds the white-haired man sitting on the floor next to El, hands cradling her cheeks.
The sight of it makes the hairs on her arms stand up, a sick feeling knotting her throat.
“Eleven,” The man says, and he says El’s name like a number, not like a real person’s name, not like Mia, and Mike and the others say it. “Eleven, can you hear me?” El’s head lols to the side, eyes open in slits. She says something that Mia doesn’t understand, but the man smiles, “Yes, it’s me, your papa.”
This is her dad?
Mia shouldn’t be surprised.
Mike’s screaming, bucking in the agent’s arms. “Let her go! Let her go, you bastard!”
The man caresses El’s face, and Mia shudders with revulsion. The hands holding her tighten their grip around her wrist, and her hearing sputters out again and everything turns gray around the edges.
The grip around Mia loosens. That’s when she notices that the world isn’t grey or dim because of herself. It’s the lights in the hallway that are becoming dim.
They turn off, suddenly. But just as soon they come back.
Then off. Then on again.
It’s like a shock runs through Mia.
She raises her head from her chest, suddenly energized, looking around them. Pressure builds in her head again, the sound of the lights turning on and off grating in her ears.
“Blood.” Mike says, unmoving in one of the agent’s arms. They’ve all stopped moving, glancing around anxiously. “Blood.”
“What?” Jenny whispers next to Mia, hands clawing at the arms of the man holding her.
The pressure mounts.
At the end of the hall, there’s a dull thud against the wall. It dents outward, as if something had slammed against the other side.
They all stand frozen in horror. Another thud, followed by the sound of breaking rocks - no, bricks. Pieces of plaster come off the wall, a large crack running down the middle of the Hawkins Cubs logo.
An arm breaks through the bricks, then the head of something grey and dead-looking, and suddenly Mia can’t breathe.
It’s the monster.
It shrieks.
Tears rise on Mia’s eyes. She’s whimpering like a baby, clutching at the arms around her chest.
It’s the Demogorgon.
The monster barrels through the wall, opening its head like a flower and roaring at them, rows and rows of teeth around the gaping hole of its throat.
The agent holding Mia shoves her to the ground and takes out his weapon, the others who had been holding her friends doing the same. They step forward and the sound of gunfire starts, deafening.
Hands come under her arms. Jenny pulls Mia up, throwing Mia’s bad arm over her shoulder and pulling. Mia screams, Jenny startles and drops her, but Lucas’ already on her other side, clamping onto her good arm and pulling her up to her feet.
Mia feels her legs move under her, feels her heartbeat in her throat.
She only realizes she’s running when they go hurtling past a hallway intersection, away from the gunfire.
Jenny’s at the front of their group, Mike just behind her, when they finally stop at a random classroom. Jenny kicks open the door, motioning for everyone to come inside, before locking it behind them.
It’s a science classroom, with posters of labeled cellular parts and animal skeletons up on the walls. Deliriously, Mia thinks of Mr. Clarke. He would’ve helped them if he were here.
Dustin’s carrying El in his arms and Mike helps him put her up on one of the long lab tables in the back. Lucas drags Mia behind them, depositing her on a normal chair near El.
Mia’s vision goes out, comes back again to Jenny holding her up with a hand on her shoulder and another on her forehead.
Above them, the lights continue to flicker.
Hands moving her. She’s being gently lowered somewhere cold. Jenny is standing above her, her yellow converses right by Mia’s face. Mia tries to look beyond them, to the front of the room, but it all becomes fuzzy.
There’s a terrible screech outside, dull thuds of something heavy hitting the floor.
The gunfire stops.
Dustin is shaking, his voice weak. “Is it - is it dead?”
The door comes flying into the room with a terrible crash, the monster right on top of it, crouched on all four of its legs.
Screaming. Dustin yells at Lucas to grab his wrist-rocket, Mike’s yelling at Dustin to grab the rocks, and Jenny’s crying above Mia, a pair of scissors in her white-knuckled fist.
Mia looks at the monster and feels like it’s looking straight at her.
It opens its mouth, ignoring the rocks Lucas is pelting at it with all his strength, and screeches, loud enough that Mia can feel the vibrations through her cheekbone that’s touching the cold floor.
Lucas throws another rock, but this time, the monster goes flying back as if shot with a cannon, straight onto the blackboard. A jolt runs through Mia, who suddenly finds herself sitting up.
She only has a moment to wonder howLucas did it before she realizes it wasn’t Lucas at all.
