Chapter One

1958

The weather was nice and sunny. The Hawkins High School freshmen were enjoying the first day of summer by the quarry. They should have been, at least. They had just survived their first year of highschool, after all. Several freshman boys were pinned to the ground by local greaser gang members. Jim Hopper and Bob Newby were among them.

Joyce Preston watched in horror and anger as she stood with a group of girls that included Karen Bryce. "We have to do something!" said Joyce as her hands trembled and she rapidly tapped her foot on the ground."

Karen grabbed or arm. "No, Joyce! That'll only make it worse. They'll leave after they have their fun."

The greaser that was pinning down Joyce's best friend Jim started to slowly move a burning cigarette toward his eye. Joyce pulled herself from Karen's grasp and started running toward the group as fast as she could in saddle shoes. "STOP IT! LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

"Well, look at this, boys. A girl's trying to come to your rescue," said the greaser pinning down Bob. "I bet that makes you feel like a real man, Bob the Brain!" He began to rub Bob's head in the dirt.

"I bet all of you feel like real men picking on kids half your size," Joyce spat.

"We may stop if you ask nicely," said one of the greasers as he sauntered toward her.

"Leave them alone-please!" said Joyce.

"Leaving them alone would mean we're doing something for you. You want us to do something for you, you're going to have to do something for us."

"What do you want me to do for you?" asked Joyce irritably. The greaser stepped uncomfortably close to Joyce. She willed herself not to be intimidated.

"Oh I can think a thing or two," the greaser raised his eyebrows and tugged at the collar of Joyce's blouse. She froze.

"Are you stupid or something, Vince?" asked another greaser as he let go of the kid he was pinning down.

"Who are you calling stupid, Lonnie?" asked Vince.

"We're over 18, she ain't. You wanna go to prison?"

"We've got nothing to worry about. This is Joyce Preston. Everyone knows she ain't right in the head. Who's gonna believe her?"

"I don't know, Vince. Maybe everyone here! Let's have her do something else." Lonnie pulled out a cigarette, lit it and held it out to Joyce. "Finish this."

"Joyce, don't do it," yelled Bob. The greaser pinning him down punched him in the side. Joyce glanced around frantically at the other boys and her eyes landed on Jim. His capture was still holding the burning cigarette dangerously close to his face.

Joyce glared at Lonnie and snatched the cigarette from him. She took a puff and broke into a stream of coughs.

"Good start," said Lonnie with a smirk. "Keep going. Finish it."

"Finish it! Finish it! Finish it!" the greasers chanted. Joyce took one drag after another. It became gradually easier and calmed her.

"Done!" she said when only the butt remained.

"A deal's a deal. Let 'em go boys," said Lonnie. Joyce dropped the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with her foot as the freshmen boys gasped for breath when the greasers let them up and started walking away.

Lonnie stepped closer to Joyce, put his hand on her shoulder and placed his face within an inch of hers. "I just did you a favor, Babe. Remember that." He patted her cheek and walked away.

Joyce doubled over and started throwing up. "Joyce are you alright?" asked Bob. Joyce nodded.

"WE'RE GOING TO GET YOU FOR THIS SOMEDAY. WE'LL SHOW YOU!" Hopper shouted angrily.

"Hop, no! Let it go!" said Joyce as she grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

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Lonnie grabbed a beer out of the fridge when he got home. His father entered the kitchen.

"Didn't think you'd be home from work yet," said Lonnie as he opened the bottle and took a drink.

"I heard some disturbing rumors," said Edmund Byers as he adjusted his glasses. "Apparently some guys your age were bullying some of the freshmen by the quarry."

"Relax, old man, I took care of it."

"Lonnie, picking on kids, your mother and I raised you better than that."

"You sure as hell didn't raise me to be a man," said Lonnie. "I had to figure that out on my own,"

"Lonnie, please, let's talk."

"There's nothing to talk about," said Lonnie.

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1971

"So, Joyce won't be hurt by this?" asked Lonnie.

"She'll be fine," said Dr. Brenner. "She won't even remember. And if she does, just convince her she's delusional.

"So she's having twins and the kids have abilities? How can you be sure?"

"Mr. Byers, I've been working on the MKUltra program for almost 20 years. I know what I saw in your wife's test results. Your son Jonathan doesn't have any abilities, but if he has any children: they might have abilities."

