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Fandom It Can Get Stranger

CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris realised that things got a little more complicated once two adults showed up. It didn't take long for her to figure out who they were. The woman was Will's mom and the guy was Chief Hopper, and also the man who had adopted El. He seemed nice enough, and she offered him a polite smile when she shook his hand in greeting. Before she could introduce herself though, Steve beat her to it.

She arched an eyebrow momentarily at the excuse he came up with, but quickly learned to play along. It did seem like the most believable excuse since Steve was closer to her age range.

Though Chris was reluctant to leave El, she left with Steve, knowing she would see her again tomorrow. In any case, it was getting late. She should be getting home soon.

She stopped walking when Steve did, and looked at him as he scribbled his number on a napkin. She took it and stuffed it into her back pocket before looking back up at Steve. "Yeah, that sounds like a plan," she agreed. "I want to canvas the place as soon as possible." But she didn't know Steve's work schedule which was why she didn't make any suggestions on when they could do that just yet. "I could help you int he library if you want." Chris was usually rather fond of reading, and while this wasn't exactly reading, she still enjoyed going to libraries and it would cross out one place on her list of places to go in Hawkins.

"Well," Chris took a breath. "I managed to convince her not to come inside the lab. She'll wait outside with a radio, just as a backup," she explained. "But that's about it." Chris knew it was not her place to talk about the other things El had confided in her about so she stayed quiet about that for now. "Are you done here for the day or do you have another shift to take?"


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike visibly deflated when Mrs. Byers and Hopper came over. That meant that El had to leave now, and he didn't want that. It felt a little good to know that El didn't want it either, since she asked to go to his place, and he felt a little hopeful when she brought the topic up but Hopper was quick to gently shut it down, leaving Mike deflated again. He knew they had all summer to spend time with each other but, well, this had been a long day, and an unusual one, so the longing to be with her was stronger than usual.

Nevertheless, he knew there was nothing he could do about it. He just had to be patient and wait till the next day came.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he told her softly, not wanting the others to overhear because he was suddenly a little shy. "First thing, okay?"

Once she agreed, he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, deciding to risk it in front of Hopper, before he stood with Lucas and the others. Will had to leave too, so they waved goodbye, and before they knew it, it was just him, Dustin, Max and Lucas left.

"Well we already did the comic book store. Maybe we could go for a movie?" Dustin suggested, seemingly unwilling to let the day end. And though Mike wanted to avoid going home as well because of the situation with his parents, he knew he had to sooner or later.

"It's getting late," Lucas said, reaching for Max's hand. "We should probably get home. But we meet tomorrow at the same time, right?"

Dustin seemed a little unhappy but he nodded regardless. "Yeah, alright."

Mike nodded in agreement as well before joining the group as they headed out of the mall to grab their bikes and head home.


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce admittedly felt a little flustered when suddenly everyone was looking at her and Hopper because they'd seen a movie together. But she wasn't about to read too much into the looks of her kids and their friends. Instead, the topic was changed when Steve and his date Chris left -- answering one question that had been on her mind -- and since it was running late, and Joyce was there with her car anyway, she called Will and Jonathon along with her.

Since they were leaving at the same time, Joyce accompanied Hopper out to the parking lot while Will and Jonathon remained in conversation with El.

"So," she said, clearing her throat and speaking in a slightly lower tone to avoid the kids overhearing. "About dinner. Tomorrow?" She asked, looking up at him. She was trying not to meet his gaze because she had a feeling that if she did, she'd start to rethink all of this. It had been a little hard trying to get over Bob and she didn't know if she still completely did or not, but she knew how she felt about Hopper. Part of her just felt maybe a little... guilty? And it was holding her back. Still, she was trying to push for this dinner date because it did sound like a nice idea.

"What time are you thinking we meet?" The kids would be out anyway, and Joyce didn't really need an excuse to spend time with Hopper.
 
Eleven​

El was disappointed when Hop said no, but she turned towards Mike, the two of them stuck in their own little bubble. He promised to see her tomorrow, first thing, and the thought made her smile. She was starting to be allowed to do more outside of the house, but it usually meant hanging out with the entire group. It was the summer, so there was some sort of fun plan every day; sometimes El got to tag along and sometimes not. But what she really wanted was time with just him, not only to explain everything and try to be more open but just because...well, she wanted it. It wasn't a feeling that she could easily explain.

"Tomorrow," she repeated softly. "Nine thirty?" If he came over early they'd have plenty of time before they met the others at the mall, or the pool, or wherever they wanted to go. Once she'd gotten him to promise he kissed her cheek again, causing her heart to flutter and her cheeks to flush. She glanced away just in time to catch the look on Hopper's face; he looked suspicious, his eyes narrowed underneath bushy eyebrows. El brushed it off and let him pick up her shopping bags since she still had ice cream in her hands, following him out with Mrs. Byers, Jonathan and Will. She hung behind with her friend, nibbling on her ice cream thoughtfully.

She wished there was a way she could get in contact with Chris easily; she realized she didn't have her phone number and Chris didn't have a walkie like the rest of them. She'd have to fix that as soon as possible, but until then she hoped that she wouldn't try and coordinate the plan to break into the lab until they could all meet up and discuss it together. She could help, and she hoped that Chris honored their compromise. Finding her in the void would be her only option for tomorrow.

"What did you and Chris talk about?" Will asked curiously, keeping his voice low as they walked behind Jonathan and their parents.

"Just...stuff," El replied vaguely, shrugging and taking another bite of ice cream. "I needed quiet."

"Oh yeah, I get that," Will said with a laugh. "I feel that way all the time."

Hopper​

The police chief narrowed his eyes when he saw Mike Wheeler kiss his daughter; it wasn't a real kiss, but it was close enough to put his guard up. He wasn't stupid, he knew they had little crushes on each other, but nothing really seemed to come of it after they went to that school dance together. But now Wheeler was kissing her and making her blush, and he didn't like it. He'd have to keep a closer eye on her with her friends.

He was distracted from his thoughts by Joyce who brought up the dinner date- right, that was a thing. He nodded, thinking about it. "Yeah. How about eight? I'll...come pick you up." He paused, hesitating. "Wait, no, I need to be home by ten. El likes to watch Miami Vice and we usually..." he waved his hands ambiguously in the air as well as he could with El's shopping bags. "Seven. How does seven sound? Enzo's, downtown?"

With their plans set, Hopper put El's bags in the back of his truck and climbed into the driver's seat. The teenager was finishing up her ice cream, gazing out the window with a pensive expression.

"So you had fun shopping?" he asked her, turning the key in the ignition and pulling out of the parking lot. El turned to look at him with a smile.

"Yes. Thank you for the money."

"Yeah, you're welcome," he replied, reaching over to ruffle her hair fondly. "You think you want to do the mall again tomorrow, or the pool?"

"I don't know," El shrugged. "Mike is coming at nine thirty."

"Nine thirty? In the morning? What on earth does he need to be over that early for?" Well, this was escalating quickly. He wasn't prepared. The girl shrugged again.

"Reading. Talking." Maybe more kissing...if he wasn't mad at her once he'd heard everything. But she kept that to herself. After that, she'd need to find Chris.

Steve​

Steve nodded in agreement. As soon as possible. Once again, Steve had been dragged into this mess and he felt responsible, but that didn't mean he wanted things to stay crazy. He needed to take some time and figure his life out, he didn't need to be running around with little hormonal teenagers or worrying about some psychopath attacking Dustin and his friends. He wanted to get this sorted as soon as possible, so he and Chris were on the same page.

"Right, um, I hate libraries so that would actually be super helpful," he agreed. Steve didn't have the slightest idea of where to start when it came to looking for blueprints, but he knew they'd need a map to navigate their way through the lab. "Well I mean, if you remember your way around there, we just need to find a place that Brenner was in often, right? Like an office? I've never been into that shithole so I just don't know what to look for but I mean, if you do, we can skip the library step altogether," he suggested. He didn't know how much of the lab she'd seen though, or how well she remembered it. It had been a while, but what they really probably needed was a map of the security cameras. If such a thing existed.

"So there's no way you can like...visit with your mind, right? And draw a picture of where all the cameras are? Because I think it'll be pretty straightforward except for that, I can't believe there wouldn't be any surveillance." That was definitely going to be the biggest challenge.

He nodded when she explained the compromise she'd reached with El. It wasn't great, but the kid could be helpful if they got in a pinch. "I guess that's as good as it's gonna get. Do you know how to get in touch with her? I mean, I know sorta kinda where she lives but it's in the middle of nowhere." Steve shook his head at her question. "No, I'm done for the day. And off tomorrow, actually. Want to do it then?"
 
JOYCE BYERS

Joyce handed the keys to Jonathan who asked for them to wait with Will in the car while she continued talking to Hopper, and once he finalised the time for their 'date', she nodded in agreement.

"Seven sounds great," she told him with a smile. "See you tomorrow, then. 'Night, Hopper," she told him before peering around him to see El and give her a wave too. Then she made the trip to her car, which was parked in the same lane but a few spots away. Jonathan already had the car running with some cassette put in that he and Will were singing to with a low volume. It lowered the moment Joyce entered the car.

She hopped into the passenger seat since Jonathan, by sitting at the wheel, made it clear he was offering to drive them home. She didn't mind, nor was she going to say anything other than asking how their day had been while she buckled in but before she could, Jonathan beat her to it.

"So you went for a movie with the chief?"

She looked over at him, able to identify a small smile on his face that he seemed to be trying to hide. She glanced back at Will who had been smiling not seconds ago, but now seemed very interested in adjusting his shoelaces.

"Well I needed to give myself a break after all the unpacking you two left me to do," she told them in response, doing her best to brush it off with a smile. "After dinner, you guys are finishing up your rooms or nobody's going anywhere tomorrow."

Jonathon chuckled but nodded and pulled the car out of the parking spot before making the trip home.

CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Steve was making sense. She knew most of the places that Brenner went, but she'd actually need to be inside to know for sure. Canvassing the place from the outside wasn't really helpful since she never saw the place from the outside. She didn't actually stop to look back when she and Kali were getting out of there.

"I can't do that," she muttered, somewhat apologetically, when he asked about her visiting the place in her mind. "But i wouldn't need to. There were five cameras in every hallway. They never wanted to miss anything, so we're bound to come across them the moment we enter. I can try to take out most of them, but it'll be tricky," she explained.

It was a risk, but she honestly was willing to take that risk if it meant never having to take risks again.

"Oh," she realised she hadn't thought to take down El's number or anything, or even find out where she lived. "I guess we could just meet up with one of the others? They'd probably know." She was assuming that Mike or the others lived closer in the city, which would be fairly close to her own new home.

"Yeah, let's go tomorrow," she nodded finally. "I can't tell what else we'll need to do till I get a look at the place first and see if I can pick up on anything." She dreaded going back, but she had a good reason to do so, which was keeping her determined. "Where do I meet you?" She asked, beginning to walk with him toward the exit. It was getting pretty late.

 
Steve​

Steve wasn't sure how they were going to pull all this off, but they had to to try it. Taking out the cameras was a must, and even though Chris had yet to dish on what exactly her powers were, Steve was encouraged that it seemed like something she'd be able to do. "Tomorrow," he agreed as they began to walk towards the exit. "Um, I'm sure they'll be back here tomorrow. They come almost every day and it looks like Hop is letting El out of the house now so." He shrugged. "If not, she'll find you or we'll get the number from another one of the kids." He wasn't too terribly concerned about that. El wasn't just going to not be a part of the plan, not if he knew anything about her.

He didn't know much, but he did know a little.

"Want to meet outside the building? Say, ten?" he asked. He imagined she knew where the lab was, and if not any map of Hawkins would show her the giant square building. "We can feel it out and then hunt down some teenagers and blueprints if we need to." He grinned at her, running hand through his hair as he began to walk backwards to his car. This was so bizarre. What was his life?

"Um, see you tomorrow," he said, offering a wave. "Call if something comes up." Steve got into his car and turned the keys in the ignition, backing up and heading away to his house. His head was spinning. All of this was absolutely crazy. But hey, it was just another day in Hawkins wasn't it? He'd have offered to give Chris a ride home if he knew she didn't have her own car, but not being a naturally considerate person he didn't even think about it. She was nice, though, Chris. He just hoped that all of this didn't turn out to be a huge mistake.

Eleven​

When El woke up in the morning, for the first time in months her first thought wasn't about Mike or her friends- it was about Chris. Her sister. Her appearance was so sudden and strange and surprising that El didn't know how to handle it, but she was excited. Excited to get to know her and hang out with her and finally have someone to talk to about all of her unresolved issues with her past...but also scared. Just because she could kill monsters and close gates between dimensions, it didn't mean that she wasn't scared of the plan that had been proposed. Will was right; she was scared of the truth.