It was El.
El, who was getting up from the lab table.
El, who had black veins crawling up the sides of her head and blood dripping from her nose and ears.
El faces the monster, walks steadily towards it. The pressure in the room grows, pressing into Mia’s ears, her eyes, the sides of her head.
It seems to emanate from El like a tidal wave.
“Eleven, stop!” Mike yells, running towards her, but El blindly reaches back a hand and sends him flying back to Jenny. He trips against Mia’s legs, and falls heavily on top of her, throwing all air out of her lungs.
Gasping and wheezing, Mia can only watch as El gets closer and closer to the demogorgon.
Then -
El just stops.
She looks back, as if the creature pinned to the wall wasn’t fighting to reach her with its monstrous, clawed hand.
El’s eyes are ringed with red, her nose bleeding. She looks at each of them, and Mia feels a jolt run through her when El’s dark eyes cross with hers.
El turns to Mike last. Her lips move.
Goodbye, Mike.
She turns back to the monster, and somehow, her voice echoes despite being barely above a whisper.
“No more.”
El raises her hand.
The monster screams, louder than before. Mia’s hands fly to her ears, desperately trying to muffle the noise that seem to reverberate through her bones.
The bones of her wrist pop as she presses her limp left hand harder against her ear.
She blinks, dizzy, and then -
El screams. A white light bursts through the monster’s chest and -
The noise stops.
The monster is gone, ash-like flakes coming from the spot where it stood.
The monster is gone, and so is El.
Mike is the first to run to the front of the room, yelling for Eleven. Dustin and Lucas follow. Jenny gets up from the floor, head whirling around, as if El might be hiding above the cupboards, or by the sinks.
“El!” Jenny yells, “Eleven!”
Mia can’t get up from the floor.
She doesn’t even remember falling in the first place. The tiles are cold against her cheek. She can taste blood in her mouth.
“Eleven!” Mike shouts, voice cracking.
Mia’s heart wrenches in her chest, a vicious pain that leaves her gasping, a mixture of spit and blood hitting the floor. Her jaw moves and she’s sitting up, and shouting for El too, trying and failing to get her arms under her.
“El!” her voice cracks. El can’t be gone. She - she can’t. “El!”
Mia wants her friend back.
“Eleven!”
Had she lost Eleven?
Had she lost Will?
*
Jim is doing compressions on a twelve-year old boy’s chest, in the middle of an alien version of the city library, rot-smelling vines and brown-green mucus covering the floor beneath his knees.
Will Byers isn’t breathing. He needs Joyce to breathe for him.
Joyce leans down, pinches his nose and blows into his mouth when he tells her to.
Nothing.
“C’mon, kid.” he grits out, starting the compressions again. “C’mon, kid!”
Joyce’s crying, rubbing the hair away from Will’s forehead. “Will listen to me! It’s your mom Will, I love you more than anything in the world. Please Will, please, breathe!”
Twenty five, twenty six -please, Will, breathe! - thirty four, thrity five - her pulse is dropping! - “C’mon, kid.” Jim says, and for a moment it’s Sara he sees instead of Will. The monitor flatlining above her head. Joyce’s crying, begging Will to breathe.
He punches the kid’s chest with the side of his closed fist, slamming into his ribcages so hard he can feel the shocks travelling through his bones.
“Please, Will! Breathe!”
Will Byers jolts up with a ragged gasp, eyes squeezed shut. Relief crashes over Jim, makes him limp like a ragdoll. The images of Sara, still and cold in that hospital bed collide with the sight of Will cradled against Joyce’s chest, eyes open in slits, with bile, snot and whatever the hell that white watery substance that was everywhere in this nightmare world was sliding down his ashen cheeks.
Jim falls behind Joyce. The kid has to breathe, and if it’s hard for him to do it in this poisonous air, he imagines that it’s much harder for the kid, who’s spent almost a week in here already, and has just had a tentacle ripped out of his throat.
Sara had cried the first time they took off the ventilation tube from her throat. She hadn’t been able to speak for days.
Jim shakes his head, picks up the breathing mask from his glorified hazmat suit and pulls it over the boy’s nose, still shaking with adrenaline. Joyce cries against Will’s chest.
Jim puts one arm around her, and a hand on the boy’s head.
Will Byers is alive and in his mother’s arms.
He’d kept his promise.
He only hopes he hasn’t damned another kid to the fate Will Byers has just escaped.