"And you want to take both of the babies?"

"If all goes as planned, yes. If not, we'll only that the first one that comes out and wait several years to take the other one. Your wife doesn't know she's having twins. Leaving one of them with her will create a plausible cover. Terry Ives had already been a lot of trouble. She refuses to believe her daughter is dead. Maternal instincts are quite inconvenient."

"Okay, we have a deal," said Lonnie. He shook Brenner's hand and left the room.

"Do you still want to go ahead with the plans for his father?" asked Agent One.

"We need Joyce Byers to feel as isolated as possible," said Dr. Brenner. "Edmund Byers did a lot of great work during World War II. He's a brilliant engineer. And worse for us, he's a brilliant man who opposes the kind of work we do.. If one or two of his grandchildren goes missing, he's likely to figure things out, and we can't have that."

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"Edmund!" said Joyce as she opened the door.

"Hey there Joycy," said Edmund as he kissed his daughter-in-law on the cheek. "Where's my grandson, I brought him a present." Edmund held up a stuffed Thumper.

"Oh, he'll love that. He likes to 'read' Thumper to the baby all the time," Joyce patted her swelling belly.

"He'll be a great big brother then," said Edmund as he followed Joyce into the living room.

"Grandpa!" said Jonathan. He ran to his grandfather and hugged his leg.

"Hey there, Johnny! I got you something." Edmund held out the stuffed Thumper and Jonathan clapped his hands in delight.

"Thumper! Thumper! Thumper!" Jonathan took the stuffed rabbit and hugged it.

"He really likes pictures, doesn't he?" asked Edmund as he pointed to the photos.

"He loves them," said Joyce. "He has this really adorable hyper focused look on his face when he's going through them."

"Maybe he'll be a world famous photographer someday," said Edmund.

"Not if I can help it," said Lonnie as he entered the room. "I'm going to teach my son how to be a real man."

"Lonnie!" said Joyce.

"You have no idea what it was like growing up with him as a father, Babe," said Lonnie. "I won't put my kids through that.

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"Is grandpa sleeping?" asked Jonathan as he said next to Joyce in the pew while Lonnie shook hands with people. He really played the part of the grieving son well. Her husband was a charmer when he wanted to be one.

He had worked really hard on charming her once Hopper had left for the police academy in Indianapolis, then joined the army. He had reminded her that he had done her a huge favor when she was 15 and talked her into returning that favor in the back of his car. There was some appeal in returning that favor because Joyce knew her father wouldn't approve. It was something that didn't seem to be a big deal to her in her early twenties, but would feel very creepy when she reflected on it later in life.

Joyce resented her own father because he cheated on her mother. Edmund Byers had always been a very kind man. It took Joyce a long time to understand why her husband resented his own father so much.

She looked at the funeral program while she kept one arm around Jonathan. "Edmund William Byers." Lonnie would never approve of the baby being named after his father, but she might be able to get away with a middle name.

"What do you think, baby? 'William' if you're a boy and Elinor after my mother if you're a girl…. Oh that's a lot of kicking. Jonathan, feel the baby kicking." Jonathan put his hand on his mother's stomach and his face lit up in delight.

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1985

"Doctor Owens wants us to destroy the tapes from November 6, 1983 and November 3, 1984."

"He's trying to protect the Byers twins.

"They are just kids that got used by Brenner and his creations."

"Those kids and the other test subjects are ticking time bombs and all those Hawkins Lab personnel that got killed were people. What about them? I'm saving copies of the tapes."

1996

Will Byers sat at his work desk with a pile of sketches for his next video game he was designing with his best friend and business partner Mike Wheeler sitting next to him while he was in an AOL chat with his other two best friends Dustin Henderson and Lucas Sinclair. They were trying to figure out where to meet to see Independence Day when it came out. Seeing a movie together was much more complicated than when they were kids because Mike and Will lived near Chicago, Dustin lived in Florida and Lucas lived in Houston.

Mike was out with Will's Twin sister, who was known to the world as Jane Hopper, but to everyone in on the secret of her true Identity, she was Elinor or "El." She told plenty of people not in on the secret, that Elinor was her middle name and they could call her Ellie.

Will, Lucas, and Dustin had decided to meet in New York to see the movie when Mike and Eleven came stumbling in from the pouring early spring lane and appeared to be drunk.