And, come to think of it, she was scared of telling Mike the truth about everything. She'd promised so she had to follow through, but when she looked at her clock and saw the numbers getting closer and closer to 9:30 she began to get butterflies in her stomach, and not just the usual kind. El pulled herself out of bed and got dressed, running a comb through her hair and brushing her teeth. The minutes flew by until there was a knock on her door.

"Hey El? Mike's here," Hopper announced. Using her powers, El caused the door to swing open and reveal Mike. "You leave that door open," Hopper warned. "Understand?"

"Half open," El tried for a compromise. Not in the mood to argue, Hopper sighed.

"Fine. Half open." Satisfied, El reached for Mike's hand and pulled him into her room, closing the door halfway and jumping up onto her bed, patting the space beside her for Mike to do the same. At first she had no idea what to say. Where did she start? She leaned her head on his shoulder and played with his fingers, thinking.

"...Mike?" she said finally, looking up. "Do you think that I'm bad?" No, that was too easy. Of course he'd say no. "I mean, do you think I ever could be bad?"
 
MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike was not always early to rise and one would think that during summer, this would be something he took advantage of, but it was the exact opposite. Now he was waking up early every day just so he could go see El and spend more time with her. Sure, he'd hated that one year where he thought that she was dead, only to realise she was never truly gone. That realisation made him never want to lose her again, and she didn't seem to mind him being constantly around, so he was just going to continue with that.

As promised, Mike had biked over, reaching Hopper's little cabin in the woods at 9:30.

Hopper had let him in, and he gave the man a nod and a somewhat nervous smile. The guy didn't look too excited to see him, but Mike brushed that thought from his head because he was here to see El and that was all he could really think about. As happy as he was to spend time with her, they also had a lot of talking to do, and part of Mike was still mad about the things she'd hidden from him -- about things she was probably still hiding from him.

After the little exchange between El and Hopper, Mike walked into her room and then sat down beside her on the bed. She looked nervous. He couldn't understand why.

Not wanting to prod, he stayed quiet for the moment, feeling a sense of comfort when she rested her head on his shoulder. Then she spoke, and he furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "Bad?" He echoed. "No, I don't think you're bad. And I don't think you could be bad either," he told her in all honesty, looking to the side and pulling away a bit so he could meet her gaze. "What's this all about?" He was assuming it had something to do with the lone conversation she had with Chris the previous evening.

CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris headed straight home that night. She kept thinking about all that had happened in the past few hours -- which was incredibly surreal. She'd met up with El, whom she thought to be dead, learned that Brenner may or may not be alive, and now they were planning to try and track him down and get rid of him for good. It was a lot to take in, especially since Chris had hoped for a kind of fresh start, moving to this town with her adoptive parents, but Chris didn't mind at all since she got to meet El and now she could spend more time with her.

With those thoughts in mind, Chris had said no to dinner and gone straight to bed, declaring exhaustion to her questioning parents. She had a big day coming, and when she woke the next morning, she was ready for it.

She had to make some kind of excuse with Paul and Marie, about how she'd met someone from her future class and was invited to go hang out at the mall again, and she had to turn down the car ride from Paul, insisting that she could catch the bus, but Chris eventually got out of the house. She was dressed for the hot weather in a t-shirt and a pair of shorts, but she really wished she knew how to drive because she didn't even know how far the lab was.

Or where it was.

Chris had been there, obviously, but it had been years since then. She couldn't just track it down by memory, but she was going by this gut feeling she had. Almost like a pull. And it led her through the woods and right to the big building that looked way too familiar, despite it having been a while. She felt goosebumps just looking at it.

There was nobody around, not even a car in sight, so she was obviously a little early. Knowing Steve would show up soon though, she took the opportunity to get closer and try and peep into a few windows to see if she could spot anything out of the ordinary.
 
Eleven​

Of course she was nervous. Why wouldn't she be? She'd promised Mike she'd tell him everything and it didn't seem like she could keep it all a secret for much longer, but she was scared to tell him the truth. El knew that Mike cared about her, but she didn't know if it was unconditional. She held his hand, running her thumb across the back of it as if keeping his hand in hers would keep him from getting upset. When he met her eyes she bit her bottom lip, trying to think of the best way to explain herself. El never gave speeches, never went on rants, never really talked for any extended period of time so this was going to be difficult for more reasons than one.

"Last year," she began slowly, "I went to see you. At school. Knocked Max off her board," she added sheepishly. "Hop was mad and broke the TV, which I used to..." she trailed off. He knew this part; she used the TV static to visit him and it was just about the only thing that kept her sane. "I broke the windows, all of them. Then Hop went to help with Will and I was trying to clean so he'd fix it and found this."

El slid off the bed and opened the drawer on her bedside table, pulling out the newspaper clipping about Terry Ives and the picture of her walking next to Brenner, holding them out for Mike to see. "It's Mama. I was taken from her. She tried to get me back but the bad men...they put wires on her head like this." El put her hands on either side of Mike's head to demonstrate. "Now she can't talk, or move. She lives in Hawkins, I found her and she showed me." She let that bit of the story sink in, giving him a second to process it while she caught her breath. Her heart was racing; she hadn't told anyone this story. She hadn't even really told Chris this story, but it wasn't as necessary because she already understood. El was sure that, if Chris's parents had looked for her, they had been hurt too.

She moved on. "I saw Eight in Mama's head. Kali," she explained. "So I found her in a city. She can make people see things that aren't there, like butterflies and spiders." It was a simplistic explanation, but it would have to do. "Kali finds the bad men and kills them, steals from their houses. I helped her find the man who hurt Mama and we..." she trailed off again, wishing this part of the story didn't exist. "We broke into his house. She wanted me to kill him and I...I almost did. He's the one that told us Papa wasn't gone. We thought he was lying, but he seemed sure." Her voice became small and ashamed, but it was out. "It all felt wrong, and I missed you and Hop so I came back and that's when I found you, at the Byers."

El met Mike's eyes, searching his face for a reaction. Did he hate her, did that change his mind? Was he mad she'd kept it all a secret for so long? Putting aside the newspaper and the picture, El took both of Mike's hands in hers, her fear obvious in her eyes. "That's all. Promise. No more secrets."

Steve​

When Steve woke up in the morning, he kind of regretted how involved he'd gotten in all of this stuff going on with El and that other girl. She was nice and he wanted to help them out, but it just occurred to him how much danger he was actually putting himself in. Oh well, there was no backing out now. It didn't seem like things could be normal in Hawkins for very long.

He rolled out of bed and styled his hair, grateful that he didn't have to wear that stupid hat today, and tugged on a pair of shorts and a dark blue polo shirt. Going out to his car, he made sure that the baseball bat with the nails was still there and hopped into the driver's seat, heading off towards the lab. He rolled up about five minutes after Chris arrived and saw the girl waiting, with no car in sight. She was taking a look at the gate and he honked the horn to get her attention, waving.

After finding a place to park off the main road, he got out and took off his sunglasses, folding them into his shirt as he walked over to her. "Morning," he said casually, looking over at the imposing building. He'd never been inside, but he'd seen it once right before everything went to shit last year. "Did you walk all this way?" he asked, confused. He didn't think that she'd have trusted anyone to drive her, but he didn't see a car. "If I'd known you were driving I'd have offered to pick you up, you should have called," he told her. Well, he could at least drive her around for the rest of the day. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

For a moment, Steve poked around the gate. It looked totally abandoned from the outside. There were no cars, no people, no nothing, but when he tugged on the gate it was locked. A quick attempt to push the security button inside the stand proved that the power was off, so already he knew that getting in was going to be a problem.

"What do you think?" he asked Chris, coming over to stand by her. "The gate is locked and the power is off, so we can't get in that way. This wall's pretty high, so. And we still have to figure out the cameras." He paused for a moment, tilting his head at the girl. "Hey, you never told us what exactly your powers are, did you? Do you think you can get us in here? I mean, El could get the gate open if she's coming and then she can wait out here, but any other locked doors inside we'll have to figure out. I've got a baseball bat with nails that Jonathan made to fight the Demogorgon but that's about it."
 
MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike remembered that moment in the gym when Max fell off her skateboard and he had suspected that it was El's doing, even though he had no other proof that she was around. He had just strongly believed that she couldn't have been gone, which was why he tried contacting her, each day, still holding out hope.

But hearing all of that wasn't what surprised him. What surprised him was hearing her explain how she had found out about and went to see her mother. "Wait, she showed you?" He asked her, confused. It occurred to him that it probably had something to do with the way she found people, but he let her continue for now, not wanting to interrupt.

Then she got to the part about her other sister, and it didn't make him feel any better knowing that not only had she gone there all alone, but her 'sister' had convinced her to find and kill one of the bad men. Sure they were terrible people, but... that was wrong. And El knew that. He needed to make sure that she understood that.

"El," he said softly when she was done talking. "You're not a bad person," he said, because nothing she just told him changed his mind about anything he knew about her. She may have kept it from him but he understood why. She was partly scared of what people would think if they knew what she almost did. "Your sister took you there and told you to do those things but you chose not to. That doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a good one."

He held her hands and gave them a small squeeze. "And if Brenner is still out there, then we'll do something about it. Chris will find him and we'll be one step ahead of him and we can finally end all of this. I'm not going to let anything happen to you," he told her with determination, before slowly leaning forward to press his lips to hers.


CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris heard the sound of the car, but she knew it was Steve so she didn't feel compelled to turn around till she heard the honk of his car. She turned and waved and waited for him to join her. "Morning," she responded with a nod before turning back to the gate to see if there was anything else she was missing. Upon hearing his question, she nodded. "It's fine," she said when he suggested she call him for a ride. "I wanted to get a look at where I was going, to see if it jogged my memory." Some of it did, but not a lot. It had been night when she and Kali escaped.

Instead of answering Steve's next few questions, she held a hand out toward the lock, and a small tendril of red energy, looking almost like mist, escaped her fingers and travelled to the gate before surrounding it. The gate shook a bit, and there were sounds of metal that Chris couldn't identify, but seconds later, it popped open, . "It's kind of hard to explain," she admitted with a sheepish smile as she used the same red energy to push the gate open, allowing them inside.

"I don't know if there's a name for it," she told him as she walked alongside him toward the entrance of the place. "But I can do... well, what you just saw. On a bigger scale. It's basically this... energy? Yeah, it's like an energy that I can create and control." That wasn't obviously all she could do but it was the main ability.

"And, like El can find people when she concentrates, I can get a glimpse into their past, present or future. Sometimes all three in flashes. Which is why it's hard to tell which one is which," she explained further, walking around a corner to see a few broken windows. Whatever happened here, nobody bothered to clean up. They just packed up and left.

"Anyway, I think I could make my way around inside. I've just got these strong... feelings," she explained to him. They weren't exactly good feelings though. She knew nothing was in the labs yet she also knew when she stepped in, she was bound to find something bad. Not wanting to endanger Steve just yet -- especially since he didn't have his bat right now -- Chris looked to him briefly. "Wait here," she told him before climbing through one of the large broken windows. She was just going to continue following the tug because she couldn't really wait for them to make a plan. This seemed urgent.
 
Eleven​

El nodded at his question, but didn't stop to explain. It wasn't very important, and she'd come back around to if if he wanted more answers. The point was that she knew what had happened to her mother, and it was that vision that had given her the tools she needed to find Kali.

When she'd finished filling him in she looked at him carefully, terrified for his reaction. When he said he didn't think she was a bad person, she let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "But I had him, Mike, I had him," she murmured, then she questioned why she was fighting him on this. He didn't think she was bad, and that was a huge relief. El held onto his words, thinking that for the most part he was right. She'd come close to killing the man, but she'd made a different call. She wasn't like Kali.

She nodded in response to his words about Brenner. "I hope he's not out there," she said softly. Mike leaned in to kiss her and finally El's worries began to drift away as she melted into his arms, her wrists coming to rest on his shoulders as she kissed him back. She adored this boy so much, he really was too perfect in the teenage girl's eyes. She didn't think that many people would be able to listen to her story, knowing everything she'd already done and still be accepting of her.

It wasn't like they kissed for very long, but Hopper's timing was impeccable. He didn't listen to their conversation, not wanting to invade their privacy all that much, but with the door halfway open he could lean in from the kitchen to check on them, which was what he did with his cup of coffee in hand. He saw his daughter standing by the edge of her bed, locking lips with the Wheeler boy and his eyes widened. It was happening.

