A/N I do not own Stranger Things or any of the characters. Please review!
Steve and the kids made it back to the Byers' house first. Which was a good thing too, it gave them time to clean up the mess Steve and Billy had made, and of course Steve got to deposit Billy's unconscious body at his front door. Then there was nothing for them to do but sit down and wait.
The tension was painful. The rush of adrenaline they felt when they succeeded in distracting the demodogs had long since worn off. They had no idea what happened to the others. El could have closed the gate while the Mind Flayer was still controlling Will. Will could be dead. Or maybe El wasn't able to close the gate. Or maybe she closed it but died after being thoroughly drained. Or they all could have been attacked by Demodogs. Nobody knew what was happening and not even Dustin had a sarcastic comment to add.
The door handle started to move. Everyone held their breaths to prepare themselves for the worst. Joyce, Jonathan and Nancy walked into the house, carrying Will's unconscious body. One of the boys let out a cry. Looking back, nobody knows who made that noise. It could have been any of them.
"He's ok! He's ok! He's just sleeping" Joyce announced in a breathy laugh. Everyone let out a huge sigh of relief. Mike ran to Nancy and hugged her. He didn't realise how worried he was about her until he saw her walk through the door in one piece. Joyce carried Will to his room and tucked him into bed.
"Are the others back yet?" Jonathan asked. Nobody answered. Nobody had to. The silence that had once again descended upon the room answered the question for him. Nancy whispered in Mike's ear, still holding him close, "She's strong, she'll be back, I promise" Mike felt somewhat reassured. Nancy wouldn't break a promise, or lie, not like he did. The only thing running through his brain was his broken promise to El that he made last year, promising her a normal life, the Snowball. He shouldn't have let her go, not the first time, and certainly not the second time. If anything happened to her tonight it was all his fault. It was his job to protect her and keep her safe but he couldn't even...
The door started to open slowly again. Hopper walked through carrying El, mirroring the last group of returners exactly.
No one said a thing.
Hopper looked so preoccupied with his own thoughts he didn't even seem to realise there was eight other people in the room. All he saw was El.
Mike broke the silence.
"Is she...?"
He couldn't bring himself the finish the sentence.
"She fine, she's fine, just drained. Everyone get off the couch so I can put her down" Hopper snapped.
He gently lay her down on the couch.
For the final time that night, silence descended upon the room. But it was a different type of silence. It wasn't charged with fear and anticipation and dread. It was full of relief and hope and disbelief that everyone managed to pull off their plan with no more casualties.
Dustin started laughing. Very loudly. Hopper turned to look at him to tell him to can it, when he realised the same thing Dustin had. He started to laugh too. One by one, everyone started laughing. These laughs ranged from whole-hearted belly laughs from Dustin to giggles from Nancy to a tired smile from Joyce.
"What's so funny?" Came a voice from around the corner. Will had woken up and entered the living room. He looked weak, and exhausted, but for the first time in almost a year, he looked peaceful.
"We did it." Smiled Mike, talking more so to himself than anybody else.
"Thanks to every single son of bitch in this house, we actually did it. We're all alive!" Dustin cried.
Hopper tried to reprimand him, tried to shut him up as El was sleeping, but he didn't have the heart. "Let the kids have their fun," he thought "they deserve it."