A/N: Welcome to my second fanfic! If you haven't yet, please read the first one I wrote (titled The Unknown) as there are some things introduced in that one that are pretty important in this one. That first one really just is supposed to be an introduction to this story, which is the story I actually wanted to write from the beginning.
I don't own Stranger Things or any of the characters from the show. I don't know why I have to say that, but everyone here does so… why not.
After a couple of days in the hospital, the doctors said that Eleven had a clean bill of health and that she could go home. Some people at The Coalition went through all the paperwork to make her an official person and a citizen of the United States, as well as officially registering her as the adopted child of Joyce Byers. After everything that Eleven had done for Joyce's family while Will was missing, she liked to see her face around the house. Once she was adopted, her name was changed to "Elle" instead of "Eleven", but everyone that knew her still called her Eleven (or at least El). Eleven asked Joyce why her name had to be changed, and Joyce found it kind of hard to explain that "Elle" is a "real name". Eleven wondered what made her name not real, but she just chose to accept that it was something that would help start her "normal life" that the man in the hospital with her had talked about. Peter Carter was not much of a topic of discussion around the group that knew of Eleven's true origin, but they did recognize him as some sort of hero. He had no previous connection to them, but he still risked his life to help them get their friend back.
Unfortunately, Eleven's "normal life" had to start out being not so normal. She needed to get caught up with the boys if she wanted to attend school with them, that meant she had to spend the remainder of the school year at home, learning everything she needed to know for school. She had been to school once with the boys when Will was missing, it seemed like a happy place, with more children her age than she ever knew existed, so she was always confused when the boys came home complaining about it. She was taught by whoever was free, often that was Joyce, but she had to work on some days. When that happened, Chief Hopper would come a lot of the time to help her. She liked it when the Chief was around, he was always warm and comforting to her. A couple of other people like Mike's mom would come around every once in a while, but nobody as often as Joyce and the Chief. Sometimes, nobody was available and Eleven would just have to stay at home alone. She didn't mind. She used that time to watch TV, or try to read some of the books her friends got for her. At first, she was scared to be without anyone, it reminded her of when the people in the bad place would lock her up alone, but she realized that she wasn't locked up. She could go outside, eat when she wanted, she was free. Her favorite part of the day by far though was when school ended and she could leave the house and see her friends. Chief Hopper bought her a new bike in late March after all the snow had melted. He also got her a helmet, when he showed it to her, she asked him why she needed it, none of her friends wore these special hats when riding their bikes. But, after beginning to learn how to ride her bike, she realized why she needed it. It took her a while to get the hang of it, but she persisted because she knew that this was the best way she could go and see her friends. After a couple of weeks, she was riding around town pretty confidently, but she still wore the helmet, it made her feel safe.
After her tutoring during the day, Eleven spent most of her time at Mike's house. They would watch movies, sometimes just talk, and a lot of time she would sit off to the side while the others played Dungeons and Dragons. She didn't know exactly how to play, but she still enjoyed watching them. She liked all the emotions she saw on their faces while they played. The people in the lab never really showed emotions as much as fer friends did while playing, her favorite was when they were happy, when something went their way. She never understood why they were so happy, but it made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they were.
When the summer started, her lessons slowed, but never really came to a stop. Eleven was learning at a really fast rate and if she kept up some of her tutoring during the summer, Joyce thought she would be ready to attend school with the boys in the fall. This prospect made Eleven really excited. She could spend even more time with her friends, she wouldn't have to wait until they got home to do things with them. For this reason, where almost anyone else would get angry at the prospect of having to do school in the summer, Eleven was excited and devoted a lot of her energy to it. Even though she was so excited, she didn't learn as much in her tutoring sessions during the summer as in she school year because there were many more opportunities to do things with her friends since they had almost entirely free time. In mid July, Joyce and Eleven went to the school office and they registered her as a student for the next school year. Nobody in the town had ever seen her before, but the secretary in charge of the paperwork didn't ask too many questions and just signed up 'Elle Byers' as a student of Hawkins Middle School.
About two weeks before classes started, everyone got their schedules in the mail. Eleven and the others met up almost immediately at Mike's house to compare class placements. Eleven learned that she had every class with at least one of the few people she knew except for her history class right after lunch. Each one of them had a couple of classes in common, but they one they were all most excited about was chemistry with Mr. Kaminsky right before lunch. Mr. Kaminsky was the only teacher in Hawkins that taught at both the middle and high schools, Nancy had him the year before for her high school chemistry class. She told them that he wasn't anything particularly special, but she didn't have any horror stories about him ('horror stories' in this case meaning something completely different from what Eleven thought at first).
There was not too much that needed to get done before the school year started. They all went school supply shopping together and Nancy took Eleven out to get some nice new clothes for her first day. As far as Eleven could tell, this was the start of her normal life. Something she didn't really know existed a couple of months ago. She thought this was the beginning of the life that all of her friends had had for their whole lives, but little did they all know that it was the start of something completely different.
A/N: I have no idea how often chapters will be posted to this story, probably just whenever they are ready. I will try to make sure there isn't more than a week gap between them, but with the holidays coming up, you can never be too sure. This story will be much longer than the previous one, with longer chapters. I don't know exactly how long it will be though (probably exactly as long as I am interested in writing it). I am writing mainly to improve my creative writing skills, so please review.