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "Hands off my girl, Wheeler!" El jumped at the sound of his voice and spun around, extending her hand to slam the door shut. Hopper marched towards the closed door and began to bang on it, yelling at her to open up and El turned back to Mike, giggling.

"Sorry," she apologized for her dad's erratic behavior. She scrambled to put the newspaper clipping of her mom and the picture back in the drawer before hopping on the bed, scooting back so that she was leaning against the wall and not touching Mike. Only then did she open the door and allow Hopper to stumble in.

Hopper​

Hopper nearly fell on his face when El opened the door, but he quickly regained his balance and put his hands on his hips, confronting the teens. "What the hell was that?" he asked. El looked towards Mike with that pretend confusion look she always got when she tried to play dumb.

"What was what?" she asked.

"You were...and he was...," Hopper pointed randomly at both of them before finally settling on Mike. "You keep your hands off, understand? You're too young for that shit." How was he supposed to go to work now knowing they were going to still be here, probably doing more of that? God, he hated teenagers. "Don't you have friends to go see?"

"Not yet, it's early," El explained.

"Then go to the mall, or that arcade."

"...No," El disagreed, shaking her head. She'd rather stay here and turn on a movie or play a game with Mike until it was time to go. Hopper grumbled, dissatisfied.

"Door all the way open," he decided.

"But you're leaving-"

"Door all the way open," he repeated. He was tempted to call out and stay at the house to supervise, but he couldn't. He was never on time, but he had to actually show up every now and then. "You watch it," he said to Mike. Then to El, "Be home by six, okay? And behave." He turned around and finally left them alone, muttering curses under his breath. Reluctantly he got into his truck to drive away, but when he got downtown instead of going straight to the police station, he stopped at Melvald's. There was only one person who could tell him what to do about this.

"Joyce?" The police chief opened the door, the little bell ringing above his head. The shop was pretty deserted thanks to the mall, but he still stopped by every now and then to talk to Joyce when there was nothing going on, or when his teenage daughter was giving him grief. "Joyce, you got a second?"

Steve​

Steve watched in amazement when Chris extended her hand and red tendrils of energy came floating out from her fingertips. "Woah," he commented. The red...whatever it was, opened up the gate for them and he just stood there in awe. "Damn. What do we need Eleven for, again?" Chris seemed to have this handled so far. He followed her through the gate, listening quietly. "So it's more of like a physical energy? El's is invisible," he thought out loud, trying to compare. "She could have opened that door by turning the locks with her mind or like, blowing it off. But you use that energy to do similar things?" He was having a hard time imagining what a bigger scale might look like. The future thing was very cool. It seemed like it was a little more unreliable than El's power if it was hard to figure out what time period you were looking into, but it could be used for very different things.

"So, if you see Brenner and you don't think it's the past, what happens then?" he asked, surveying the property with her. It looked pretty rundown after only a year of being closed; he bet that stupid kids like the type he used to be dared each other to break into it and that's why the windows were broken. "Will you get El to find him?"

Then she was talking about going inside, like right now, and Steve panicked. "Woah, woah, woah. Hold on a sec." He did have his bat, it was just in the trunk of his car. "Wait here, I'm not waiting here," he mumbled to himself, unlocking the trunk and pulling out the bat. He ran back to the window she'd crawled through and climbed in behind her, holding it up over his head and taking a look at their surroundings. It was dark, and right away he saw the cameras. Reaching up with the bat he was able to reach one and smashed it- he didn't know if that helped, but it was a start.

"Okay, lead the way," he said to Chris. The entire place was dusty. It didn't look like anyone had set foot inside it in months, so he became more confident that it had been abandoned. But the cameras still needed to be dealt with; he noticed a red light come on one, but it was smashed before it would have had a chance to get a good picture. "Are you disabling these things or is this working?" he asked Chris.
 
CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris smiled a little nervously when Steve asked why they needed El. "Well my main aim was not to involve her at all, but, well, she's going to insist on at least being there," she explained with a small shrug. "But yeah, it's more of a physical energy. It goes where I want it to, does what I want it too, and more or less works similarly to El's powers with few differences," Chris told him.

And once they got inside the lab, those powers were used to deal with whatever cameras were in sight. The red energy would lift up, curling around the cameras before tightening, and crushing the thing. It all happened in mere seconds, so there was likely no way the cameras would actually pick up on them. Nobody would know who was doing this, which was just what they needed.

"Destroy whatever you see," she told Steve in response. "I'm trying to do the same but I'm also trying to figure out the route." The hallways looked familiar, that was for sure. Her feet were guiding her without her putting that much thought into it, but she also needed to be cautious in case anything was lurking nearby.

Chris wished she had carried some tissues or something, but since she didn't, her alternative to wiping the blood that dripped down her nose was using the edge of her shirtsleeve. She'd just make up some excuse for it later if Paul or Marie asked.

After a bit of walking, and taking one scary elevator down a floor, Chris felt something tugging at her. It wasn't a good feeling, which was why she knew she had to follow it, so with one glance to Steve, she continued down a hallway that led into a control room of sorts. It looked like it had been under attack, and here and there, a few lights still flickered. "This is where the gate was," Chris murmured, looking around. She could already see it, small flashes of someone walking into the gate, for whatever reason. But it was closed now, so there was nothing to worry about.

Right?


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike really hoped Brenner wasn't out there either, but right now he was more terrified of another man: Hopper. El had shut the door, making Mike jump a second time since Hopper's loud voice was enough to make him feel like his spirit had left his body. El was giggling but Mike didn't yet reciprocate that feeling. He quickly adjusted himself for when El opened the door again and they pretended like nothing was wrong.

Mike knew that Hopper wouldn't buy that but he had no choice but to now since they were sitting in different positions from what he had just seen.

Mike smiled innocently at Hopper as he spoke to El and he did his best not to let his nervousness show the entire time. Mike swallowed when Hopper looked to him and said to 'watch it', and he simply nodded in agreement, maybe a little faster than he had intended to.

Only when Hopper was gone did Mike relax and feel like he could laugh a little. "That was like being on a rollercoaster," he muttered with a small chuckle, turning to El. "When did Hopper become like that?" That was more of a joking, rhetorical question because Mike knew it was since he now had a daughter. Mike was just new to all of this.

Turning around to face El and sit cross legged on her bed, he rested his elbows on his knees. "What do you want to do till we have to meet the others?" He asked her curiously.


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce was one of the many people in Hawkins who had faced the side effects of Starcourt Mall being introduced into the town. There was no more business for the small time shops, which mean that most of the time, except for a few loyal customers, Joyce was pretty bored in the shop. There was only so much cataloguing a person could do, and people hardly came in so it wasn't like there was much arranging to do either.

So, she was pretty excited when she got a visitor that morning. Even more excited when she saw that it was Hopper. That feeling had visited her a lot lately, usually whenever she saw Hopper. It was so funny because it was like she was a teenager again, and she couldn't put a name to the feeling. Or maybe she just didn't want to.

"Hopper," she greeted him with a smile. "Well, you're my first customer all day so you have my undivided attention," she told him with a chuckle, walking out from behind the cash counter to fix the price labels on some of the aisles while she listened to what Hopper had to say. He looked... worried? Concerned? She couldn't quite tell, but she knew he didn't come in to buy himself a pack of batteries, that was for sure. "What's up?"
 
Steve​

Steve was very interested in Chris's powers, but that was to be expected. He was curious to hear in more detail about exactly how her powers were different from Eleven's, but he didn't want to bombard her with questions right now and it seemed like it was difficult for her to explain anyways. It was cool though, and it was incredibly satisfying watching the red energy curl around the cameras and crush them, but Steve was also thoroughly enjoying his smashing. Chris could only crush them so fast so Steve ended up taking one side of the hallway and together they ended up smashing every camera they came across until they ended up in a spooky elevator, and then a control room.

He wasn't sure if Chris knew where she was going or not, but she seemed intently focused so Steve tried not to interrupt. Until they reached the gate, at least. Beyond the control room there was a wall, and he could see a seam running down the entirety of it where the gate had been opened. "Damn," he murmured. Doing a quick lap around the control room, he broke a few more cameras and then returned to stand by Chris. There was blood dripping from her nose just like what happened to El and he could see where she'd been wiping it on her sleeve, but he didn't comment. Instead he asked, "Can you feel him, Brenner? Was he here?"

Before she could answer, a sound similar to a roar seemed to come from the gate. Steve's eyes widened as a red glow began to push through the seam in the wall, not tearing through, but...well, trying. There was something on the other side trying to push through.

"Holy shit!" Steve exclaimed, holding the bat above his head in preparation. They watched for a moment and the red glow faded, the force stopped pushing against the wall. But it confirmed one thing: El had closed the gate, but she hadn't killed what was on the other side and it still wanted into their world. What if it did manage to push through, eventually?

"That's the gate alright," he said, looking at Chris anxiously. The whole thing was making him incredibly uneasy and, while it wasn't quite like Chris's sixth sense, Steve felt an overwhelming urge to get out. Before something happened. "Hey, can you do your thing now so we can get out of here? And not come back? There's something in there." El could get over not being included. He heard the roar again. "Chris, we need to get out of here right now," he insisted. "We don't know what's going on in there, that thing looks like it's moving. I don't know much but I don't think it's supposed to do that."

Eleven​

When her father finally left, El burst into a fit of giggles. She wasn't very intimidated by Hopper or his dislike of Mike. He put on a tough front, but El knew that he was all fluff on the inside and it seemed like a silly conflict. Either way, his temper tantrums weren't going to stop her from being with Mike. He was her best friend and she was beginning to feel like maybe he was something else, too. She paused when Mike said it was like being on a rollercoaster, tilting her head at the new word.

"A what?" she asked, her lips still turned up in a smile. It sounded fun, whatever it was. She shrugged at his question about Hopper. "He's always like that."

At the question of what they should do until they went to meet their friends, El shrugged and scooted closer to Mike. Convinced that Hopper was no longer in the house, she leaned forward and kissed him one more time, briefly. "I have movies," she suggested. "Have you seen Breakfast at Tiffany's?" Breakfast at Tiffany's was one of her favorites, so much so that Hopper had bought the VHS tape as one of her Christmas presents, the color version. She thought Audrey Hepburn was so elegant and pretty and she loved the sparkly jewelry, the romance and the cat. "Or we could play cards?" Whatever they did, she just wanted to relax and enjoy his company. This evening when they saw their friends and found Chris there would be a lot to talk about.

Chris. El's eyes widened as she remembered and she slid off her bed, reaching for the radio on her dresser and the bandanna she kept near it. "I need to find Chris first. Forgot to get her number." El sat down on the ground and turned the radio until she heard static, then tied the black bandanna across her eyes. In seconds, she found herself in the void. The dark expanse stretched out before her and in the distance, El saw Chris. She softly padded forward, her feet sending ripples through the thin layer of water that was always on the ground. Chris's muffled voice became clearer along with Steve's.

Steve?

Straining her eyes, El began to make out Steve in the distance. He was holding the bat and they were talking about...the gate. The gate?! "She's at the lab, with Steve," El informed Mike, her voice calm even as she was beginning to panic inside the void. She felt lied to and betrayed- they'd gone without her? Chris had promised she could come, to help. "They're at the gate."

Suddenly, El felt cold numb her body and she felt frozen in the void as Steve raised his baseball bat. "There's something in there," he said to Chris. Blood dripped down El's nose as whatever lay beyond the gate roared again, a loud, soul-crushing sound that cause the girl to gasp and tear off the bandanna.

"They're at the gate, he's is trying to escape," she summarized for Mike, her chest heaving as she sucked in oxygen. "He's not dead- the thing that got Will." But she didn't think he could get back in- she hoped not. God, she hoped not. But what did it mean, if the Mind Flayer was active again? Had this been going on the whole time or was it new?

Hopper​

Hopper's mind was far from the Mind Flayer and the lab; all he was thinking about was that stupid boy and the way he was corrupting his daughter. He might have been a little more nervous to barge into Joyce's workplace considering they had a date this evening, but right now he wasn't thinking about that either.

"Oh, I'll tell you what's up," he said, still not really having calmed down. "It's that kid. Mike Wheeler." He looked at Joyce, wondering if she would figure out where he was headed. It didn't matter, because he was going to tell her all about it. "I let El close her door halfway and the next thing I know he's kissing her. Kissing her, Joyce! And she was...I don't know, she seemed into it! How long do you think they've been doing that?" El was almost fifteen and he was pretty sure Mike was already fifteen, he may have forgotten a birthday, but in his head Hop still saw El as the little girl lost and scared in the woods, way too young and innocent to be kissing boys. It was too soon for his daughter to be growing up; she'd been his for less than a year, and now he was already starting to lose her.