*
Someone must have heard the gunshots.
Or the screams.
The next thing Mia remembers after Mike falls to the floor with his head in his hands is a police officer crouching over her, shining a light in her face.
Mia jerks away, body flailing on the floor, and shrieks. She doesn’t know he’s a policeman at first, and thinks it’s another agent ready to kill her.
It takes a moment for her to recognize the glasses and dark hair.
It was that same officer that had found her back in the woods, peering worriedly at her from behind his lenses.
Around her, Lucas, Dustin and Jennifer are being taken out of the destroyed science classroom room, blankets over their shoulders and tear tracks on their faces. There’s a woman in a dark blue suit calling Mike’s name and draping a blanket over his shoulders.
He’s staring at the deep, charred crack on the blackboard, seeming not to even notice her.
The officer shakes Mia’s shoulder.
He’s speaking. Asking her something. She shakes her head no, despite not understanding a word of it.
More people come into the room, lay down something long at her side. They slide it under her back and it’s cold. After a long minute, she puts two and two together, and realizes they’re pulling her onto a gurney.
She snaps.
She screams, loud and shrill, all the terror and pain and hurt that has been trapped and growing in her throat for the last six days. It breaks off in the middle, her throat burns, something hot and salty tickling down her throat.
She coughs, and hands turn her to her side. A string of red-tinged saliva dribbles out of the corner of her mouth.
“Kid, we have to take you to the hospital,” the officer is saying, and for a moment it looks like he has four lenses on his glasses, but Mia blinks and his face is normal again, his glasses with only two lenses. “We gotta get you checked out.”
“No!” She screams, and pushes the hands away. They’re touching her, she doesn’t want them to touch her, she wants them to go away! She wants them to stop!
The hands try to pull her onto the gurney again. She kicks out, feet colliding with something soft that grunts when she hits it. Someone grabs her legs and she screams harder, and uses her hands instead, and strikes out with both of them.
It’s a big mistake.
She hits something boney with her left hand and the world whites out.
Hotness pours out of her throat like chocolate off a fountain or blood out of a wound. She’s turned to the side. Maybe she’s throwing up. Hands are moving, touching her, and voices are talking over her head. Can’t we just carry her out? Then her head is on someone’s shoulder. It’s not the officer, because there’s blond hair in front of her eyes. She tries to bite down against the nearest thing, but the world lurches and she’s put down on something that’s neither soft or hard, a hand touching and touching the sore spot behind her head and another on her back.
She must make another sound. More hands, prodding at the spot on the back of her head.
She starts crying instead. Dad’s nicer when she’s crying. She wants her mom. She wants Jonathan. She wants Will.
Someone starts yelling.
It’s Jonathan’s voice.
“Jonathan?” she tries to say, but doesn’t know if she did. The voices stop, steps come to the side of where she’s lying down and she tenses, but then warm hands are on her cheeks, and she’d recognize those hands, the safety they bring even in the worst of her nightmares.
Jonathan came for her.
She opens her eyes and sees him, sweaty and wide-eyed next to her bed, white as a ghost. She’s so relieved she starts to cry again.
Jonathan’s back and he’s okay.
The hands aren’t touching her anymore and Jonathan’s here.
Jonathan brushes her hair away from her face, a tear slides down the side of his nose.
She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again, she’s laying out on the backseat of a car, her head in someone’s lap. Everything’s dark. It’s night outside.
The last thing she remembers is -
“We’re going to the hospital.”
She tilts her head to find Dustin’s face above her. Light glimmers off his eyes.
“Your brother’s driving us there.’ He whispers, through the noise of the engine. “It looks like you broke your wrist this time.”
Something happened. She looks up at his face for a moment, trying to remember - and it all comes rushing back.
The men jumping out of the trucks. A blonde woman with a gun pointed at them. A white-haired men. The monster. El.
“El?” She whispers, throat hurting as if she’d swallowed glass.
Jonathan’s voice comes from the front seat. “She’s awake?”
“Yeah,” Dustin answers Jonathan, then looks down at Mia. He’s holding her good hand over her chest, their wrists laying over her left shoulder. There’s something stiff around her left arm. She can’t move it. “El’s gone Mia, we looked everywhere for her. She’s gone.”
Mia doesn’t -
Gone?
What does that mean?
Gone! Gone!
She closes her eyes and drifts for the rest of the ride.