"Gotta go, New York sounds great, I'll talk to you later, guys," Will typed in the chat before signing off.

"What have you two been doing? You're soaked!" said Will as he walked toward Mike and Eleven.

"We decided to try Long Island Ice Teas," Eleven hiccuped. "Then we went for a walk!"

"Yeah, we went for a walk," Mike slurred. "It's really nice out today!"

Will glanced at the torrential downpour outside of the window and shook his head. "Well, continue your walk into a hot shower before you catch a nasty cold."

Before he knew it, Will was at the center of a tight embrace with two people who were soaking wet.

"You're such a good friend, Will," said Mike. "Always looking out for us!"

"Yeah, we love you, Will," said Eleven.

Will awkwardly reached up and patted his friends on their backs. "Um, I love you both too, now get into the shower…. Uh please?"

"Ok, we'll get into the shower," said Mike. He picked up Eleven at her waist and threw her over his shoulder as she giggled.

"Don't hit your heads, you won't like having stitches!" Will called. He held out his arms and looked down at his own clothes that had gotten soaked from the hug with his sister and his best friend. So much for wearing the clothes that April from work had recommended for the blind date she set him up on. He groaned and went to his own room to change before getting back to work on his sketches.

Mike and Eleven ended up catching nasty colds despite Will's best efforts. They'd been out drunk in the chilly rain too long and Will ended up spending the next week taking care of them. He ended up catching the cold just at they were getting better even though he'd taken extra vitamin C. Mike and Eleven gladly returned the favor of taking care of Will.

On a particularly nasty cold day when Will was hopped up on the prescription cough syrup, Joyce called.

"Hello?" Mike answered.

"Hey, Mike, it's Joyce. Are my children there? I really need to talk to both of them."

"El's right here," said Mike. "Will might be asleep. He took his cough syrup about twenty minutes ago."

There was a pause from Joyce. Mike heard her let out a slow breath. "Can you wake him up?" Normally I wouldn't ask, but it's really important."

"Okay, I'll see what I can do," said Mike. Eleven was eating eggos at the kitchen counter. Mike took to chordless over to her and held it out for her. "It's your mom and she wants to talk to Will too."

"Mom, what is it?" asked Eleven as she took the phone.

"There's something important your father and I need to tell you, but I want your brother on the phone too."

"Mom, you're scaring me," said Eleven.

"I know, and I'm sorry," said Joyce. "I just need to talk to both you and your brother." Eleven thought her mother might be crying.

Mike found Will in his room with his head on his desk instead of his pillow. Of course he was still going to try to get work done when he was sick. Mike smiled fondly and shook his head. He walked over to Will and lightly shook his shoulder. "Hey, Will the Wise, your Mom's on the phone. She said she wants to talk to you and El about something important."

Will groaned. "Your Mom's on the phone," he muttered. Mike decided that Will was too far out of it to have a coherent conversation with his mother.

"Okay, c'mon, buddy. Into bed!" said Mike as he reached under Will's armpits to lift him up out of the chair.

"Take a shower, Mike," Will muttered as Mike dragged him across the floor. "You're gonna catch a nasty cold."

Mike pulled off Will's sneakers and tossed them on the floor before covering Will with his blankets.

"I'll take a shower and you can get some rest," said Mike as he closed the door. Eleven was rapidly tapping on the counter as Mike came back out to the kitchen. He shook his head.

"Mom, Will's knocked out from the cough syrup." Mike watched as Eleven quietly listened to whatever Joyce was telling her before she finally responded "B-both of you?" Eleven started to cry and Mike felt a sense of foreboding. "Okay, I'll have Will call you when he wakes up."

Eleven pushed the button the end the call and cradled the phone. "El, what is it?" asked Mike. Eleven looked at him for a moment then walked into his arms and buried her face in his chest as she started sobbing.

"My parents have cancer."

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AN: Just in case it isn't obvious, Eleven is referring to Joyce and Hopper as her parents at the end, not Joyce and Lonnie.

This fic is loosely inspired by a hotly debated topic from a particular scene in my favorite MCU movie. Readers may or may not figure it out from reading this and future chapters, but I'll say which one it is and which side of the debate I personally fall on when the scene that directly references that scene comes up. Feel free to guess or discuss.