"I'm gonna kill him," Hop declared, turning around and pacing the floor. "I catch them in the act, and then she slams the door in my face and pretends like it never happened! I knew they liked each other but I didn't think it would go there so goddamn soon- has Will said anything about it? Can you ask him what he knows?" It was probably unethical to try and use Joyce's son for information on El's love life, but it was a gray area and he needed to know what was going on. There was so much time he spent away from the house, away from her when she probably had Mike over. He could set rules, but she hardly ever followed them anyways.

Irritated, he moved passed Joyce to grab a Coke from the cooler, cracking it open and taking a swig. He'd pay for it, of course, but he needed the extra caffeine. "How do I stop them?" he asked.
 
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CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris was about to answer Steve, but before she got the chance, she was alerted by a sudden roar coming from in front of them. Specifically, from the wall she'd been staring at, where a thin red line was glowing. That was the gate she remembered Mike talking about. The entrance to the Upside Down.

"I think it knows that we're nearby." Or it knew that Chris and El were somehow related, and could somehow do something for it. But that wasn't happening. Instead, she focused on picking up whatever she could.

Chris closed her eyes and concentrated. She ran her fingers over the surface of one of the tables, grazing a few lights and buttons in the process, and in seconds, she got it. And not all of it was that great. In fact, none of it was great. She saw Brenner, standing right where she was, and looking beyond the window. She saw the gate being opened, by some large beam of energy. It looked a little different, but she was sure of it. That was the gate, and someone was opening it. Then she saw... Hopper? He looked like he was in bad shape -- beaten up, lying on the floor and barely moving. And she saw Steve. He wasn't in good shape either but this was a different flash. He was wearing his uniform so she knew it was the future. She saw El with her hands held out, blood dripping down her nose. And the last flash she got was of herself, red energy surrounding her, and just a few feet away was... something. She couldn't quite tell what it was or who it was but the way she saw herself looking at it...

Gasping, Chris opened her eyes. Her nose was dripping blood, and her head ached, as it sometimes did whenever she tried this. It had been a while too. Her hand reached out to grab the corner of the table, to steady herself. That was a lot to take on. Right now, she wasn't thinking about the danger right in front of them. She was just trying to digest what she had seen. She was frozen.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike smiled a little when El asked what a rollercoaster was. Sometimes he forgot that she hadn't been exposed to as much as he and everyone else had, but he didn't mind. It was cool teaching her new things, and seeing her so fascinated by all of it. "It's like this really fast train that goes up and down and all over the place. It's fun, we could try it some time," he explained.

Upon being asked if he had seen Breakfast at Tiffany's, he shook his head. He'd heard Nancy talking about it a few times, with his mom, so it had been reason enough to keep from watching it, but if she wanted to, he wouldn't mind sitting through it.

Before Mike could answer though, El was getting up, talking about finding Chris. He was reminded of the events of the previous day, and he knew that El would want to see Chris more and more now. Part of Mike was a little jealous but he kept that thought to himself for the time being, instead watching as she prepared herself. Mike, knowing she needed silence, sat beside her patiently. He even got up to get tissues in between, knowing she'd need them after she was done looking.

"Wait, what?" Wasn't there no plan for the lab yet? What were they doing there at the lab? "Why did they go to the gate without saying so? Wait, is it open?" That was Mike's primary concern. If the gate was open... God he just hoped it wasn't.

When El tore off the bandana, he was immediately alert, placing a hand on her shoulder to support her before handing her the tissues as she explained what she saw.

"But... but he's not here, right now, right? He's beyond the gate. You closed it," he clarified, more saying it for his own benefit and sanity than anything. "We should probably meet up with the others soon." He had a feeling Chris would have a lot to say whenever she and Steve got back.


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce was slightly alarmed by Hopper's sudden change in tone, so her eyebrows furrowed together in confusion, and she stopped what she was doing to look at him and listen to him properly, but when she got the gist of what he was trying to say, which was as soon as he mentioned Mike Wheeler, she understood, and couldn't help but smile a little. She knew it would only irritate Hopper to see her smiling but she couldn't help it.

She continued adjusting the price labels underneath various items, and tagging whatever didn't have a price tag, while she listened to Hopper continue. "Okay, first of all, you need to calm down," she said with a small chuckle, turning around and leaning against one of the rows of shelves as she looked to him.

"And second of all, even if Will did know something, I'm not going to ask him," she said, as though the idea was crazy, which it was. "Hopper, you're the father to a teenager. El isn't a kid anymore. Neither is Mike. At some point you can't really avoid these things, and telling them to stop makes them rebel. They'll just do it more."

Turning back around, she walked to the next shelf to add a few more price tags to things. "Now, I'm not telling you to ignore it. You just... you have to kind of relate to them. Talk to them. Not yell at them. Like a heart to heart. Those work better."
 
Steve​

Steve frowned at Chris's idea. "Well that sucks!" he exclaimed. "Chris, trust me, we do not want these things getting excited-" He fell silent as she closed her eyes, resigned to give her a moment but only a moment. This was freaking him out, and he didn't plan on dying today.

Good thing was it only took a moment, but when Chris opened her eyes again she looked much worse for the wear. "Woah! Hey," he said, setting down the bat and putting his hands on her shoulders to help steady her. "You good?" Her nose was dripping blood like El's did sometimes, but it seemed like more than usual. Steve searched her face for any sort of reaction, and what he saw wasn't good. He'd want more details, but her expression gave it away- Brenner was alive.

"What happened?" he asked gently. But before she could answer there was another roar and Steve jumped when he realized that the seam was stretching, moving. "Shit, we gotta move," he said to Chris hurriedly, picking up the bat again. He slid one arm around her to keep her supported just in case she needed it and bolted, taking the same route they'd used and not bothering with the cameras this time, hoping they'd gotten them all on the first run. It didn't sound like anything was behind them, but Steve wasn't taking any chances. When they finally made it back out to daylight and through the gate, Steve turned around and slammed it shut, hoping it locked automatically. Only then did he begin to relax.

"Oh my god," he muttered, sliding to the ground outside the wall of the lab. He looked towards Chris. "You saw him, didn't you?" he asked. "What happened?"

Eleven​

Watching a movie seemed like the perfect way to spend the rest of the morning, until El remembered she needed to find Chris. She could wait until later to go and see her, but it would be good to figure out where she lived now. What she ended up seeing was entirely unexpected. She was just as shocked as Mike (and pretty upset) to see that Chris and Steve had decided to go to the lab on their own, but when she saw what was happening at the gate that concern was immediately put on the back burner.

"No, it's closed," she breathed, answering Mike's question. She squinted and leaned forward, standing next to Steve and viewing it from his vantage point. Her eventual conclusion chilled her to the bone. "But it wants out." The roar scared her and caused her to tear the bandanna off. She looked at Mike, breathing heavily and putting a hand over her heart as she tried to calm down. A moment later she accepted the tissue, wiping the blood off her nose and crumpling it up, leaning her head back against the dresser.

"I closed it," she confirmed, nodding as her breathing started to return to normal. That was not what she'd expected to see this early in the morning. "But it's like a....a..." she tried to think of a way to describe it. "A scab," she said finally, recalling the time Mike had ridden his bike over a huge branch in the woods and knocked them both off. El had gotten a cut on her elbow that scabbed over, which she'd caused to bleed again when she tried to pick it off. "It's closed, but it's not...healed?" It was a disturbing thought, one that El didn't want to entertain. She wondered if Will had felt the sudden cold, droopy feeling that she'd just experienced.

She nodded when Mike suggested they go meet up with the others and stood. "Now. At the lab?" she confirmed, thinking they needed to go meet up with Chris and Steve right away. Chris went in there to find something, and it was likely something had happened inside her head that she hadn't seen. She gently pushed Mike out of the room and closed the door so she could get changed, throwing on one of her new outfits and tying her hair back with a purple scrunchie. When she was ready moments later, she opened the door and took Mike's hand. So much for Breakfast at Tffany's.

It wasn't a short bike ride to the lab, but when the younger teenagers finally arrived Steve and Chris were still there debriefing. Neither of them looked very happy and El leaped off of Mike's bike, dashing up to them and scaring the crap out Steve.

"Woah! Where the hell did you come from?" he asked.

"I saw," El snapped, otherwise ignoring him. She looked to Chris. "You lied," she accused harshly. It was an issue, but it was a secondary issue so she continued. "I saw the gate. What happened?"

Hopper​

Calm down. He needed to calm down? How was he supposed to calm down when his little girl was being corrupted by some boy? This was completely new, uncharted territory for the father. All he wanted was for El to be happy and safe, but...mostly safe. Happiness came second. He gave Joyce a look and grumbled when she said she wasn't going to ask Will what he knew. It didn't seem that crazy to him, but he was desperate for the information.

"At some point?" he repeated. "Can't 'some point' be when she's twenty?" He wasn't supposed to tell them to stop, and he wasn't supposed to yell? Then how, exactly, was he supposed to convince the wildly powerful and even more wildly stubborn teenager that he was the one in charge? But the idea of them doing more of that made his skin crawl, and he had to figure out something.

"How do I relate to them?" he asked, genuinely baffled by the concept. "I mean, I was their age once and I was an asshole. I know how boys his age think! What if he hurts her?" Deep down Hopper knew that Mike was different; he was a sweet kid who genuinely cared about El and had since day one, but it was still scary. El was sensitive, and he knew how much she cared about her friends, too. If something happened it would crush her, and Hopper would be left to pick up the pieces. He loved being her dad, but he wasn't looking forward to the part where Mike Wheeler or some other schmuck broke her heart and he had to figure out what to do about it. His first reaction would be to want to kill the kid. Nothing had happened yet, but that brought him back to his first point: she was fourteen.

"What would I even say to them?" he asked helplessly. "Hey kid, if you wouldn't mind, quit growing up?" Okay, that was a little more vulnerable than he meant to be, but still. "I need them to not like each other anymore," he decided. That would solve everything and he wouldn't have to yell. Or have a "heart to heart."
 
CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris didn't get the chance to answer Steve when he asked what happened, mainly because her head was still throbbing, and the sudden roar didn't make things any better. She followed along with his help, so that they could get out of the lab. It would certainly make thinking easier and she didn't really want to be in there any longer. None of what she had seen made her feel any better, and some things didn't make sense either. She was scared she'd see more, things she didn't want to see, so she wanted to get out of there.

Once they were in daylight though, her head seemed to ache more. Still, it was manageable because she no longer worried about what was going to happen the longer they stayed inside the lab.

She slid to the ground as well, just needing a moment to gather her thoughts and focus on her breathing, so the pain would subside. It didn't, not fully, but she spoke anyway, when Steve asked her again. "I saw him," she confirmed. "And I saw El. And Hopper. And... and you," she said, looking at him briefly before looking at the ground. "None of it was good."

She didn't get to say much beyond what she saw of Brenner because by then, they'd been surprised by the arrival of El and Mike. She could sense the betrayal in El's voice, but she was still far too preoccupied by her own thoughts to try and say anything to defend herself.

"I saw him." And Chris knew she didn't need to elaborate for El and Mike to understand what she meant.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike didn't think that El would want to go see Christ and Steve right away because he did not want to go near the labs, but he knew, after what she had just seen, that she was going to insist and go without him if he denied the idea, so he felt better going along with her.

The ride over was pretty short, and both Steve and Chris looked like they'd seen ghosts. Chris's shirt was stained with blood and he was briefly alarmed till he realised that she was like El, which meant her nose probably bled when she was using her powers too.

He stood by, anxiously, as El asked her what had happened, and the first thing she said made him freeze. Brenner was alive. She seemed to know this for sure which meant what she saw wasn't the past. But that couldn't be it. She looked much more worried.

"What else did you see?"

And then she explained the rest. How she saw El with her hands out, using her powers against some force. How she had seen Hopper bruised and battered and on some floor somewhere. She saw Steve in a similar state, being dragged down some corridor, and worst of all, she saw the gate. And it was open.

Yeah, none of this sounded good.

"And we have no idea if that gate you saw opened was the one from last year?" Mike asked, to double check. The gate couldn't open again. It couldn't.

Chris shook her head. "I just saw the gate, not anybody near it. But that's about the only thing that confuses me. Everything else... I'm confident that they're yet to take place."


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce looked at hopper and set down the price tag contraption she'd been holding just seconds ago. "You know Mike wouldn't do that," she reasoned with Hopper. She knew this was just the mindset of a protective father, which she understood, but she was also trying to get him to understand that it wasn't as bad as he was making it out to be. They were teenagers. It happened to all of them. She just knew it was important to hear them out instead of dictating what they could and couldn't do. That never worked.