At some point, the car stops. The door opens. Dustin slips out from under her head. Voices are talking above her head, and two sets of hands that belong to neither Jonathan nor Dustin pull her out from the backseat.
Her eyes open, she finds a man and a woman pulling her onto a gurney. She’s about to start screaming again when Jonathan appears next to the woman.
Mia is shaking so hard her teeth are chattering.
“It’s okay, Mia. We’re here. It’s just the hospital, they’re gonna check you out, okay?” More cars are coming to a stop around them.
She thinks she hears Lucas’ voice, and Mrs. Wheelers’ too.
Then an even more familiar voice yells Jonathan’s name, and his head turns towards it.
“Mom?!” He gasps, “is that -”
He’s gone.
Mia tries to tilt her head up to see, but one of the nurses stills her chin back towards her chest. Hands. Why are they touching her? She wants Jonathan to come back.
“Just a moment, honey. You can’t move now, okay?”
She wants to bite his fingers off. She kicks at him. She wants Jonathan back.
The guy nurse looks around, shouts something at someone else. Mia can practically feel the vibrations from his voice on his throat. The gurney’s been moving under her this whole time, and she only notices it when it starts rolling on a smooth surface.
Turns out her chattering teeth were actually from the parking lot bumpy asphalt.
The nurse looks down at her again. “Your brother’s coming, Amanda. Your mom too, alright? We’re just going to go ahead so we can check you and your brother over as fast as possible. You’ll be just fine in no time.”
Dad calls her Amanda.
She feels herself go limp on the bed.
They pass through a set of doors. The lights overhead are bright, so Mia closes her eyes. Doors open, people are moving around, shoes squeaking against the floor. The nurses are talking over her head. She thinks she hears her mom’s voice. Nancy’s too.
She’s too tired. She just wants it to end.
There’s a pinch on her arm. She opens her eyes and there are more nurses and a doctor at her bedside, someone is closing a curtain around her bed.
“Amanda,” there’s a woman above her calling her name. Mia’s arm burns. “We need you to stay awake for us, just a minute longer, okay, honey. Then you can sleep. Can you tell us what happened?”
She blinks and the nurses are in completely different places.
The doctor presses something cold to her chest.
“The bad men,” she starts, throat hurting, two nurses snap their heads up to look at her, “He pulled my wrist hard and it popped.”
She closes her eyes.
People are talking.
The woman from before stands above her bed. “It’s okay, honey, you can go to sleep now, alright?” Her hand is cold in Mia’s.
She wants to push it away, but she can’t. Why are they touching her?
“Go to sleep, Mia, your mom and your brothers are here, alright?”
She barely registers the word ‘brothers’ before she’s gone, out like a light.
*
“Byers!”
Mia startles awake at the shouting, heart lurching to her throat. Her head whips around to find Dustin, Mike, Lucas and Jenny jumping onto a bed next to hers, Jonathan flailing his arms at them.
“Be quiet, guys! Mia’s still - oh she’s not. Hey.”
Jonathan circles around the other bed, leaning down over her. Jenny slides off the other bed too, a wide smile on her face as she jumps onto Mia’s bed.
“Mia, look! Will is back!”
Her head snaps to the side so fast she pulls something in her neck.
And Jenny’s right.
It’s Will, right there on the bed next to her.
Pale, and almost swallowed up by the white sheets around him, but it’s Will.
He’d been looking up at Dustin, Lucas and Mike, listening to them chatter a mile a minute next to his bed. He seems to either hear Jenny, or feel Mia’s eyes on his face, because he turns around then, and for the first time in a week her eyes find his.
For the first time in a week, Mia is looking into her twin’s eyes.
She has never gone so long without looking him inn the eyes before, she realizes only now.
Will smiles. Mia’s chest squeezes and grows two sizes too big at the same time.
“Mia!” he shouts, voice cracking. His face screws up as he’s wracked by a coughing fit, a hand nearly hidden by a mess of tapes and an IV port coming up to cover his mouth.
Dustin, Lucas and Mike stop talking. Jenny slides off Mia’s bed, wide-eyed and silent. The whole room is quiet for a few seconds. Something moves on the door and it’s mom, biting her nails.
“Are you okay?” Mike asks Will.
“Yeah.” He nods, “It got me. The demogorgon.”
“We know.” Mike says, voice getting smaller, sadder. “It’s okay, it’s dead. We made a new friend and she stopped it.”