"And you can't get them to not like each other anymore because that's not up to you. It's up to them," she added, leaning against the cash counter now since she'd done almost a whole round of the store before going right back to where she had been when Hopper first entered the store.

"It's hard, I know, but brute force isn't going to help you here," Joyce continued. "You've got to talk. Tell them that you understand what's going on but also subtly implement some boundaries." Crossing her arms, she continued to look at Hopper. "You could, maybe, prepare a speech or something, so you know what you're going to say when you get home today," she suggested as a plan of action. It would certainly be easier, that was for sure.
 
Steve​

Steve was breathless as he slid to the ground next to Chris. She'd seen him. They were all dead. She mentioned El and Hop, which seemed normal given the circumstances, but then she mentioned him as well and he turned to stare at her. "Me?" he asked. "And it wasn't good?" Dammit, he was going to get dragged into this even deeper wasn't he? "Please tell me I wasn't like, dead or something. 'Cause I know I say I don't have a future but I'd really like to actually have one," he rambled. Chris didn't have time to answer before the teenagers showed up, and his day just got weirder.

One day off, and he was already starting to miss his painfully mundane job.

When Chris confirmed that she'd seen Brenner, Steve watched as the younger girl began to crumble. Her voice caught in her throat and came out as a broken sob, her breathing shaky and irregular. Mike stayed comparatively calm but El was a wreck as she turned back towards the boy and put her forehead on his shoulder, hiding her face as her shoulders began to shake. To Steve, it wasn't a good sign. Eleven was the most powerful person he knew- or maybe it was Chris now, he didn't know- and she was terrified of this man. He got that it was probably a more complicated thing than that, more of a PTSD type thing, but that didn't make him feel any better.

As Chris began to describe her vision in more detail, Steve started to feel sick to his stomach. Rising to his feet, he took the bat and twirled it around, pacing back and forth. He was being dragged down a hallway in his Scoops Ahoy uniform? And what was Eleven fighting? He was holding onto the hope that the open gate she'd seen was in the past, but based on the rest of the vision it seemed unlikely.

"Okay so, moral of the story...I never put on that stupid uniform again," he joked, lamely trying to lighten the mood. But he was actually somewhat serious. A thought occurred to him and he looked at Chris. "When you see things, are they like, set in stone? Or is it like in movies where if you make different choices you can alter the future?" That mattered. It mattered a lot, but it didn't change the facts: Brenner was out there, and the gate was active.

Eleven​

In one moment, all of El's worst fears were coming true. She'd just wanted to be normal, spend the summer with her friends and attend high school in the fall, but it was falling apart already. Papa was still out there, and she knew it had to be him who'd hurt Hopper. The gate was going to be reopened if Chris's visions were to be believed, and that meant she'd have to fight again. Eleven would do anything for her friends and she'd die protecting them if that was what it took, but she was so tired of fighting. And she was terrified that if she encountered Brenner again, he would squash her under his thumb.

She hid her face in Mike's shoulder as she fought back tears. This was terrible. Brenner was going to come for her, and for Chris. She didn't want anything to happen to Hopper either, but she knew that he'd go crazy if something happened to her. He'd always protected her, and he was bound to do it again. At least Chris hadn't mentioned seeing Mike in trouble- that was the one thing she could hold onto.

"Steve, do you have a radio?" El asked finally, turning around and scrubbing her hears away with the back of her hand. Her eyes were red and her face blotchy- there was a part of Mike's shirt that was soaked through. But El knew what she had to do; there was no option anymore. If Brenner was alive, she needed to find where he was. They needed to keep tabs on him to be prepared, and while Chris had taken the first step El was the only one who could do that.

"Uh, yeah, in my car. For what?" Steve asked.

"For finding Papa." El moved towards Steve's car and opened the passenger seat door, sliding in. Reluctantly Steve opened the door on the driver's side and turned the key in the ignition. El began to turn the knob on the radio until she heard static. "Do you have a blindfold?" she asked.

"A what?"

"To cover my eyes."

"Oh, uh..." Steve popped the trunk and dug out his Scoops Ahoy uniform, taking the little red scarf off of it and tossing it to El. "Will that work?" El nodded and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before tying the scarf across her eyes. He couldn't hurt her in there, a fact she kept repeating to herself. But he was there, and that was the scariest thing of all.

Hopper​

Hopper shrugged. Mike was a decent enough kid, but he didn't know that he wouldn't do that. Teenage boys were stupid and no matter how sensitive Mike was, he was bound to do something dumb. El was bound to do something dumb. Hopper didn't necessarily think that Joyce's opinion was wrong, but he still didn't like it. He leaned against the counter and folded his arms over his chest. "So if they decide they want to be like, boyfriend and girlfriend, I'm just supposed to let that happen?" he clarified. It was counter intuitive to say the least. As far as he knew that hadn't happened yet and he did feel like El would tell him if it had, but this was why it would be great to get some of Will's insight. El talked to Will, and if something was going on he was likely to know about it.

But apparently Joyce wasn't going to help him on that front. "Boundaries," he repeated thoughtfully, downing the rest of his Coke and putting a few bills on the counter. But what kind of boundaries? "What boundaries did you set with Jonathan, when he...?" Well, Jonathan wasn't exactly a player, but he was a teenager. The idea to prepare a speech sounded completely ludicrous and entirely out of his comfort zone.

"A speech? Joyce, what am I supposed to say? I think Mike's the problem," he asserted. "I could threaten him." That sounded like a better idea. "Well, not threaten," he amended quickly, sensing Joyce's dislike for the idea as soon as he said it. "Talk to him. About...expectations when it comes to dating my daughter. Lay the ground rules. Yeah?" He fought to find the right words, but that was a normal thing right? Dads lived to intimidate their daughters' boyfriends; enough fathers had tried to intimidate him when he was younger, he knew how it was done. Not that he needed an act to imitate.
 
CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

None of this was ideal. Chris thought sheโ€™d never have to see Brenner again. Sheโ€™d felt happiness when Mike told Her during his storytelling the peevious day how Brenner had died and even when El said he might stilk be alive, she had hoped it wasnโ€™t true. But it was, and she was doing her best to keep herself together. Sheโ€™d always been that kind of rock โ€” sheโ€™d rorced her feelings down in order to help others deal with theirs, so she could help calm them down. She did it in the labs and repressing her emotions just sort of became second nature, but what she couldnโ€™t prevent were the days scares โ€” the flashes of all the things Brenner had done to her in those labs. It toom a while to try ans forget and now they just came rushing back.

She looked up to Steve as he tried to joke about the uniform but Chris couldnโ€™t smile or laugh about it. She didnโ€™t like that he was being dragged into this and hurt so badly. She didnโ€™t understad it but she knew it was going to happen because of what she saw.

โ€œItโ€™s never been wrong before,โ€ she muttered softly. She wished that werenโ€™t the case but that was the truth. Every time sheโ€™d gotten glimpses theyโ€™d alm come true. The future ones, that is. The past and present of course had happened or were already happening so they were true. So really, since sheโ€™d never been wrong before, there was no way to tell if the future could be changed.

Chris wished that she could shield El from all of this all over again โ€” and she knew she would. She wasnโ€™t going to allow Brenner to get anywhere near El. She just needed to figure our some kind of plan.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike hated seeing El like this but he held her close and tried to comfort her as best as he could. There wasnโ€™t much he could say. All he knew was that he was going to do whatever he could to keep her safe and he knew the rest of the gang would do the same. And now that courtesy was extended to Chris too, who was also in danger because of Brenner.

When El lifted her head and asked for a radio, Mike immediately knew what she was planning. Because he had seen this power being used before and because he knew that nothing would happen as long as she didnโ€™t do it too much, he was not so alarmed, allowing El to try and find Brenner the only way she knew how to. Part of him wanted to find him as well, because at least that way they could prelare themselves or come up with a plan.

So, he stood by, with Steve and a nervous and slightly tired looking Chris, and watched El as she attempted to track down Brenner. He was silent for a few moments, before daring to speak. โ€œDo you see him?โ€


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce Tilted her head to the side a little when he came up with his ideas to deal with the problem. โ€œWell, I mean, thatโ€™s one way to to but letโ€™s put that on the backburner for now,โ€ she told him with a chuckle. โ€œWith Jonathan... well...โ€ she couldnโ€™t really recall because, well, Jonathan had only recently started dating and though they did their best to keep crrtain things under wraps, Joyce knew what was happening right under her nose. But he did try.

โ€œNot important,โ€ she decided. โ€œEveryoneโ€™s different so you could use a different appeoach,โ€ she said, moving behind the counter to sit down on the stool that was in front of the cash register. โ€œMike isnโ€™t the problem here because even if you get rid of him somehow, another boy will come along and for all you know, he could be much worse. You canโ€™t keep scaring away all the guys in Elโ€™s life because sheโ€™s going to resent you for it if you do,โ€ Joyce continued, trying to reason with him.

โ€œYouโ€™re not going to make this go away, but you can try to limit certain things. Just trust me on this speech thing. Write it out, go talk to them calmly, and explain it to them that with freedom, there are also certain boundaries. Itโ€™ll work,โ€ Joyce insisted with a small smile. โ€œI can probably help give you some kind of direction...โ€ she said, faltering as she poked around to bring out a yellow legal pad and a pen before she started scribbling some lines down.
 
Eleven​

It only took a few seconds for El to sink into the void, although she'd never wanted to go there less. Her new, brightly colored blue top popped against the darkness and made her feel self conscious that she might be seen, but she tried to calm herself. It was the same as always, and nothing was going to hurt her. She stepped forward, not seeing anything at first...but then a car appeared. A white car with a red leather interior that seemed to have crashed into a tree, the passenger side completely bashed in. A few paces away was a telephone booth. It felt close, familiar. But not as familiar as the voice.

"They're both here, in Hawkins. Eleven is living with the police chief, but he's relocated to a cabin on the outskirts of town,โ€ came Brenner's eerily calm and soothing voice. "Six is secure." Back in Steve's car El's entire body tensed as blood began to drip from her left nostril. Mike's voice surrounded her like an echo in the void, his simple question forcing her to admit the truth of what she was seeing.

"I see him," she breathed. "He knows where I live.โ€ That meant something very simple: she couldnโ€™t go back, and neither could Hopper unless she wanted Chrisโ€™s vision to come true. Mikeโ€™s basement is was- that or the floor of Willโ€™s room. โ€œChris is...secure.โ€ She didnโ€™t know what that meant, but it was terrifying to think about. "He's on the phone, his car crashed. At..." she squinted and a set of barn doors appeared, along with a sign. "Brimborn Steelworks."

"Yes, I was on my way but crashed the car- there was something strange that ran across the road. I'm about to call a cab and a tow truck...No, I'm not going to get Eleven today. I have a plan. I'll still be able to get them both to Seattle by the end of next week. It will be worth your investment, I promise." Eleven's heart began pounding as she desperately tried to relayed the information to her friends.

"He wants to take us to Seattle." El repeated the word carefully, not knowing what he meant. "He has a plan." Her words had turned to whimpers as she realized that her worst nightmare was true. He was alive, he was in Hawkins, and he was here for both her and Chris. What was in Seattle, another lab?

"Seattle, like Seattle, Washington?" she heard Steve's voice.

Suddenly, the lights in the telephone booth began to flicker and Brenner looked up, his eyes narrowing. He hung up the phone and stepped out, looking around curiously. Then El felt it again, the coldness taking over her body, freezing her into place. Brenner spun around and El saw something she'd never seen on his face before: fear. He muttered a curse under his breath and then he was running in the other direction, bursting through the barn doors. On instinct, El chased after him.

"Papa. Papa wait!" she cried, reaching out to try and grab him. As soon as she'd caught up Brenner slipped on the water that covered the floor and began to fall into the depths of the void. "Papa!" El reached out her hand, her body pressed against the ground. As he fell, there was a split second when he met her eyes and El was certain he'd seen her.

"Eleven, help me!" he requested desperately. El didn't know why she tried but she did, reaching through the darkness in an attempt to reach him. But he was falling too far too fast, his harrowing screams echoing in her ears. Papa never showed fear.

"Papa!" El screamed as the blackness swallowed him. She began to sob and in Steve's car, she ripped off the red scarf. Blood was streaming down from both of her nostrils now. She leaned sideways into Mike's arms and sobbed, terrified and confused and frustrated all at once.

"He saw me, he saw me," she repeated tearfully. "Not at first but, he asked for help and then he fell..." she didn't mention the cold, but she did glance up at Chris. "Something happened. I think he-he's coming for us." Not today, but when? It could be any time.