“She saved us.” Jenny adds, sitting on Will’s bed, but still turned to Mia.
Mike puts his hands in his pockets, his eyes shine. “But she’s gone now.”
“Her name is Eleven.” Dustin says.
“Like the number?” Will rasps, doubtful.
Lucas smiles, “Yeah!”
“We call her El, for short.”
“And she has powers!”
“Like Yoda.”
“And she flipped a van, with her mind.”
“And then there were all these agents -”
“- And blood was pouring out of their faces -”
Jonathan moves away from Mia’s bed, staring out of the open door. Mia looks over just in time to see a ponytail slipping away from the door. Nancy.
Jonathan turns back around, catches Mia’s eyes. She looks at the door, and back at him, in an unuttered question. Jonathan shakes his head and sits down by her legs, turned to Will.
The boys and Jenny have begun retelling the events of the past days, ever since the night of the 6th of November, with noises and gestures and Dustin acting the part of the agents. It’s funny how now that it’s all over, they all act like it was just some big story. Mia can’t feel the same, and instead of smiling, like Lucas is when Dustin mimics being hit in the face by a can of pudding, she can only feel nauseous and cold.
Mia opts instead to watch Will’s face the whole time, eyes growing heavier and heavier by the minute.
She’s just woken up and Will is here. She doesn’t want to sleep again. What if this is all a dream? What if the monster comes back and Will vanishes again? What if the hands come back?
Jonathan puts a hand on her shoulder, she opens her eyes.
She hadn’t realized she’d closed them.
“You’re going to be okay.” Jonathan whispers. “Sleep. I’ll watch over you two.”
Her entire body grows lax. Mia shifts to her side, turned to Will. She grabs Jonathan’s hand, and stretches out her bad arm - or rather, tries. There’s a splint there now, from her elbow to her fingers, uncomfortable and hard.
Will laughs on the other bed, eyes gleaming as he stares up at Mike, who’s dramatically clutching his hands to his chest while he recounts El launching Dante through the air back at the Quarry.
She closes her eyes. And sleeps.
Chapter 13: Epilogue
Notes:
WARNING: there are some CSA implication in this chapter, which will become more relevant in the future. As always, take care of yourselves. If you believe there should be any warnings anywhere else, let me know in the comments!
Chapter Text
“- and then Lizzie Owens dared Kristen to kiss Brad, because, you know, she likes likes him since, like, third grade. And she did! Cassie, I mean. I’m so happy for her! And when I went to talk to Brad after, because you know, he’s my neighbor and we’ve known each other since we were born - Well, he told me he liked it! And, he’s going to ask her to the Snow Ball next year.”
Mia listens, lying down on Jenny’s bed with her arm propped up on a pillow. Jenny is drawing flowers and vines on the inside of her plaster, coloring the blooming yellow sunflowers next to Mike’s and Dustin’s signatures. Lucas’ get well soon and smiley face is surrounded by a chain of daisies now.
Jenny sighs every time she runs her fingers over it.
Mia doesn’t know if she even knows that she’s doing it.
She does it again now, while reaching for a glittery puff paint to fill the middle part of a blue chrysanthemum under Mia’s thumb. There’s a small smile on her face and Mia looks away, heart twisting in her chest.
“Did I tell you that Lucas is teaching me how to use a slingshot? He said - are you okay? Am I hurting your arm or something?”
“No, it’s fine.” Mia answers, eyes drawn back to her best friend like a moth to a light.
Jenny is on her stomach next to Mia on the bed, her blonde hair is half-pulled up in a bun, small wisps of it curling at the sides of her face. When Jenny moves, a speck of glitter on her neck shines under the blue light of her brand new lava lamp.
“Do you like him?” Mia blurts out, before she can stop herself.
Jenny looks up at her, and Mia feels her entire face flush with nerves. She knows that Jenny is her best friend, and knows that she’s probably asked Jenny this exact question a thousand times before, and that Jenny’s asked her this question about a million times more, and there shouldn’t be anything wrong in her asking this question now, but for some reason…
She doesn’t know why she’s so embarrassed all of a sudden. Is embarrassed the right word?
She feels hot and cold at the same time.
Jenny hesitates, brows furrowed with confusion. “Brad?”
“No.” Mia wiggles her arm, “Lucas.”
Jenny faceplants on the bed, her neck pressing into Mia’s arm. Her hair fans out over Mia’s shoulder, smelling like strawberry shampoo, and some of Mia’s nerves go away. She raises a hand to Jenny’s hair, rolls a golden lock around her finger. If it is embarrassment that she’s feeling, she shouldn’t. Jenny is her best friend in the whole wide world.
“Maybe.” Jenny mumbles, voice muffled against the bed. She turns her head to the side, one of her blue eyes peeking up at Mia above her red cheeks, “I don’t know. I think I do.”
For a second, Mia forgets what she’d asked Jenny. Then a cold shock goes through her when Jenny’s answer clicks, and she lets go of Jenny’s hair.
Jenny’s face falls, eyes widening with trepidation. “Is it that bad?”
“Of course not.” Mia’s quick to assure her, though it feels like a lie. “It’s…It’s just that it’s Lucas. You know, our friend. Who always yells at us and doesn’t let us play DnD.”
“Lucas doesn’t always yell at us. And Mike was the one who said we couldn’t be a part of that campaign…” Mia levels an eyebrow at her, and Jenny concedes, rolling her eyes and raising herself up on her elbows, “Alright, he doesn’t yell at us all anymore. He used to - but I think he’s changed now.”
And…Okay. Mia can kind of see it. Lucas and the others have been much nicer to them these past weeks, though Mia thinks it’s because they’re too sad about Eleven and too relieved about Will to push them away.
Losing El has hit all of them hard, Mike especially. He even asked Mia if she wanted to participate in their next campaign as Orianna, her tiefling character.
Besides, they’d gone through something together, their very own campaign. It feels strange to come out on the other side and suddenly be at odds with something as stupid as cafeteria seating places.
“Look,” Jenny continues, “When we were in the hospital’s waiting room, he was just so nice to me. I mean, he even let me sleep on his leg. Back at the school, he cried and let me hug him, which never happens, because boys like to pretend they don’t have any emotions.” Jenny traces the sunflowers on Mia’s wrist, a small smile on her face. “And I don’t know. I think he’s cute, isn’t he?”
Mia wrinkles her nose, trying to see it. She doesn’t.
Now that she thinks of it…Who does she find cute? Mom thought Tom Cruise and Johnny Depp were cute. Rob Lowe, maybe? George Clooney?
George Michael?
“Thinking he’s cute doesn’t mean you like him.” Mia frowns, still thinking, but failing to find an answer. “You said Clark was cute last week and I don’t see you saying you like him.”
Jenny rolls her eyes and slaps her shoulder. “You know what I mean. It feels like - like if he kissed me it’d be nice.”
Mia makes a face, her stomach curling just at the idea of kissing Lucas. She tries to put Mike in his place, or even Dustin, who’s infinitely nicer than both other boys, and her stomach curls just the same.
Besides, kissing is terrible. It’s wet and gross, it hurts and tastes funny. She can’t see the appeal of it, but she doesn’t really want to burst Jenny’s bubble.
“Lucas threw a caterpillar in your hair, like, two months ago. And just last week, he drank that sprite too fast and just burped in my face. You remember that right?” Mia argues, because she can still try and make her friend see the grave mistake she’s making.
Liking boys is weird. And dangerous. But she shouldn’t just say that to Jenny.
“Yeah, but boys are always gross. And I’m a little gross too, it’s not like I can judge all that much. Besides, he smells really nice and he dresses well, which is just not a thing with boys our age.”
It makes sense that those are the things that Jenny cares about. She always wears the best colors, the best sweaters, and the coolest overalls, and she always smells amazing, like her strawberry shampoo and that pink perfume that her mom bought for her for Christmas last year.
But is that really all that’s needed for wanting to kiss someone?
How could she want to kiss anyone?
Mia’s eyes flick down to Jenny’s lips, pink and with a dried stain of chocolate to one side, and wonders what it’d be like. To kiss her.
Girls would be safer than boys, maybe. She’d seen girls do it too, and it seemed much softer than when boys did it.
A shudder climbs down Mia’s spine, her lips burning with the faint memory of -
She immediately shoves the thought out of her head, blinking hard. She turns her head to the ceiling and tries to count the glow in the dark stars on them.
Right. Maybe George Michael was cute.
“Okay.” She finally concedes, “I mean, Dustin would be the ideal choice, but between Mike and Lucas and Will, Lucas is the better choice, I suppose.”
Jenny snorts. “My mom thinks I like him, but I would never date him. That’s like, against my moral code.”
“Dustin?”
Jenny rolls her eyes, “Will.”