Steve​

Steve had seen Eleven use her powers before, and now he'd seen Chris use hers so that was pretty cool, but it started to get freaky when El began to explain what she was seeing. He exchanged concerned glances with Mike and Chris. Six, that was Chris's number right? What did it mean, she was "secure?" It sounded to Steve like he knew where she was and already had a plan set into motion. A plan that was working. And if he knew where El and Hopper lived, then his plan for her must not be far behind. He began to think it was a rather strange coincidence that Chris had just now moved to Hawkins when all this was beginning to unfold, but he was glad that his stupid ice cream shop had given them all an opportunity to meet. If not, they might both be doomed and find themselves in Seattle.

But none of it was good.

El continued to relay what she saw and heard until suddenly she seemed to be out of breath, gasping for air. "Mike, is this normal?" Steve asked the other boy, leaning over towards the girl. "Is she okay?" Then she started to scream for Papa, a sound that shook Steve to his core. He let Mike do most of the comforting, not wanting to interfere or make things worse, but she didn't seem okay. He became convinced that she was being hurt and was about to tear her blindfold off himself when she did it and immediately began to cry, obviously traumatized by whatever had happened. Dear god.

Predictably she leaned into Mike for comfort and Steve just looked up at Chris, his eyes wide. Even if none of them fully understood what she'd just seen in there, one thing was clear: both El and Chris were in danger. Brenner was alive, he knew they were in Hawkins and he was coming for them.

"Okay, we need a plan," he said hurriedly. "El, you can't go home." He reached into the glove box and pulled out a napkin, which El used to wipe the blood from under her nose.

"No," El agreed despairingly. She looked up at Mike. "Can I stay in your basement?" Just like that, she felt like a fugitive again.

"Someone needs to warn the Chief, too. And Chris-" he looked up at the other girl. "Do you have any reason to believe he might already be onto you? Have their been any clues?"

The way Steve saw it, there were a couple ways they could proceed. Either Chris and El could hide and hope to not be found, or they could just go straight back to Hopper's cabin, wait for him to show up and kill the son of a bitch. But everyone needed to be on the same page, including the Chief. And the Brenner problem wasn't even including the gate, whatever El had seen at the end that freaked her out so much and didn't explain why he was being dragged down a hallway.

But one step at a time, right?

Hopper​

Admittedly, Hopper disliked the idea of another boy even more than he disliked the idea of Mike Wheeler, so he'd give Joyce that one. But he saw no reason why he couldn't scare away all the boys in his daughter's life until he felt like she should be dating. "It's not like she has to know about it," he pointed out. "I could scare them so bad they'd never tell her." Watching Joyce's reaction, he let out a sigh. "I'm kidding," he added. "Mostly."

He really wasn't sure if her plan of a speech would work, and it just didn't sound like him. But it seemed like he had limited ethical options here and Will wasn't available to help, so maybe he'd give it a try. A heart to heart? It sounded ludicrous, but if Joyce was really that convinced it would work he decided to take her word for it. He definitely didn't know what to say though, so when she took out a notepad and a pen to help him write it out he nodded, finally giving in.

"Alright. But make it sound like me," he directed her. "Not like you. Just a nice version of me." He knew that El would see right through him otherwise. He felt like maybe he should wait to give the speech until it happened again, or until he asked El if they considered themselves to be together. That was when he would really have to lay down the law and make sure the Wheeler kid was petrified of him, but it didn't hurt to get the speech written out now so that when the time was right, he'd know it by heart and would have no trouble giving it.
 
MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike watched El and listened to her as she explained what she saw. This paired with Chris' vision didn't sound good at all. When Steve spoke, he made a reaction to silence him. She needed silence to continue, and Mike had seen this sort of thing before, when she tried to find Will and Barb nearly two years ago. He knew that nothing could hurt her in the void though. Or he strongly hoped, but nothing had happened so far, except for letting the demogorgon into their world.

When El tore off the blindfold, he hugged her close, murmuring soft, comforting words, till she spoke, explaining that Brenner saw her. It was a good thing they were near the lab because it didn't matter if Brenner saw her here. They would be long gone by the time he ever made it.

Mike nodded, almost immediately, when El asked if she could stay in his basement. "Of course." He wouldn't have it any other way, really. This way he could watch her, and the others would be there with them too, in the basement, so nothing was going to happen to El.

"We can get home and you can try to find Hopper," Mike suggested, looking to El. "And then I'll radio Lucas or Max to send the message across to Hopper." Nobody else was in danger as far as they knew. Brenner likely wouldn't know who anyone else was so he wouldn't bother with them.

Mike looked to Chris who was painfully silent during this whole ordeal. She looked a little shaken up, but if she was feeling anything else, she did a good job of hiding it.


CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris was still processing this whole thing. She had seen El use her powers before but not like this. However, so far, she had learned to trust Mike's instincts, so unless he had a reason to worry, Chris was going to assume that everything was okay with El, or as okay as they could be, given the situation of things.

She was mainly quiet because she was dealing with her own trauma as well as figuring out a way to end this all. Priority was keeping El safe, so she was glad it was decided that Mike would take her back to his house. She would be safe there, at least for the time being, till Chris could figure something out.

At Steve's question, she looked up from the floor and looked at him. "Not really," she admitted. "I suppose my dad getting a job here could be Brenner's doing because it can't just be a coincidence, I see that now. But aside from that..." She hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary except meeting El, which had been a blessing, not a curse. But now Brenner was alive and in Hawkins too... Things were getting worse by the minute.

"Take her home," she told Mike after a few moments of thinking. If she was secure she doubted she could really go home either, but what would she tell Paul and Marie? She had been in town for a few days. She couldn't already be having sleepovers. Unless she gave them a reason to go out of town for the weekend. Maybe that way they'd be safe too, till she figured this whole thing out.

She looked to Steve once Mike got El on his bike and started to ride off toward his house. "What are you thinking?" She asked him curiously. he dealt with this stuff last year but, well, maybe not as much as right now.

After a moment, she asked another question, though she knew from her tone, it wasn't an innocent one. "Do you know where Hopper's cabin is?"


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce rolled her eyes playfully at Hopper's words. "Okay she's never going to forgive you if she finds out that you've done that so maybe try not scaring them away. Or maybe not too much." She knew, however, that Hopper was likely to lose his cool anyway, if he witnessed it happening again. but maybe her speaking to him will help him control it a little. Enough to get the speech going, at least.

"Okay, here," she said, beginning to scribble out the start of the speech. "I'm not writing the whole thing for you, I'm just... giving you some guidance," she explained as she continued to write. "Then you take it from there and try to make it your own thing, and trust me, it'll work," she assured him.

She wrote a few more lines, ending it on a nice enough note, before tearing the sheet of paper from the pad and then folding it and handing it over to him with a small smile. "It'll work," she said again, just so he didn't go with his preferred method of scaring the shit out of Mike.
 
Steve​

They were all pretty shaken, Steve included. He didn't know what he was supposed to think about all this, but he knew one thing for sure- it was happening again. The creepy science shit, the Upside Down, all of it. It was all real, even though he still had a hard time believing it every so often, and it was all coming for them. He watched as Mike comforted the distraught girl, and turned at Chris's words. She was right, her family being relocated back to Hawkins now of all times couldn't be a coincidence. That meant that Brenner knew who her parents were, knew where she lived. He was probably tracking them all.

"That's enough," he said. "Enough to convince me." Mike promised to take El home to his basement which sounded safe enough for now, though Steve doubted the kid would be able to hide two girls for very long. "I've got a basement too, if you need it," he offered to Chris. It wasn't ideal, but neither of the girls could go home.

"We'll find Hopper," he added, looking at the kids and then at Chris. He knew that her motivation was to keep El safe and he wasn't going to fight her on it. God knows he wasn't going to fight her on just about anything after getting a clue of what she could do, so he didn't suggest that El stay and help even though he knew that was what he would be doing. "Try and get him a message, but stay at the Wheeler's so we know where you are. I'll head down to the station and let him know what's going on."

El got on Mike's bicycle and they rode away, leaving Steve and Chris behind. The older teenagers hung behind for a second and Steve looked at Chris when she asked him what he thought.

"I think we're in deep shit," he said after a long pause. "Between your vision and hers? We should prepare for the worst. You heard Mike's story." The worst, in his opinion, was the gate being reopened. Steve had never dealt with the lab, not directly. He knew about it, but Brenner honestly seemed like a small threat compared to the monsters they'd fought. And he had a feeling that the monsters weren't gone. "I've just got a bad feeling. Now it's not reliable, but..." He shrugged, unable to shake it.

At her next question, he shook his head sharply. "No. I mean, yes, I do, but we're not going there. I'm not doubting your powers or anything, but if we're running towards a fight Eleven should be there. Besides that, we need to warn the Chief before we do anything else and I'm not dropping you off alone. Okay?" He could tell she didn't agree, so he tried another tactic. "C'mon, he's El's dad. Making sure he doesn't get hurt is the best way to help her right now." Steve knew pointing that out would probably convince her seeing how much she seemed to care for the younger girl, and it was true. Without Hopper, El was just a lost little kid again. He led her over to his car and slid in the driver's seat. "You coming?"

Eleven​

El clung to Mike on the eerily familiar bike ride from the lab to his house. Upon arriving they dashed around to his basement door before they were spotted by his parents and El unlocked the door with her mind, allowing them to step inside. It didn't make any sense, but coming back to Mike's basement felt like coming home in some strange way. It looked different, but it was all very much the same. El stopped in the doorway and just looked at it, her fingers reaching out to touch the little tent she'd slept in that Mike had never taken down. She supposed she'd be sleeping in it again tonight.

Since reuniting with Mike, El hadn't been back to his house. Even as she was slowly being allowed to go out more and experience more of the world, Mike's house was off limits. Not because of the way they felt about each other but because of his parents, and the lies they'd been told about the girl named Eleven. The picture she was sure they still had of a girl with a shaved head and a hospital gown. Before today it had been considered risky to come here, but now it felt like the safest place for her to be.

She closed the door and began to walk around the room, silently taking note of all the little changes that had been made in two years before returning to Mike and bringing him over to sit on the couch. Intending to stay for a while, El pulled a blanket over their legs and leaned against him, staring blankly at the black TV screen. Her mind was whirling, and she was scared. She was so, so scared. El was a good fighter, she was powerful and she did what needed to be done no matter what, but she was always terrified and this time was no different. Everyone saw her as this badass, invincible superhero, but with Mike El felt okay with just being scared.

"Mike," she whispered, looking up at him. Her eyes were still red from crying. "What if he gets me? What if? What if Hop gets hurt like Chris said?" El didn't know what she would do if Hopper was hurt. He drove her crazy just as much as she did him, but he was her father. Not Papa. She loved the grouchy police chief, and she couldn't picture herself with anyone else as a parent.

"Mike? Mike, is that you? You're home early," the voice of Karen Wheeler called down the stairs. The voice was followed by footsteps moving down the stairs more quickly than the teenagers could react and successfully hide.

Hopper ​

Hopper watched as Joyce began to scribble down words, words that he was supposed to recite to his daughter and her alleged boyfriend. She promised it would work, but he knew that scaring the kids worked, and this seemed like something El would interpret as him not being serious. Or was he wrong about that too?

When Joyce finished the basic guideline, he took it from her an unfolded. "To build an environment where we feel..." he muttered to himself. Then he glanced over at her. "Build an environment? Really?" It sounded like fluff, but maybe that was the point. Either way, he was secretly grateful and it did need some editing if he was going to be able to convincingly say any of these things to his daughter. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay. I'll give it a try. Thank you." He managed a smile at the woman, backing up towards the door. "Enzo's at seven," he confirmed before heading out to his truck.

But like the reluctant employee he was, he still didn't go to the station. Instead he drove a short distance away from the general store and parked on the side of the road, where he mulled over Joyce's speech a million times, trying to decide how he felt. The problem was he didn't want to feel anything; it was all very unwelcome. Dammit, why did he have to care so much? After reading Joyce's words for the hundredth time, he pulled out a pen and began to make some edits and additions. Who knew it required so much soul searching to communicate to teenagers?

***​

Only moments after Hopper left, the phone in Melvald's began to ring. Jonathan Byers was on the other end.

"Mom," he said urgently. "I-I don't know what happened, Will just passed out a few minutes ago and he hasn't woken up. I'm taking him to the emergency room."
 
CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris nodded, grateful for the offer of a place to stay. She'd manage anywhere if it meant staying away from Brenner. But she was also worried about Paul and Marie. Maybe she'd find a way to contact them after leaving the lab's vicinity. She had no clue what she could say to make them leave town for the weekend, and she knew it would come across as way too suspicious, but she had to try something.

Looking to Steve after El and Mike left, she nodded. They were definitely in deep shit. She had no idea where this was going to go and she wanted to try and avoid all the things she'd seen, but she had a strong feeling that wouldn't be possible, and that scared her more.

Arching an eyebrow, Chris listened as Steve denied and then confirmed that he knew where Hopper's cabin was -- right before he said he wasn't going to show her where it was. She was prepared to counter -- she didn't want him to come in any case because it was dangerous, and even if he proved himself good with a bat, she didn't want to pull him into the line of danger when she was making the choice to go voluntarily, despite knowing that it was a dangerous choice.

Before she could say anything though, she knew he was right -- they needed to warn Hopper. So, reluctantly, she nodded. "Okay." Getting up from the ground, she moved to his car and slid into the passenger's seat.

The drive into town was not very long and once they got to the station, she spotted a payphone right outside. Good. She could call Paul and Marie and figure something out. "Could you go in and see if Hopper's there? You know him better and I still don't know if we're telling him about... well, me." The fact that she had been in the labs with El and that there were more like her out there somewhere. Her showing up and even having any kind of knowledge of what happened last year would come across as bad because it was secretive and in Hopper's eyes, she was just some girl Steve was dating, which wasn't reason enough to blurt out the truth.

That probably wasn't a concern right now anyway, but she had something else to do in any case. "I'm just going to call my parents and check in," she said, nodding to the payphone.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike's mind was full of so many things at the moment, but he had to force himself to focus on the road so he didn't end up doing something stupid or crashing into a tree. He had El with him which was all the more reason to focus, so nothing happened to her. He was still so deep in thought that when they reached and El started asking all these questions, he didn't know how to answer her. How could he assure her that everything was going to be fine when he didn't know that anymore, based on the vision Chris had?

He didn't get the chance to respond though, because almost soon after her last question, Mike heard a new voice. His mom.

He panicked momentarily -- it was common knowledge to everyone that El couldn't be over at his place because it was too risky, but there was really no other choice anymore. And instead of thinking to hide El, he was kind of frozen, as his mother descended the stairs and came to stand in front of them.

"Oh," she said, clearly not expecting to see anyone with him. Or rather, not a girl. "Who's this?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow but smiling at El politely all the same.

Suddenly, Mike flashed back to what Steve had said in the mall the previous day. This was a good a time as any, even if the timing was a little off. But he felt like it was important, so he plucked up the courage, took a deep breath, and gestured to El like she was a statue on display at a museum. "Mom, this is El," he introduced her with a nervous smile. "My, er, my girlfriend."


JOYCE BYERS

Joyce looked to Hopper as he took the paper and agreed to try the speech out, which made her happy. She didn't want more trouble to come to him and she had a feeling that would happen if he started yelling or did something to scare Mike away from El. When he confirmed her for Enzo's that evening at 7, she nodded. "Seven," she confirmed with a small, albeit nervous smile. She was probably thinking about it too much. It was just dinner, right? That wasn't a big deal. Or was it supposed to be?

Joyce didn't get to think on it too much after Hopper left, because her phone started to rang. "Melvald's," she said, upon picking it up. "What-" She didn't get to finish her pick up greeting because she was met by Jonathan's slightly panicked voice on the other end. That alone made Joyce more alert -- and more panicked.

"Passed out?" She echoed, clearly not expecting to hear that. "Okay, I'm going to meet you there." No, no, no, no. This was supposed to be the year nothing went wrong. She was praying that it was just some fatigue or something to do with the heat. Something they could take care of in a matter of hours.

Still, she had a really bad feeling something was wrong, so she hung up the phone immediately, and rushed out to her car to make her way to the hospital.
 
Eleven​

At the sound of Mrs. Wheeler's voice, El froze for a moment before jumping into action, throwing off the blanket and jumping to her feet, but she wasn't fast enough before Mike's mom made it down the stairs to see her son sitting on the couch with a girl she'd never seen before. Understandably, Karen was baffled. Mike had never had a girl over other than Max, who was in his friend group and never came over alone. If she was honest, she hadn't thought she needed to concern herself with Mike dating for another couple years. Which was why when he nervously explained that she was his girlfriend her eyes widened slightly.

"Oh," she replied. She looked at El again, the girl's eyes frozen on Mike with an expression Karen couldn't quite read. "Well that's very sweet, I didn't know you had a girlfriend Michael."

"Hasn't been long," El chimed in, looking at Mike's mom with a beaming smile on her face. He'd said it, he'd actually said it. They had a lot going on and most of it sucked, but her eyes had lit up at the word. Ever since she found out what a girlfriend was she wanted to be Mike's, but she had no idea how to actually go about that sort of thing. She'd have kissed him if they were alone, but they weren't and she hoped that Mrs. Wheeler didn't react quite as badly to the idea as Hopper probably would.

She definitely didn't. Mike's first little romance- it was adorable, and Karen was shocked with the realization that her boy was growing up just like Nancy.

"Oh, well it's lovely to meet you, El," Karen said with a warm smile. The girl looked vaguely familiar, but she dismissed the thought for now. "How long have you known Mike?" El glanced back at her boyfriend, their two year journey flashing before her eyes. But Mrs. Wheeler couldn't know about all of that.

"A few months," came her reply. "We met at the arcade."

"I can believe that," Karen laughed. "Do you two want any snacks?"

"Eggos?" El requested innocently.

"Eggos? Um, sure. Be right back." Mrs. Wheeler went back upstairs and El looked back to Mike. That went well. El returned to the couch and curled up next to Mike again, wrapping her arms around one of his.

"Girlfriend?" she asked with a small smile. It was a silly thing, but it helped take her mind off of everything happening.

Steve​

Steve was relieved that Chris didn't need any convincing. He may have broken a couple speed limits on his way over to the station but when they arrived he nodded at Chris's request. "...Yeah, we need to talk about that," he agreed. With all that was going on and all Hopper had done in the past he felt like maybe he should know, but the station wasn't really the place to have that conversation and they needed to come up with more of a plan.

For now, the plan was to warn the Chief about Brenner and get his help protecting Eleven and Chris. He'd know what to do. "We should probably tell him, that way he can help you," Steve recommended. "He's protected El for a long time, he can help you too. I'll be right back." Once he heard what was up, Steve knew that Hop wouldn't be staying in the station.

Heading inside, he stopped at the front desk. "Hey," he said to Flo, the woman sitting at the desk.

"Mr. Harrington," she said dryly.

"Yeah, hey. I need to talk to the Chief."

"Get in line, he's not here." Steve's face fell.

"Can you call him? It's really urgent."

"You don't think I've tried that? I'll leave him a message for when he comes in but no promises."

"Okay." Steve snatched the pad of paper from in front of Flo and tore the pen from her hand, scribbling a message that read, "El's in trouble, Brenner's not dead, she's at the Wheeler's. Gate might be opening. -Steve." It would get his attention, if he ever got to the damn station. Flo skimmed the note and looked at Steve skeptically.

"What in the hell is this?" she drawled.

"He'll understand. Just give it to him," he insisted. With that, Steve ran out of the station and saw Chris at the payphone. He walked over to her and leaned against it.

"Hop's not there. I'm gonna call the Wheeler's, see if El can find him," he told Chris. The Wheeler's was one of the only numbers he knew by heart thanks to his time dating Nancy. "Unless you have a better idea."
 
CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris heard the phone ring twice before a woman picked up. "Hello?"

"Marie, it's Chris, I--"

"Oh, Chris!" Her voice on the other end sounded urgent, which made Chris frown immediately. Had Brenner already gotten to them. "I'm glad you called, we were wondering when you'd get home. Listen, something's come up."

Chris was very confused. "What do you mean?"

"Paul's brother lives a state away and he's been in a bad accident," she explained, kind of rushing through it. "There's nobody there to go to the hospital so Paul and I need to leave immediately if we want to reach as soon as possible."

"Oh," Chris wasn't expecting to hear that. Part of her wondered if this was all some ploy by Brenner, but she also began to wonder if he cared that much about a few casualties in his mission to find her and El.

"We'll only be gone for the weekend though," Marie continued. "And we're leaving money on the kitchen counter so you can get food. We don't want to take the summer away from you but we'll be back in two days..." Marie continued to talk but Chris tuned most of it out because she was thinking a lot about other things, like how at least Marie and Paul were out of the picture and safe and what the hell was she going to do about Brenner now.

"... Okay?"

Chris shook her head a little to try and recall everything Marie just told her. "Um, yeah. Okay. Make sure Paul's okay." If his brother was in an accident, he couldn't be in good shape. After a few more exchanged words, Chris hung up, just in time to see Steve walk over and lean against the phone booth.

She was about to tell him that her parents were going to be out of town for the weekend so that was one less thing to worry about, till he told her about Hopper not being there. "Well. we could always go to his cabin and see if he's there," she suggested, bringing up the idea she'd had from before. She knew he was likely to decline again, but if they thought about it, waiting to call him only to realise that something could be wrong would be a long process. This way, at least someone would get to him immediately, if something was wrong.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike's was grinning because as soon as he said the words and introduced her as his girlfriend to his mother, he felt less shy, and more confident about things. And fortunately, she didn't recognise El from the picture they'd been given -- probably because her hair had grown and, well, she had grown, and she looked different now. But she'd always been pretty.

However, when his mother asked how long they knew each other, he blanked. He went ahead and impulsively introduced her as his girlfriend without coming up with a cover story as to how they met and even got to this position. "Uhh," he was trying to think when El came to the rescue and chimed in with a story that was definitely believable.

"The arcade, yes," Mike nodded in agreement at El's words as he looked to his mother with a smile that was once again a little nervous because he didn't want her to start asking more questions.

She was gone soon though, to get them some snacks, and he sighed in relief once she did before turning back to El. Her question made him blush a little but he nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I mean... I think of you that way... if that's something you want." God he definitely hoped so. He hadn't realised that El might have thought him introducing her as his girlfriend was like Steve introducing Chris as his date -- just a make believe story to get people to stop asking questions.

Which wasn't the case here obviously. He just realised he had never officially asked El, so he turned to her now and did just that. "I mean, would you?" He asked. "Want that. To be my girlfriend, I mean." He was rambling, because he was nervous again. He knew they'd more or less been acting like that till now, but he needed to be sure in any case.

 
Eleven​

El's eyes were sparkling, and she didn't know why Mike looked embarrassed when she was so excited. But she didn't dwell on that, thinking on his words instead. He thought of her that way, which was wonderful because El thought of him that way, too. Or, she was pretty sure that she did. El's understanding of what it meant to be boyfriend and girlfriend was a little fuzzy, especially since she and Mike acted more like a couple than Lucas and Max did and Lucas had asked Max to be his girlfriend a long time ago, but she thought of Mike as her boyfriend. She'd be upset if he started spending time with another girl, they held hands almost constantly and spent every second they could together. It was like just giving a name to what they already had.

But it was still sweet of him to ask. The timing was a little strange, but maybe it was actually perfect. This morning El had been terrified he was going to hate her when she told him the parts of her story she'd kept a secret, and he hadn't. Then they found out that Brenner was alive and searching for her, but despite the target on her back Mike wasn't afraid of being with her.

"Yes," she told Mike as if it should have been obvious, beaming at him. "I've always wanted to. What do we do different?" El hoped that giving it a name didn't mean they had to be less romantic like Max and Lucas. She hugged him a little tighter and this time didn't move when Mrs. Wheeler came back downstairs, a plate full of Eggos in hand.

"Do you want any maple syrup?" Karen asked. El shook her head and reached for one of the waffles.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, sweetheart. So what do you two have planned for today?" she asked curiously.

"Um..." El looked over at Mike. The plan was to stay here and not leave, but a thought just occurred to her. If Mrs. Wheeler knew she was here, she would probably take note of when she left. It was going to be harder than usual to get away with spending the night if they were being monitored. "Just staying here," she said to Mike's mom, offering a small smile at her.

"Okay. Well I'll be upstairs with Holly if you need anything." It was hard for Karen to not interrogate the young girl, but she learned from Nancy that it was best just to give a little bit of space. If she stayed for dinner, El could count on being asked a thousand questions. She left the teenagers alone and El began to munch on the Eggos, handing one over to her new boyfriend.

"I think she'll know if I stay," El voiced her concern. "Should we call the others?" She figured a party debrief was in order.