“Why?” Mia asks, a bit offended on her twin’s behalf.
He’s great at art, and the two of them have a lot in common, from the movies they like, to the books they read, and they’re always talking when Mia sits with them in the art classroom. Will is always complimenting Jenny’s outfits.
“Because he’s your brother. And it’s not fair. I know he would never like me.”
Something in her voice makes Mia pause. “What, why?”
Mia knows why her brother would never like Jenny, but why does Jenny think that?
“You know why.” Jenny argues, raising her eyebrows.
Something in her eyes makes Mia’s stomach lurch.
This is Will’s secret. She can’t know about it, can she?
But then again it is Jenny. Jenny, who always knows when someone is lying to her, and always manages to find out everyone’s deepest secrets.
Mia looks back at the ceiling and doesn’t answer.
With a sigh, Jenny goes back to her drawings.
“At what time is Jonathan picking you up again?” Jenny asks, changing the subject.
Mia raises her other wrist, checks the hour. “In ten minutes or so.”
“Good, I can finish this one then.”
Jenny continues to paint, humming something that Mia vaguely recognizes as a Go Go’s song.
Trying to shake off the awkwardness from their previous conversation, Mia reaches for the cookie platter sitting on her stomach, and pops a whole cookie into her mouth so as to not get crumbs on Jenny’s bed.
A knock at Jenny’s door comes out of nowhere, startling both of them. Mia inhales too fast - a crumb dropping straight to the back of her throat, and almost chokes her to death.
While she’s hacking a lung out, Jenny opens the door.
It’s her dad.
“Hey, girls.” He greets, pushing his reading glasses up on his nose. “Just wanted to let Mia know that her brothers are here.” Mia gets up on the bed, eyes swimming, and Mr. Hayes’ mouth twists as if he’s trying not to smile. “They’re downstairs waiting for you, kid. You better come quick or my wife will give them more food than they can carry.”
Maybe Mr. Hayes is cute.
Mia flits around Jenny’s room, picking up little things that she’d brought and taken out of her bag. Jenny helps, shoving the headband Mia had left on the floor into Mia’s hands. Mia looks around, feeling as if she’s forgetting something. Jenny tells her that if she’s really forgotten something, she’ll find it and tell Mia through their new, matching walkie talkies that Mrs. Hayes had gotten them as an early Christmas gift.
Mia nods, shoulders her backpack and climbs down the stairs with Jenny right behind her.
Jonathan has three plastic containers on his hands, probably the cookies and scones Mrs. Hayes had made after lunch, and the tiramisu Mr. Hayes had made for an after-dinner dessert. Will is telling Mrs. Hayes about Mike and the others by the kitchen aisle, a bag of licorice in his hands.
Mr. Hayes is already next to Mrs. Hayes, a hand on her shoulder. He’s a nice man. Jenny says he’s a great dad. He never comes into Jenny’s bedroom when Mia is sleeping over and Mia kind of trusts him.
Does she find Mr. Hayes cute?
“I’m glad they’re alright. I really should go over to Karen’s this week.” Mrs. Hayes says to Will, turning her head around to the kitchen doorway to the sound of Jenny’s and Mia’s footsteps coming closer.
Her eyes fall on Jenny and Mia and her smile is blinding. Her eyes are the same color as Jenny’s, though her hair is much darker. She’s all dressed up for Christmas, wearing a shiny, dark red, silky blouse and sharp cream pants. The upper half of her hair is pulled back, showing the teardrop earrings dangling on each side of her neck, both golden, just like the ring on Mr. Hayes' hand on her shoulder.
Maybe Mia shouldn’t think that Mrs. Hayes’ husband was cute. Disgust at herself rises in her throat, shame making her cheeks and ears burn.
“There she is! All ready to go home, honey?” Mrs. Hayes smiles at Mia, hand reaching up to hold her husband’s hand.
Their matching wedding bands glint under the kitchen lights and for a moment, Mia can almost see Jenny in her mother’s place, as old as Mrs. Hayes, talking to her future kids’ friends, and wonders who would stand next to her with a hand on her shoulder.
Would it be Lucas? Or someone else they haven’t even met?
Mia tries to see herself in that same position: the perfect house, the gleaming kitchen, a man’s hand on her shoulder, a ring around her finger.
She tries and fails.
“All ready, Mrs. Hayes.” Mia answers, shaking the thought out of her head.