Steve​

Steve groaned inwardly when Chris suggested checking the cabin. He would just call, but he didn't know Hopper's phone number and she was probably right, if he wasn't at work they needed to see if he was there, warn him if necessary. And if the coast was clear, maybe they could pick up a couple extra changes of clothes for Eleven to bring over to the Wheeler's, assuming she'd be hiding out there for the next couple days. If not, and he was there, Hopper needed Chris's help at the very least.

"Fine," he agreed. "But no unnecessary risks, okay? We check it out and if he's not there, we'll call Eleven to find him. She said his car was broken down, right? Brenner's?" He knew from Dustin that it took El a lot of energy to enter the void like that, and she was probably still recovering from finding Brenner and then finding them from earlier. If she didn't need to, he didn't think she should be spending her energy. Not with a fight probably coming soon. Steve didn't know much about that, but it seemed to him like powers should be used as a last resort. Plus, he didn't want to worry the girl by telling her that her father wasn't at work where he was supposed to be.

So, he and Chris got into his car and Steve began to drive towards Hopper's cabin. He hadn't been there in forever, only once or twice to pick up Dustin, but he remembered the way. It was a long ride to the outskirts of town, and only then did it occur to Steve how perfect a place to attack it was. Isolated from the rest of town, quiet and private. Hopper kept Eleven there for that very reason, but when there was danger and it knew where they lived, it became much less ideal.

"What did your parents say?" he asked as they drove.

Finally they rolled up to the cabin. Steve noticed that Hopper's truck wasn't there and everything looked quiet. He got out of his car and knocked, but there was no answer. He knocked several more times until he was literally pounding on the door, but still nothing. And it was locked.

"I don't think he's here," he said to Chris. "I thought we could grab an overnight bag for El but I didn't think about it being locked." She could probably open the doors with her powers if she wanted to, but he didn't want to suggest it. She needed to save her strength as well. He turned around and crossed his arms, leaning against the house. "Any other ideas?" Just then, he heard a snap in the surrounding woods.
 
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CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Chris was pleased when Steve agreed to go to the cabin. She nodded as he listed out the conditions. "Yeah, that's what she said," Chris confirmed El's comment on Brenner's car being broken down. She still had a very bad feeling about things but going to the cabin was what she needed to do right now. If Hopper was there, then he'd need help, just in case something was wrong. She didn't want it to be, but she had to consider everything possible.

Hopping into the car, Chris looked outside the window as Steve delved further into the woods, and away from the town. It was far from the town centre, which Chris couldn't tell if it was a good thing or a bad thing. As Steve spoke, Chris realised she had forgotten to tell him about what she'd spoken to Marie on the phone about. "Oh, yeah," she nodded and glanced toward him. "They're going to be out of town for the weekend," she explained. "It sounds a lot like someone planned to get them out of town but if it means they're away from danger, then I'm okay with that."

Or it might be a legitimate reason. Either way, they were out of harms way, so that was one less thing to worry about. She wouldn't have to explain why she was sleeping over at someone's house after knowing them for barely two days.

Eventually, they reached, and Chris looked around the cabin, brushing her fingers against surfaces as though she could try and get a read on the place, or maybe pick up on something. All she got were small flashes of Hopper, with El, but in them, El's hair was shorter, so Chris assumed it was the past.

She turned to Steve when he spoke, saying Hopper likely wasn't there, and she was about to suggest that she just take a look inside, to be on the safe side -- cracking the lock would hardly be a problem -- but before she got the chance to speak, there was a sound. Someone was nearby.

Staying quiet, or as quiet as she could be, Chris slowly moved forward, getting off the porch of the cabin and looking around. "I don't see-" Chris cut off abruptly when the sound of leaves crunching came again, this time louder, which meant it was closer. Her head snapped toward the source of the sound and from around the corner of the cabin, she saw him.

Brenner.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike let out a relieved and quite audible sigh when El confirmed that she did want to be his girlfriend. It probably wasn't the time to be worrying about putting a label on things, when there were more worrisome things to discuss, but it was a little light to brighten up an otherwise frustrating day. So much was going on in a span of two days, and Mike knew it was somehow only going to get more complicated if Brenner finally approached them and found them.

"Um, well, I don't know," Mike admitted when she asked her question. "I think we've pretty much been doing most of it already, I guess," he said with a small laugh, using his free hand to rub the back of his neck sheepishly.

Before he could say anything else, his mom came back down with Eggos, El's favourite, When she asked what they were doing, Mike hesitated before chiming in after El spoke. "Yeah, we've called the guys too. And Max. Dustin thought it might be a good idea to introduce the girls to D&D," he explained, saying the first thing that came to mind, and it wouldn't be hard to believe either so he figured it was an okay excuse.

Mike soon watched his mom head back upstairs before he accepted an Eggo from El. She reminded him about contacting the others and his eyes widened. How had he forgotten about that? This was important, which meant there was only one way to get their attention.

Mike reached below the couch to grab his radio before he switched it to the signal he knew would reach the others. "To anyone listening, we've got a code red. I repeat, this is a code red situation." Whoever didn't respond, well, he would just have to try calling them up through the phone, and hope that they were home to pick it up.

"Meet up at my house. El is with me," he added on, so they knew where to go in case they were prevented from responding, for whatever reason.

 
Eleven​

It was a little strange how something as simple as putting a label to her relationship with Mike made her so happy, especially when there was so much going on, but it was definitely something to brighten up her day. When Mike confirmed they'd been doing all the right things already she was relieved, not wanting anything to change or somehow become less than it was. "Okay," she agreed. El put her free hand on the side of his face and pressed a brief kiss to his lips, quickly becoming more confident with the display of affection. It seemed like something a girlfriend would do if the movies were any indication. "We could...go on a date?" They'd never done that before, but it was another concept she was familiar with from the soaps and cheesy romance movies she watched when she was home by herself.

She nodded in confirmation of Mike's D&D lie, thinking it was very good and gave her visit a lot more legitimacy. Karen nodded, seeing nothing questionable about it. Mike's friends came over for D&D all the time, and even though they didn't play quite as often anymore it was nothing to be suspicious of. "Okay, well have fun," she said kindly, returning upstairs. El and Mike continued to look innocent until she disappeared, and then it was all hands on deck for the Code Red.

Their friends began to respond immediately.

"This is Dustin, I'm on my way, over," Dustin's voice came across the radio.

"I'm coming too, over," Lucas said a moment later. It took Mike's repeat to get a hold of Max, but then she replied too.

"Uh, yeah, I'll be there soon." The only one missing was Will, a detail that didn't go unnoticed by Eleven. Her mind began to grow suspicious, connecting potentially related dots. Was he okay? She grabbed Mike's walkie and held it up to her mouth.

"Will?" she asked. There was silence. She tried again. "Will, code red!" When he still didn't reply, El exchanged a meaningful glance with Mike. "What if it's the gate?" she whispered as if their friends could hear without the walkie on. What did Will have to do on a random Friday in the middle of the summer? There was no reason he shouldn't be replying. El began to panic. "I have to find him. And Hop." She jumped up and began scouring the basement for something she could use as a blindfold. Again.

Steve​

Steve nodded skeptically at Chris's explanation of her parents. They were leaving town for the weekend? That was too big of a coincidence, especially if they hadn't said anything before. "...Okay," he agreed. He almost suggested they bring everyone over to her house if it was going to be deserted, but then he remembered that Brenner already knew where she was. She couldn't go home, but at least now it wasn't like she needed to clear it to come stay with him if she wanted to. He cleared his throat. "Right. Well, my parents are never home, you can crash in my basement and no one will know," he suggested. "It's not as homey as the Wheeler's, but, you know, we can build a little blanket fort and you'll be right at home," he joked. Mike had mentioned the tent they had for El in his story yesterday and he figured she'd get it.

He watched Chris as she examined the cabin, it only then occurring to him that this was the perfect place for her to see Hopper, if they were lucky enough to get flashes of the present and not more creepy gate stuff. After all...the Mind Flayer had been here too. He'd been burned out of Will on just the other side of this door- it wasn't something that Steve had personally seen, but he had seen how sick Will was afterwards and how broken up Jonathan was. Nancy described it as the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen, and she'd seen a lot of scary things.

"Are you seeing him?" he asked. He'd have no problem with breaking down the door, only he knew that the police chief would have his head for that if he was there. Or even if he wasn't. But before Chris could tell him what she was seeing or feeling, they were disrupted by the snap. Then a crunch, then another. Steve's heart began to race and he dashed back to his car, opening it up and taking out the bat. He really just needed to start carrying this thing around.

It was only seconds later when they saw him. Steve had never seen Brenner with his own eyes but he knew without a shadow of a doubt that this man was him. He had perfectly styled white hair and a pristine suit, but there was something manic in his eyes. Other than that he seemed eerily calm as he approached the teenagers. He seemed far from intimidated by Steve's bat and, although he was probably more familiar with Chris's powers than Steve was he didn't look scared of her either.

"Hello, Six," he said, his voice unnervingly gentle. "It's been a long time." But there was a darkness to it that sent chills up Steve's spine, and he slowly began to move back towards Chris with the bat held high.

"Stay away from her, you son of a bitch," he spat, crossing in front of her. Brenner gave him an almost sympathetic smile.

"I'm not here for her. Where's Eleven?" He didn't sound confident in his plan, but Steve shrugged.

"Who's Eleven?" he asked, playing dumb. As Brenner drew closer Steve began to notice that he wasn't as polished as he looked from afar. His eyes were red and his gait was off, as if he was limping but only barely. Still, he held his ground. "There's no Eleven here. There's no one here," he emphasized. "Except us, and we're about to kick your ass. Well, she is," he corrected, nodding towards Chris.
 
(oh yeah i forgot to point this out earlier, lol but Chris's number is seven xD)

CHRISTINE 'CHRIS' ORTIZ

Just seeing Brenner made her blood run cold. There was a time where she truly believed she would never have to see him again, and yet here he was, causing all these painful memories to rise to the surface after she spent years of pushing them down instead of dealing with them or trying to recover from that trauma. And with all those painful memories, came anger.

She was vaguely aware of Steve rushing off to get his back, but she barely noticed. Her eyes were fixed on Brenner. Then he addressed her and she felt her hands curl into fists at her side.

Steve was back at her side now, moving to stand in front of her, which wasn't hard considering she was much smaller. Chris was busy noticing details about Brenner. He looked the same but he also looked drastically different. There was something off about him. He didn't look entirely... human. He was speaking differently too. But the moment he mentioned El, Chris's guard went up further, and red energy began to swirl around her palms.

"You shouldn't have come back," she told him, moving out from behind Steve so he wouldn't be hurt in the process. Chris held her hand out and in a mere second, the red seeped out of her fingers and rushed toward Brenner, enveloping him and lifting him off of the ground. He wouldn't be able to move his hands, and she forced the energy to curl tighter around him, hopefully enough to make him pass out or something, but when it didn't seem to be working, she used it to throw him into the door of Hopper's house.

It flew inside, along with Brenner, but a broken door was the last thing Chris was worrying about. There was silence after the crash that ensued, and Chris, not wanting to let him get away, soon rushed up the stairs after wiping blood from her nose, to go into the house, completely prepared to go another round.

But of course, she didn't know what she was up against.


MICHAEL 'MIKE' WHEELER

Mike was going to comment on the date, now that the lie with his mother had been taken care of, but he didn't get to, because one by one, everyone began to respond. Of course they did. They knew the urgency of this. They knew what a code red meant, which was no kidding around. Mike expected them to reach in minutes -- Lucas the quickest since he lived the closest and he suspected Max was with him, as she usually was.

It was a little unsettling that they hadn't heard from Will, and El felt the same way apparently because she took the radio to try and contact him. When they got no response, she began to panic, and even though Mike felt inclined to do the same, it would do them no good if they both started panicking. Besides, it was still soon to just jump to conclusions.

"Wait," he told her, trying to get her to calm down. He placed a hand on her shoulder to get her to look at him, before he continued. "We haven't even tried calling the house yet. His radio might just be off," he told her, trying to be a little optimistic. "And Chris and Steve are getting to Hopper. If there's a problem, they'll call us," he assured her with a small shrug, seeing no reason to worry even more than they already were.

"We'll try the house a couple of times and if that doesn't work, then you find Will," he compromised. "Okay?"

By this time, Lucas had arrived, along with Max in tow, and they bounded down the stairs.

"What's wrong? What's the emergency?" Lucas asked, looking between Mike and El.

"Does this have to do with El's sister?" Max posed another question, to which Mike ushered them both onto the couch.

"Let's wait for Dustin," Mike told them. "In the mean time, I'm going to try and call Will. It's better to wait till we're all here."

 
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