“Well, then you all better get going. It’s always lovely to see you, Jonathan. You too, Will, you’re looking much better. You have to come over more times, we’ve missed you around here.” Mrs. Hayes tells them, patting the back of Will’s folded hands on the kitchen aisle.
They leave with containers filled with food and a promise to go back before New Years. Mrs. Hayes made homemade Cider, and she wanted Mom to try some.
Mia sits at the back of the car, while Will sits next to Jonathan. Will shows her the brand new and fancy camera Nancy had gotten Jonathan, and Mia doesn’t tell them that Steve Harrington had come up to her while she was at the Wheelers’ last week and asked her what kind of camera her brother had his eyes on. An apology, he’d explained, for the things he’d done to Jonathan while Will was missing. Mia, who had known what happened from Jonathan, had told him the name and model of the most expensive camera that Jonathan had been eyeing at the store downtown.
They’re poor and Steve is loaded, she’s not stupid.
On the way home, they put on the mixtape Jonathan had made for Will while he was at the hospital. Will hasn’t stopped listening to it since.
Mia kind of wants to chuck it out of the window by now.
She sings along to a Talking Heads song instead, watching Jonathan’s hands tapping along to the beat, ignoring the dark trees outside the window as they ride through Mirkwood. Will tells Jonathan all about his campaign back at Mike’s. He doesn’t look out the window either.
Should Mia know who she finds cute? Should Mia find Mr. Hayes cute at all? Did finding someone cute mean that you liked, liked them? She couldn’t like like Mr. Hayes, could she?
Mom’s still cooking Christmas dinner when they get home. There are presents under the tree, and Will goes straight to them, while Jonathan sneaks to his room to get film for his new camera. Mia asks mom if she needs any help, but Mom says it’s fine, everything is just finishing up in the oven. The table is already set too.
Jonathan comes out of his room and snaps a picture of Will shaking the biggest present under their tree. Mom puts the mashed potatoes on the table and Jonathan takes a picture of that too. When Jonathan turns the camera to her, Mia strikes a pose, her cast arm on her hip and the other hand under her chin, staring up with a smile on her face, making sure the camera gets her new and sparkly green/red barrette next to her bangs.
Jonathan laughs, asks for another pose, Will jumps into the frame, an arm behind her back. He’s making bunny ears above her, she knows, but she doesn’t care, she’s doing the exact same thing behind his head.
They sit down to eat, mom bemoaning the sad state of her mashed potatoes. It does look kind of gross, but it’s absolutely delicious, no matter what Jonathan says. Mia throws herself down on her seat, already reaching for it, but stops herself.
Will had halted just before sitting down. Mia looks at him just in time to see his expression shifting minutely into anxiety before he schools it back to normal.
He’s been doing it a lot lately. Stopping out of nowhere with an anxious look on his face, as if he’d just missed the last step on a staircase.
He walks back, away from the table, heading out of the kitchen.
“Hey, no more snooping!”
Will waves a hand at mom. “I’m just going to wash my hands. I’ll be right back.”
Mom throws a disbelieving look at Mia and Jonathan once he’s gone. “He’s washing his hands?”
Mia shrugs, not laughing like Jonathan is, but her eyes trailing behind her twin brother. Mom puts a hand out for her plate and Mia hands it over, turning her attention to her mom, who always piles a bit too much of everything in her plate, though Mia doesn’t really complain about the heaping spoonful of mashed potatoes.
Mom makes Will’s plate, and is doing the same to Jonathan when Will finally makes it back from the bathroom. He’s stiff, face more serious than it was before. His hands are wet still, so he doesn’t seem to have been lying, but there’s definitely something wrong.
Mom catches it too.
“You okay?” She asks.
Will glances up at them with a distracted smile. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Mia kicks his leg under the table. Will glares and kicks her back. She glares back, urging him to tell the truth, but he only looks away.
“So, mom, did Will tell you about the game?” Jonathan asks.
“What game?”
“The campaign at Mike’s today.”
“Oh, that Dungeons and D…”
Will turns to mom, “Dungeons and Dragons, yeah.”
Will starts telling Mom all about it now, ignoring Mia even when she kicks his chair hard enough that he hits the table. Mom tells her to cut it out.
Jonathan passes her a new loaf of bread. Mia picks it up, decides to dip it in the runny potatoes.
It’s so good.
Will doesn’t look at her for the rest of the night. Mia eats her potatoes and pretends that it does not bother her.